BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12213, 7 March 1903, Page 5 (Supplement)

BOOKS AND PUBLICATIONS

Heather and Fern" ; By John Liddell Kelly. New Zealand Times Company, Ltd., Wellington.— These songs of Scotland and Maorilaud are prefaced by a photo.-print of the author, shown in the act of composing them at his busy desk. Which introducing picture is more metaphoric than a casual glance would indicate, for the contents of the volume, we are told, with the exception of about a score of pieces now published for the first time; are selected from a mass of verses which have hitherto led a " vagabond existence,'" of, in some cases, thirty years' duration, in newspapers and magazines, or in " brochures" of limited circulation among private friends. Theii publication in collected form should prove an introduction to a larger and more influential life. Appended to each poem is the date at which it was writen. This will also prove useful to those who may wish to study the collection as a "human document'' and to trace the evolutionary stages of the writer's mental, sentimental, literary, religious, and philosophic experiences. The author remarks that these verses have been written in the brief intervals of a busy journalistic life, partly as a recreation, but chiefly because he was persuaded he had a message to deliver and desired to express himself in a form at once forcible and attractive. They form, as a whole, 110 mean contribution to our colonial poetry.

The Slaves of the Padishah : By Maurus Jokai. Jarrold "and Sons, Warwick Lane, London, E.C.—The translator, Mr. R. Nisbet Bain, tells us that this weird story, strange in method as -in matter, is now Englished for. the first time from the sixth Hungarian edition. It deals with the Turks in Hungary, and is a sequel to "'Midst the Wild Carpathians." The two tales, though quite distinct, form together one great historical romance, which centres round the weakly, good-natured Michael Apati, the last independent Prince of Transylvania, his masterful and virtuous consort, Anna Bornemissza, and his machiavellian Minister, Michael Teleki, a sort of pocket-Richelieu, whose genius might have made a great and strong State greater and stronger still, but could not save a little State, already doomed to destruction as much from its geographical position as from its inherent weakness. The whole history of Transylvania, indeed, reads like an old romance of chivalry, cut across by odd episodes out of The Thousand and One Nights," and the last phase of that history (1674-1690), so vividly depicted in the present volume, is fuller of life, colour, variety, and adventure than any other period of European history. The little mountain principality, lying between two vast aggressive Empires, the Ottoman and the German, ever striving with' each other for the mastery of central Europe, was throughout this period the football of both. Viewed from a comfortable, armchair at a distance of two centures, the whole era is curiously fascinating ; to unfortunate contemporaries it must have been unspeakably terrible. Strange happenings were bound to be the rule, not the exception, when a Turkish Pasha ruled the best part of Hungary from the bastions of Buda. Thus it was quite in the regular order of things for Hungarian gentlemen to join with notorious robber-chieftains to attack Turkish fortresses; for bandits, in the disguise of monks, to plunder lonely monasteries ; for simple boors to be snatched from the plough to be set upon a throne; for Christian girls, from every country under heaven, to be sold by auction not fifty miles from Vienna, and for Turkish filibusters to plant fortified harems in the midst of the Carpathians. Jokai, luckier than 'Dumas, , has no need to invent his episodes, though he frequently presents them in a romantic environment. He found his facts duly recorded in contemporary chronicles, and he.had no temptation to be unfaithful to them, because the ordinary, humdrum incidents of everyday life in seventeenth century Transylvania outstrip the extravagances of the most unbridled imagination.

Tun Skvk.v Colonies of Australasia, 1901-2: By T. A- Coghlan, Statistician of New South Wales. Published by authority of the Government of the State of New South Wales and of the Commonwealth of Australia ; Government Printing Office, Sydney. Mr. Coghlan is not only one of the ablest of living statisticians, but has the rare art of knowing how to popularise usually dry and wearying figures. This substantial volume contains about twice the amount of matter as our own Official Year-Book, and the wonder is that so much can ,be stated so clearly in so small a space. There is a. condensed but singularly full history of each one of the seven colonies,''including New Z'aland, with chronological tables of the Commonwealth and of New Zealand. There are our respective constitutions, and our official figures are arranged and analysed and compared, and their meanings explained ill a series of treatises upon: Climate, Food SupPlv, Industrial Progress, Land and Settlement, Local Government, Vital Statistics, Population, Education, Agriculture, Pastoral Resources and Dairy Industry, the Manufacturing Industry, Social Condition, Shipping, Defence, Private Property and Incomes, Accumulation, Employment and Production, Commonwealth Finance, Religion, Railways, Posts and Telegraphs, Mineral Resources, State Finance, .Commerce. The volume includes a meteorological map of Australia, Any criticism upon the book would be superfluous. It is a necessary handbook to every colonist who wishes to know the exact condition of his country and a model of what a popular and readable handbook should be.