LONDON LITERARY GOSSIP.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1095, 24 February 1893, Page 12

LONDON LITERARY GOSSIP.

SPECIAL TO THE MAIL. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) PER BRINDISI MAIL. London, January 6,1893. In selecting ‘ For the Term of His Natural Life’ as a suitable novel to run serially through Pearson’s Weekly, Mr 0. Arthur Pearson has shown characteristic acumen, but why suppress poor Marcus Clarke’s name ? The majority of the 590,000 readers of this ' snipped ’’journal unquestionably believe the story is now being published for the first time. I failed altogether to convince a gentleman in a railway carriage the other day that he could have bought the novel complete from Messrs Bentley any time during the last tea or twelve years for six shillings, or less discount, for 4s 6d. He was kind enough to say that no doubt I believed I was speaking the truth, but of course I must be mistaken. Mr Pearson would never palm off a twelve year-old tale on his readers. Though admittedly much interested therein the mere notion of such an outrage seemed to make the good man’s blood boil. There is a very interesting article in the New Fortnightly on Tierra del Fuego by a Mr D. R. O’Sullivan. This gentleman was on board a vessel which foundered one dark night during a snowstorm in the Straits of Magellan. He and his fellow passengers and the captain and crew all escaped, but were cast away for rather more than two months on the inhospitable coast of Tierra del Fuego, The experience proved a terrible oue, the party having reached starvation point when rescued, but Mr O’Sullivan does not regret it. He kept his eyes open and made careful notes regarding the country and the natives, their manners, their customs, and their cannibalism. His conclusions lead us to believe that the Tierra del Fuegians must be the most barbarous, degraded, and utterly Godforsaken savages on the face of the earth. If there be anywhere a missionary who desires to out-Damicn Damien, and to lead a forlorn hope amidst surroundings of unparalleled hardship and desolation, I would suggest his attempting tho civilisation of these miserable creatures. For a man or (as it would have to be) a party of men to exile themselves to the rocky solitudes of Port Famine—as O’Sullivan’s encampment was called—would argue the most heroic self-sacrifice. During ten months in the year the country is completely wrapped in snow and constantly swept by furious gales. The scenery beheld through continual mist and snowsqualls is terribly weird and depressing, the gloomy mountains, viewed from Port Famine, 6eeming to shipwrecked folk to lead beyond the confines of this world. The natives are a spindle-legged, pot-bellied, sluggish unintelligent, superstitious, and cowardly race. But for the mariners of O’Sullivan’s narrative managing to save their guns, the Fuegians would have unquestionably eaten the lot. When specially hungry, Mr O’Sul livan declares, these cannibals devour the eldest woman of their clique or family. Two gentlemen hold the old lady face downwards over a smoky green wood lire, while a third dexterously compresses her wind-pipe. When life is extinct the chief cams his defunct

i- relative into convenient portions and tin >f sit down to dinner. For furthei is particulars see Mr d'Sullivan’s paper. ; * Mr Stuart Erskine, who supplied the coir which for a brief period kept Herberl Vivian’s Whirlwind whirring, is about tc start a monthly called ‘ The Houhynliym ; s s Journal for Yahoos.’ This ugly title, lam ) told, masks a very elaborate joke, the exe quisite significance of which is known only i to the initiated. Mr Erskine promises to r * propagate polite learning,’ and to 4 diffuse 3 gaiety and wit’ in his nastily-named periodit cal. If I remember aright his efforts r in the latter direction in the Whirl--1 wind consisted of resurrecting a numl ber of tiresome letters from ‘My grandfather, i Lord Chancellor Erskine.’ In consideration r of his partner’s coin Herbert Vivian for some weeks grimly tolerated the Lord Chancellor. But when Erskine asked for more space for the latter’s effusions, Vivian lost patience, x and throwing financial considerations to the , wind, turned the dull young Scotchman and j his duller deceased relative out of the paper. Since then Erskine has threatened several ventures, but they’ve none of them come to , anything. Early in the New Year Mr J. E. Muddock hopes to rival the success of the Strand Magazine with a sixpenny monthly called Home. Another firm contemplate a periodical christened Mother, a title which opens up a vista of novel nomenclature. A monthly Father will naturally follow the Mother, and later we may have a monthly Mother in-law, with a quarterly Aunt and a Grandpapa’s Anndal. ‘ The Victorian Age in English Literature,’ which Mr F. R. Oliphant has compiled with his'clever mother’s assistance, is not a work to exhilarate the reader who writes. It shows how even in the last fifty years scores of literary lights have arisen and glowed and faded and been for gotten. The rising generation knows their names as it knows the flames of the peerage, but that 1« all. How many of your readers, I wonder, have heard of Mrs Gore’s, or Miss Porter’s, or even George Borrow’s romances. They mostly, no doubt, read thin and artificial and unreal now. Yet occasionally the youthful taster of these stale dishes may come across a great work like Sorrow's ‘ Bible in Spain,’ which will recompense him for many disappoint, meats. Our fathers, we know, swore by Harrison Ainsworth and G. P. R. James. The latter’s reputation has always been a mystery to me. But Harrison Ainsworth we boys devoured. Andrew Lang (I think it was said the other day that but for Cruickshank, Ainsworth would have died ages ago. I read ‘Rookwood,’ and ‘Jack Sheppard,’ and the ‘ Tower of London,’ and ‘Old St Paul’s’ in paper-covered shilling editions ages before I saw Cruickshank’s famous illustrations, and woodenly told though they undoubtedly are, they took hold of my juvenile imagination as only ‘ Ivanhoe' and 4 The Talisman ’ had previously done. The well off, up-to-date boy who takes the romance of history through the medium of Henty’s gorgeously got up tales may (though I doubt it) turn up his nose at Ainsworth, but ’tis certain poorer lads still buy the sixpenny edition of his works in tens of thousands. A work of special interest to Ruskin worshippers will be Arthur Severn's reminiscences of the Professor, now passing through the sacred press at Orphington. It is intended to supplement, not to rival, the 4 Life of Ruskin,’ a monumental work the great art critic’s secretary has in hand. The late Sir George Campbell was perhaps the most colossal bore the House of Commons ever endured. But he certainly knew his India well, and if the two vols of 4 Memoirs of My Indian Career,’ announced for immediate publication, have been ruthlessly revised and denuded of superfluous and uninteresting matter, they will deserve, and doubtless receive, attention. Several improvements have been made in Blackwood’s Magazine, the January number of which appears in a new, or rather a modified cover. The contents of 4 Maga ’ are good as ever. The opening chapters of the serial 4 Earlscourt,’ lead us to conclude Mrs Walford must be the author. Note also a capital short story, 'A Victim to Circumstances,’ and articles on 4 Mobs’ and ‘Recent German Fiction.’