LITERARY GOSSIP.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 5802, 20 January 1906, Page 16

LITERARY GOSSIP.

AVo have received the first number of “The Commonwealth: an Australian National Journal,” which is published at Brisbane and is obtainable throughout Australia, and New Zealand from Messrs Gordon and Gotch. ‘ : Tho Commonwealth” is owned and edited by Mr James G. Drake, and is issued weekly at Id. Tho title page consists of an excellent allegorical figure, typ/yitig the growth and federation of tho Australian states. The policy of tho new journal is “fidelity to the Federal Constitution,” and tho first of a promisedoenos of signed articles is contributed by “The Right Hon. G. H. Reid, P.C.,” who opens with a denunciation of tho “domination of some Parliaments hy a narrow sectional combination which has taken the oato ot Labour.”

Mr Clement Shorter is nothing if not critiml ami superior. Some of the modern scribblers of London literary society do not bear themselves meekly enough to please Mr Shorter, and in the “Sphere” they aro thus reproved and put- in their proper place. “Everyone who has written a book that sells well teems to have the idea that he has done somotlung infinitely moro meritorious than tho vendor of pills or soap or tooth-powder, whereas in nine cases out of ten tho manufacturer of these latter commodities deserves far moro of his country.” A new Bacou-Shakcspearo theory “made in Germany” apparently, is to be published next year. Mr Edwin Bormann. according to a Berlin telegram in tho “Morning" Leader,” has now discovered Francis Bacon’s - definite confession that he was the author of tho plays. Shortly before his death Bacon is said to have drawn up a literary testament in English, French, and Latin verses, “richly rhymed, partly serious, partly comical.” Tho “partly comical” needs emphasis. It is not generally known that these farcical attempts to prove that Shakespeare did not write his own works elate back nearly half a, century. In 1850 an American ladyi of tho name of Delia Bacon wrote a book on Shakespeare in which she showed to her own satisfaction that ho was a mere cloak for the plays of her great namesake. Delia Bacon was unquestionably insane, and her theory as to Shakespeare was one of her delusions. Curiously enough. Lord Palmerston supported her view on the ground that Bacon passed off the plays under nn actor's name “for fear of compromising his professional prospects and philosophical gravity.” It remained for another American—lgnatius Donnelly—to crown tho edifice of this groat absurdity by a cryptogram. A growing habit, not confined to British papers, of assuming tho guilt of persons charged with offences, and making prejudicial comments while a case is still sub judicc, was exemplified in a British Court recently when Mr David Davies, editor of the “South Wales Post.” was fined £IOO and costs by a divisional Court for contempt of Court. The matter arose out of a charge against a woman named Hunter of abandoning her child. The woman was subsequently committed for trial for attempted murder of the child, and while she was under remand tho defendant's journal published a statement headed “Antecedents of the Accused," which was followed by an article entitled "Traffic in Babies,” both casting ruleetions on Hunter. Mr Davies pleaded that he had been misled, and offered a humble apology to tho Court. Mr Justice Wills, in delivering judgment, said the tendency of such comments while a case was pending was to poison the stream of justice. Among new books announced for publication before the end of IDOS we note “Twenty Yeans in Paris” by Hobart H. Herdnian. the well-known writer on French subjects, (Hutchison); "The Sources of the Blue Nile” by Dr. Arthur J. H a yos, (Smith, Elder); and a fourth series of “Leaves from the Diary of Henry Grenville'' by tho Countess 'of Strafford, (Smith, Elder).