LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVI, Issue 9325, 30 March 1889, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

Mr. Orciiardson is engaged upon his own portrait to be hung among tho, famous colledtion of painters 5 autograph*, portraits in the Uflizzi Gallery in Florence, * Portraits of Sir Frederick Leighton, Sir John Millais, and Mr. Watts, painted by themselves, arc ■already l in tho collection. " * , * *■ f Philip' Calderon, R.A., is going to paint a large. picture of tho-Parnell -Commission, and for that purpose he spends a great part of the day in courb making sketches, to be later on reproduced on his canvas.. He is a dark man . with ( strong-marked Spanish features, such "?«& elasqu& excelled y painting. • .

~ ■" CJ I*' « '' I< hear that tho publication of M. Paul tl« Hhaillu's "opus magnum," "Tho VikingAge,"has been postponed till April next. Mr. Murray, has found it a very difficult book to get through the press, and there has been a great deal of trouble* about the illustrations. The work will ' bo published simultaneously in London and Boston, and arrangements have been made t for German and French translations. '

Tennyson " is justly famed for .his lightness ,of local colony," Says Rev."*Georgo Lester in a paper entitled "Tennyson and the' Lincolnshire Coast," contributed to the .Methodist Recorder of January 3. In support"of this ho enumerates many references in the Laureate's work , to the scenery 'of his boyhood's home, and to , tho Lincolnshire* literal whoro he loved. to ,"dwell. Mr. Lester also gives reminders of Tennyson's fondness of tho sea." That pioneer literary society of Scotland, the Oban Scientific and Literary Association, has just celebrated its jubilee. It was founded in 18.') Iby the late Rev. J. Macßae, who used to have among his hearers in tho United Presbyterian Church at Oban Archbishop Wlmtely, Lord Beaconsiield, and Mr. iJjphn Bright. It is the boast of this association that it is " open to every man who can speak and act respectably," and that only theological topics are excluded from its discussions.

It has often been alleged of the Burns Clubs ,of Scotland that their proceedings are chiefly of a bacchanalian character. The committee of the club at Ayr, however, are formulating a scheme for the establishment of severalscholarshipsin connection with elementary schools, the cost pf which is to bo defrayed Trom-tho subscriptions'of the members. By following the lead of Ayr, other "Burns Clubs will do m'ore to per petti a teethe memory of «the poet and justify their existence than by merely meeting at dinner once a year. * Mr. A. Patchett Martin, the late editor of the Melbourne Review, is at present engaged on a work on, the unity of tho kingdom and of"*the empire. It; will bo published by Mr. Douglas, of Edinburgh," under the title of Australia and the Empire," and contains chapters on "Lord Sherbrooke in Sydney," "Sir Henry Parkes in England," "Lord Beaconsiield and 'Young Australia,'" "Australian Democracy," "Australia and Irish Home Rule," "The Irish in Australia," "The State and "Native Australian and Imperial Federation.",, Among the multitudinous functions dischargad by Mr. Gladstone is that of author's advertiser. " "What do you consider the best advertisement'a.book I asked a other day. "A review by Mr. . Gladsto'ne,! was the unhesitating answer. If .this be so, the most successful of new "novels, will be Miss Margaret Lee's " Faithful and Unfaithful," which, it. is said, has attracted Mr. Gladstone's attention ancl will be reviewed by. him in one of the magazines. Miss* Lee," who is an American writer, .has-..launched her book at the psychological, momentfor it is concerned | with the question* of divorce, and so just now is Mr. Gladstone.

Mr.' John " Mackintosh, author, of the History of Civilisation in -Scotland," who will write the volume'*" Scotland " in the "Story of the Nations", Series, is in many respects a remarkable man. lie was sent to work on a farm in his native county "of Banff at ten years of ago, and was subse-, quently . apprenticed' to t shoemaking, = at which trade he "worked in various" parts of; Scotland for fourteen* years! In ' lSlil) lie opened a small stationery shop in' Aberdeen,: " and there, on the .shop counter,"'he once wrote, " amid'all the noise and bustle;, of a stirring thoroughfare', the)- three volumes of my history, weroJ v .writtenf and the proofsheets corrected and revised, all being done while customers were coming in and out and constantly interrupting me."