LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1966, 29 October 1891, Page 43

LITERARY NOTES.

Mr Andrew Lang thinks that nine-tenths « of magazine poetry, especially in America, is written by women. Since Miss Braddon published her first novel, " Lady Audley's Secret," in 1862, she has written 52 novels, representing in the original editions 156 volumes, or about 50,000 pages of printed matter. This means about six pages daily— a prolificness which surely surpasses that of Mrs Oliphant. There are living in England four great novelists—Mr Meredith, the supreme master ; Mr Stevenson and Mr Hardy, inimitable men of genius; and Lucas Malet, who is on the way to a complete success. Besides these there are thousands of novelists, facile, fluent, and unreadable.— Pall Mall Gazette. Before Christmas the public may expect to receive the first volume of the late Mrs Booth's " Reminiscences," the preparation of which is in the hands of General Booth's son-in-law, Commissioner Tucker. The "Mother of the Salvation Army" was a woman of so Temarkable a character that her biography cannot fail to prove of the highest interest. The marriages of authors have been wretched out of all proportion to the common lot. The reason is not only that authors are vain, and irritable, and .flighty, and absorbed, like artists, in their work. The true, or chief, cause of married misery among writers is probably this: they do their work at home. Now, • bricklayers, soldiers, doctors, barristers, clerks, and most men do their work away from home. — Andrew Lang. Boston (the American Boston) is about to do itself the honour of publishing the finest edition (it is said) of the Scotfc novels which has ever been issued here, there, or ! anywhere. The subscription price will be j £24 the set. The publishers are endeaI vouring to secure the services of the besfc etchers in France, and are arranging for photographic reproductions of. the places in which the events of the different novels ocenr. At a Greenock Town Council meeting in August last the Cemetery Committee reported that they were gratified to observe the tasteful alterations and repairs that had been executed during the year by the Greenock Burns Club on Highland Mary's grave in the Old West Kirkyard. The monument had been carefully scraped and repainted, and the old headstone, which had sunk considerably into the ground, had been lifted and a new foundation put in. The stone itself had been cleaned, repainted, and lettered, showing now the full inscription. "It would signify nothing to me," says George JJliot, " if a very wise person were to stun me with proofs that Rousseau's views of life, religion, and government are miserably eironeous— that he was guilty of some of the worse bassesses that have degraded civilised man. I might admit all this, and it would be not the less true that Rouss3au's genius has sent that electric thrill through my intellectual and moral frame which has awakened me to new perceptions — which has made man and Nature a fresh world of thought and feeling to me; and this not by teaching me any new belief." Dr William Cunningham, of Trinity College, Cambridge, in his new volume, "The Path Towards Knowledge : Discourses on Some Difficulties of the Day," treats with marked ability and learning such subjects as "Marriage, Malthusianism, Socialism, Money, Charity, Education, Faith, Positivism, Presbyterianism, Unitaiianism, Civil Obedience, and Moderation." Of course he cannot move along these thorny ways without getting into difficulties ; but he has really a good deal to say to which sensible men will listen with respect, if not always with agreement. Women are rapidly monopolising travel. While Mrs French-Sheldon has been ascending Kilima-Njaro, and Mrs Bishop colloqning with the Bakhtieri in the far west of Perßia, Miss Isabel Morris has been enjoying some "sunny days" in Southern Russia, and has now published a lively record of her experiences under the title of "A Summer in Kieff." It is noticeable that the ladies always write in high spirits, and with a cheeriness that infects the reader. You would suppose that there were never clouds in the sky, nor a keen breath in the wind ; so vivacious and amusing are their narratives. They look upon the sunny side of things and are content ; whereas your male traveller grows dyspeptic, and has trouble with his liver, and refuses to own to brightness and goodness anywhere. Miss Morris' pages overflow with sunshine. The Academy writes :— " We are promised a new version of the life-story of Emma, Lady Hamilton, retold by Hilda Gamlinfrom original materials, which are asserted to disprove much that has hitherto been alleged to her injury. Mr Alfred Morrison has placed | unreservedly at the disposal of the author his unrivalled collection of autograph letters bearing on the subject. There will also "be printed numerous letters from Greville, disclosing the actual circumstances under which she was transferred to Sir William Hamilton. Evidence will also be adduced to prove that Lady Hamilton was merely the voluntary guardian of Horatio, and that the celebrated series of 'Thomson' letters was not written by Nelson. The book will be illustrated with nearly 50 plates, including portaits, views, and facsimiles of letters; and it will be published in handsome form and in a limited edition, by Mr Edward Howell, of Liverpool." Commencing in September, The Atlantic Monthly will publish a story by Mr Rudyard Kipling, describing the peculiar ac'dons of a strangely demented lighthouse-keeper. The Critic gives the following particulars :-— " He has a weird faney — a fearing idea that over the bright rays of his lantern, as they reach in their regular lines like a ladder far down to the rolling water, clamber and tumble hordes of evil imps, all seeking that way of ingress to his lonely, rocky castle. But; he will defeat them. With an anxious hand he places in the water, at the points where the rays strike, bobbing buoys over which the fiends cannot climb ; and so he rests in peace. But the captains of the merchant vessels see these new and undescribed beacons in their path, fear their hidden enemy, a wrecked vessel) just below the water's edge, and steer away from their course to avoid the danger. So tbe

queer lighthouse-keeper becomes 'A Disturber of Traffic' " In another paragraph of the same issue our usually accurate contemporary falls into the strange error of representing " Ivanhoe " and "The Templar" as one and the same person. This occurs in a notice of Mr Eugene Oudin, the successful impersonator of the latter in Sir Arthur Sullivan's opera.