LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10629, 18 December 1897, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

The Roxburghe Press has jusb been incorporated as a limited company, with Mr. Chas. F. Rideal as governing director.

"Tang," a new Shetland romance, by Mr. J. J. Haldane Burgess, author of " The Viking Path," etc., will shortly appear in volume form.

" Falklands" is the name of a new book by the author of " The Life of Sir Kenelm Digby," which Messrs. Macmillan and Co, are publishing.

Mrs. Stevenson, the widow of Robert Louis Stevenson, has gone to San Francisco, with a view of taking up her residence permanently in the United States.

"Spanish John," Mr. W. McLennan's romance, which has been appearing in Harper's Magazine, is about to be published by Messrs. Harper and Brothers.

Mr. Henry James, whose recent novel " What Maisie Knew," has had considerable success, is giving up his connection (as a correspondent) with Harper's Weekly,

Messrs. William Blackwood will publish at an early date Mr. Andrew Lang's work on "The Highlands in 1749." Mr. Lang has been engaged for some time on the King's Collection Manuscripts collecting material.

The following are some of the works to be published during the autumn by Messrs. Archibald Constable and Co." The Laughter of Peterkin," a Re telling of Old Stories of tho Celtic Wonder-world, by Fiona MacLeod.

Messrs. Longman have in the press a work by Mr. H. Vivian on " Servia, tho Poor Man's Paradise." Ib is written in an enthusiastic strain, the author's visits having made him a great admirer of the people and country.

The Messrs. Cassell have selected an opportune time for a re-issue of their standard historical work, "The History of India." The parts are greatly enlarged, each being almost a volume in itself. Numerous illustrations, both in line and process work, accompany the text. Professor Robert K. Douglas has cooperated with L, T. Meade in writing a series of stories dealing with social life in China as it relates both to natives and English residents. The volume is entitled " Under the Dragon Throne," and will be issued by Messrs. Gardner, Darton, and Co. A new edition— the fifth— of Professor Saintsbury's "Shorb History of French Literature," is nearly ready for publication ab the Clarendon Press. The book has been thoroughly revised bhroughoub, and the section on the nineteenth century has been oraotically re-written and very much enlarged. "The explanation of Mr. Hall Caine's pessimism," according to Mr. O'Doll, the phrenologist, " is apparent in the Bhape of Mr. Hall Caine's head. The regions of imagination, of artistic taste, of moral feeling are all larger than that of reason. Mr. Caine has moral centrality. He has nob intellectual centrality. He is by nature an idealißt rather than a philosopher." Dr. Horton preached a sermon on "The Christian" recently, in which he declined to acknowledge the Rev. John Storm as a type of the true Christian. The Christian to-day, said Dr. Horton, was a man who studied to lead a quiet life in all godliness and gravity; bub he did not rave and cry out, wearing a fantastic garb, and prophesying i the end of the world., It wag impossible, added the preacher, to go about the world 'Without finding true Christians' pursuing their : daily, tasks ; and ': by thenlives ; leading others onward; and how a man could have written a book called "The Christian'* without taking \ these people into account he could not imagine. ;>,-■: