LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9307, 16 September 1893, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

More than 700 " Lives of Columbus" have been written in various languages. The Houyhnhnm is in future to be pub. lished quarterly as the organ of the " Swift Society," originated by the Hon. Stuart Erskine. Messrs. Longmans and Co. have in preparation the Kev. Dr. W. Sandfly's Bampton Lectures on "The Early History and Origin of the Doctrine of Biblical Inspiration." " Robert Carroll" is the title of the new two-volume novel by M. E. LeClerc, author of that charming story the " Mistress Beatrice Cope," which brought its writer fame some four years ago. Mr. H. O. Forbes, late curator of the Canterbury Museum, has published (in the supplementary paper of the Royal Geographical Society) a very interesting essay on the Chatham Islands and their relation to a former Southern Continent. The paper has been extensively quoted and favourably commented on. The Literary World says:—" What is the smallest edition of a book that has ever appeared ? We know of a book by Ruskin of which only ten copies were printed. Does not this beat even the limited editions of the present-day poets? In America they go in for verv small clubs. We have just heard of one that holds weekly meetings in New York, except in the summer, and the members of which number exactly five !" Among the numerous poems that the recent naval disaster evoked, perhaps the most favourably received was the following i brief one from the pen of Douglas Sladen :— I England expects that every man Who wears the glory of her name. Shall do the little that he van To hold from Fate her hoard of fame. He perished—so the world may know That peril pales not English pride, Nor loss can lay our England low. While die her sons as Tryon died. "Greece in the Ago of Pericles," by A. J. Grant, will be the next volume of Murray's University Extension Series. Other manuals in progress are: "Comparative Religion," by Professor Alan Menzies ; " The English Novel," by Professor Raleigh; "Problems of Political Economy," by M. E. Sadler ; " Psychology," by Professor Andrew Seth ; "The Jacobean Poets," by Edmund Gosse ; "An Introduction to Physical Science," by Professor John Cox; "The English Poets from Blake to Tennyson," by Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, and others. Mr. Grant Allen, writing in Sala"s Journal, says :—One man after another has risen to fame with a rush since Haggard first introduced the South African tactics. There was Hugh Conway with ".Called Back," and Anstey with " Vice Versa," Fergus Hume with " The Mystery of a Hansom Cab," and Jerome K. Jerome with the " Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow." After that, a mighty wind arose from the southeast ; and, lo! before we knew where we were, Rudyard Kipling, a real of the 'first rank, was upon us ! Then, very soon, we had Quiller-Couch, whose strange and mystic touch has a tinge of true Cornish weirdness and melancholy ; we had Conan Doyle, to amuse and puzzle us with the inimitable Sherlock Holmes; and last, and newest of all, we have Maclaren Cobban, with his lurid romance of " The Red Sultan." Barrie, again; look at Barrie! What dainty craftnianship ! What delicate humour*! As for Stevenson, the Stevenson, our marvellous Stevenson, prince of English stylists, his fame, indeed, began a little earlier ; but none the less he became known to the great outer world somewhat after Rider Haggard, and as a consequence of the fresh habit of booming the new-comer. These are a goodly roll in themselves, but they are by no means all. I have not spoken yet of the poets ; of William Watson, who has poured forth lines as great and sonorous as any in the language ; of Richard Le Gallienne, whose true English note will yet be heard through the English-speaking world ; of Norman Gale, of William Sharp, of a dozen other genuine and rising singers. Nor have I touched on the New Humour— on Barry Pain, Zangwill, and the brilliant group of young men who circle round "The Idler." Once more, just realise the richness of a generation in which one may overlook at a first glance such writers and artists as George Moore, Gilbert Parker, Olive Schreiner, Walter Raymond. 'Tis a plethora of genius. As good fish in the sea as ever came out of it, indeed ! Why, the j shoals just swam with unheard-of prodigies.