PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21982, 17 June 1933, Page 4

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

The second number of the New Zealand Fortnightly Review (“an independent journal of public affairs”) is to hand. In the issue under notice several topical questions which come within the category “serious” are dealt with. Several pages are deVoted to a consideration and • discussion of Douglas social credit. Other phases of economic and social questions are treated, •while some of the lighter sides of life as represented by the drama, kinema, bridge, radio* and such like are riot disregarded. The Review is published in Auckland. t Boswell Revised The Oxford University Press has in preparation a revision of George Birkbeck Hill's edition, published in 1887 and for some' years out of print, of (Roswell's “Life of Johnson” and “Tous to the Hebrides.” The work was entrusted to Mr L. F. Powell, librarian of the Taylor Institution at Oxford, who has been «n-

gaged upon it for 10 years. It is admitted that Birkbeck Hill relied too much on Boswell’s third edition, which contained fresh errors as well as corrections. The text has now been completely checked' with the first and second editions, and it' is hoped that little error remains. Bat the reviser’s heaviest task - has been tn bring Hill’s classical commentary abreast of modern knowledge; for the literature which has accumulated in the course of 45 years is immense, and many original documents ‘ unknown to Hill have been published. Boswell’s journals are the most important of many new sources, and M» Powell has greatly benefited by the gener* osity of their owner, .Colonel : Ishara, an<l their editor. Professor Pottle. The advance of bibliographical study has made, it possible to furnish a far more complete'and accurate account of Johnson 1 * published work than was available in 1887, , The Critic’s Problems Writing in the Bookmark, Mr EicharJ Church, the poet and novelist, speaks with personal understanding of the problems of book'critics. "The reviewer is alway* in danger of overbalancing. He has to read too much. That alone is sufficient to ruin his judgment and enthusiasm," ho says. " For one hour that a man spend* in. reading other men’s thoughts, and in living vicariously their lives, he should spend five in thinking his own thought* and building his own house of experienceThe reviewer has also, to read too much current literature. He forgets how far* are_ the swans on the river of time, and amid the_ flocks of inferior geese with which he is surrounded he tends to select too many as potential swans. He is often far less balanced in bis judgment than the book amateurs whom he is paid t* advise and_ the authors whom he capriciously praises or condemns. The urgency of his , trade makes him unworthy of hi trade, unless periodically he can take n rest, sometimes away altogether front books, sometimes by returning to old orthodoxies.”