LITERATURE AND ART.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10972, 28 January 1899, Page 4 (Supplement)

LITERATURE AND ART.

Mr. Wilson Uabhktt is writing a novel founded on his play, " The Daughters of Babylon," in collaboration with Mr. Robert Kitchens, the author of "Flumes." It will be published by Mr. John Maiuu'.en next February.

A research into the most ancient goldproducing country of history, entitled "King Solomon's Opltir," from lie pen of the distinguished traveller. Dr. C'.nl Peters, is shortly to be published by the Leadenhall Press.

Mrs. King-Lewis' biographical sketch of her father, the late Dr. Stoughiou, which has long been promised, is now ready. It will be issued by Messrs. Modder and Stoughton shortly," under the title of "A Short Record of a Long Life."

The interest which the subject of immortality posscrses for the human mind may be inferred from the » 'hat a modern "Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life" contains a bibliography of more than 5000 titles of books bearing on this topic.

At the sale of the late Rev. William Make!lar's library at Sotheby's, a copy of the Kilmarnock edition of Hums' poems, with slight defects, realised £77 (a similar copy was sold it few years ago in die same rooms for £121); a copy of l!u first Edinburgh edition, £2 10s; and the (.Tiitssrow issue (1802) of the Clarendon Letters, £1 12s.

An edition, in twenty-four fortnightly parts, of the Hnlv Gospels, profusely illustrated with reproductions of pictures by ;lie old masters of the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, is announced by the Christian Knowledge Society. Notes dealing with the pictures from the artistic standpoint will be contributed bv M. Kugene Muntz, Member of tho French Institute.

A reply to the Archbishop's recent cliarwe, bv tin' 'Rev. W. H. K. Knames, of St. George's, Chelsea, entitled "What does the Church of England say on the Subject of the Real Presence and Adoration?" is to he published immediately l> Mr. Elliot Stock. The same firm will also issue a reply to ihe Bishop of Salisbury, by the Rev. P. V. M. Filleul, entitled "Criticisms on the Bishop of Salisbuy's Pastoral."

The Quarterly Review, in an article on " Religious Novels," has the following rather severe word to say about Miss Marie Crrelli and Mr. Hal) Caine:-"One takes [■(•mil parts of pseudo-science, neo-Platonism, and Mieosophy; stamps the whole as revealed from heaven; and lecommends us to gel it down with a deal of sentiment. Another, more British, lays hold of certain traditional stage virtues, wraps them in emotion, adds thereto a. suspicious but exciting ingredient of pseudo-monasticism, and screams to us thr.t unless we take it our life is in danger. Rim whither we may, with Miss Corelli and Mr. Came foi guides, we shall plunge into hysteria or be overthrown by claptrap."

A reviewer, in 'i recent number of LiteraI lure, writes:" The resurrection of tlv | Hungarian literature is one of the mos ' curious and interesting phenomena o j modern times. At the end of last century a writer in Magyar was almost synonymous j with a loafer and vagabond, and one eoulc i not insult a Hungarian lady more griev I ously (Mxtirus Jnkai himself is our audioj rity) than by addressing her in her own ! language instead of in French 01 German. ! And now at the end of the present century, i Magyar is the dominant language of the j dominant half of the Austro-Hungarian j monarchy, and an Hungarian publisher can ; afford to issue a colossal edition dc luxe of ! the hundred masterpieces of Maurus Joltai i! too costly for the library of the British ,! Museum to purchase in its entirety, which, • i nevertheless, was subscribed for in Hun- , ! gary itself with alacrity and enthusiasm. , Nay, more, Magyar is the one non-Ayran language which has steadily won ground .in ; every direction at the expense of its Ayran ; neighbours, and such is the inherent olas- [ ticity and adaptability of this eccentric but ; beautiful tongue that it can even supply i all artistic and scientific terms out of the f tuasnre-house of its own vocabulary— haps tha surest criterion of the vitality and durability of a language'"