LITERARY NOTES."

Otago Witness, Issue 2006, 4 August 1892, Page 40

LITERARY NOTES."

MrJ. M. Barrie has received an offV;r of LllOO for the serial rights of the novel upon which he id now eugagod.

Music-hall songs form a very large and constantly-increasing family. Tuey are composed in prolific quantity, bui tho gceab majority perish without ever getting into print. Oub of 700 songs writnen ia tha course of last year by Mr Harrington, who is a phenomenally successtul writer in this line, only 43 attained publication. These were sold for Ll2 apiecs. Unless a song gains the popularity of " Hi-tiddly-hi-ti" or Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay" its average length of existence is about six weekd. -\ 'Another attempt i 3 to bd made to reproduce " The Book of Kells," which is said to be the most beautiful book in the world. "The Book of Kells " is a manuscript of tbe eighth century, containing the four Gospels iv Latin. Its pages are CDvered with ornaments. The initial letters of every sentence in tbe Gospels are treated as a subject Tho book is in the libraiy at Dublin. In tbe reproduction there will be no attempt to reproduce the gorgeous colouring in the oiiginal.

Aj>roj>os of the remark quoted by Mr Lecky, when presiding the other day at the annual dinner, in London, of the Royal Library Fund, that " the profession of literature would lead anywhere, provided you abandoned it," the following cases of successful authors aie quoted by a correspondent : —

Lord Tennyson never followed any profession .«ave literature, and he is wealthy Mr Robert Browning never did anything save write poems and plays; yet he eeems to have lacked for nothing.

Mrs Gore made a fortune^by writing novels, although, poor lady, she lost most of her savings through the failure of a bank.

Mibs Braddon has been writing novels and nothing else for 30 years ; and she is deservedly affluent.

Thomas Carlyle, who was always bitterly denouncing Mammon worship and breechespocket philanthropy, left L 35.000 behind him.

" Flitting "of a Burns Relic— Mr Wright, of the Strathbrook Hotel, Broxburn, has purchased lor a handsome sum the window of a houdn in Kirkliston, originally an inn, at which Burns passed a night in one of his journeys from Edinburgh. On one of the panes the poet scratched the lines :—: — The ants about a clod employ their cares, And think the business of the world is theirs. Lo ! waxen combs beem palaces to bees,

And mites conceive the world to be a cheese. The window is being suitably encased, and will be pl.iced in ;i prominent position in the hotel. — Glasgow Weekly Mail.

Mrs Sola's '■ Famou-s paople I have met," which Messrs Orgood, Mcllvaine, and Co. are puMn-hipg, will attract much attention. The lir.-t •' famous person " depicted is naturally " G A 5.," and Mrs Sala has earned the gra.titude of budding jouruulicts by telling, not how her husband dashes ojf his leaders — for that expression has much the same effect on him as a red rag is supposed to hive on a bull — but how tlje Ddily Telegraph leaders are really " schemed, meditated upon, and written" \a the fkt in Victoria stiect where Mr and Mrs Sala reside. We learn that scissors and pasts are adjuncts in the process, but not in the way that might be supposed, A jewel of a man-servanr, an Italian, who a year ago could not t=peak a word of English, is now an impoifaat factor, but we are not told what Mr S<la did before he got him. Lunch and tbe smoking of a cigar in a saddle-bag chair precede the actual inditing ot t.he good matter — whicu, by the way, is dene fur Lim generally by his noble and most excellent wite. Tbe comp'-.-ing of the articles is sufficient for bira, bhe think?. When dictating, he " talks like a book," only interrupting the flow of his phraseology from time to tima by quietly saying "colon, 1 "semi-colon," &c. Further, the astounding statement is made — and we must believe it — that " G.A.fc?." never sees a proof of his leadeis, and that they "are never added to or altered" 1 Happy " G.A.S." J