LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVII, Issue 8300, 5 July 1890, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

Mb. Bernard Qoaritcii baa in.preparation a reproduction in facsimile of William Blake's unpublished designs in illustration of Milton's "Comas." Tho eight original coloured drawings, executed by Blake for his patron—Mr. Butts—early in the contury, are in possession of Mr. Quarit.ch,and are priced at £N)00. It is reported that Mr. Stanley's forthcoming book has for preface an open lobter addressed to " Dear Sir William" (Mackinnon), in which Stanley repeats his determination to testify to tho hand of God before the eyes of men. He speaks, it is said, in somewhat contemptuous terms of Euiin Pasha's vacillation. The Rev. M. C. F. Morris, Vicar of Newton on-Ouso, York, is gathering together, with a view to publication, the old words, phrases, sayings, modes* of expression, and grammatical usages of the North and East Ridings of Yorkshire, as well as stories illustrative of the independence and originality of tho Yorkshire character. Messrs. Chapman and Hall have in the press a work on the North-western Frontier of India, dealing more especially with tho Biloch and Pa than border tribes from Karachi to Kashmir. The work is by Mr. E. E. Oliver, under secretary to the Public Works Department, Punjaub, ami it wdl be copiously illustrated by Mr. J. .'j. Kipling, principal of the Mayo School of Art, Lahore. The same publishers will shortly i«>ue "Old Sea Wings, Ways, and Words," by Robert C. Leslie, wth numerous illustrations. A good-sized packet of letters written by Napoleon the Great will probably be offered for sale at Sotheby's at no distant date. The letters are particularly interesting, because they are all holographs. It is a very rare occurrence to find a letter of Napoleon entirely written in his own hand. His practice from a comparatively early date was to dictate all his correspondence to his secretaries. He would then sign the fair copy with an an undecipherable hieroglyphic. A portion of the library of the celebrated scholar who instituted tho Gaisford prize for (ireek verse at Oxford will also be sold at the same time. The Marchioness of Carmarthen, whose recent novel, entitled "A Lover of tho Beautiful," has created such a favourable impression, is—if the old rule respecting Indies' ages may he broken for once—27 years old. The repartee of a brilliant Frenchman as to the age of a lady is most appropriate to the talented Marchioness— "She is only as old as she looks." Sister of the present Earl of Durham and daughter of tho second earl enjoying that title, she was married in 1884 to the clover member for Brixton. Lady Carmarthen has a decided taste for literature, and her pretty story of artistic life contains many extremely poetic descriptions of life in Italy. Mr. W. L. Courtney, who has recently joined the start' of the Daily Telegraph, and has succeeded Mr. E. A. Arnold as editor of Murray's Magazine, is the second Oxford don who has of late years deserted academic life for journalism. Mr. Andrew Lang was dear to the Oxford undergraduate as a translator of the Odyssey before he became known as a leader writer, balladmaker, editor and novelist. Mr. Courtney has for some time been dabbling in literature other than the academic type, and the final plunge surprised nobody. He is missed at Oxford, for he was a genial don, whose sympathies with the ward undergraduate mind were still strong. Moreover, did lie not make one of the "ancient mariners" on the river? Mr. Courtney is strong in philosophy, and of that the Daily Telegraph seems often to need a good deid. A curious literary secret has oozed out recently. It has to do with the authorship of the extraordinarily daring novel called " The Rebel Rose," which was published annonymously some two years ago, and in which' Mr. Gladstone, Lord Harrington, and other political leaders were introduced as prominent actors under thin pseudonyms. All sorts of persons were suspected of perpetrating this clever, almost too clever book. The real sinners it seems were the fair Australian, Mrs. Campbell Praed, and Mr. Justin M Carthy. They avow the fact in a new two-shilling addition, which will not, however, be identified by many, as the title has been changed (and scarcely happily changed) to " A Rival Princess." All who did not read "The Rebel Rose" should procure " A Rival Princess." Faulty or not, it is a capital story.