LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 49

LITERARY NOTES.

Messrs Osgood and M'llvaine have in the press an interesting volume of "Personal Eecollections of Nathaniel Hawthorne" by Mr Horatio Bridge, an American, who was an intimate friend. Many new stories are told of Hawthorne.

The Athenseum says :— " The Duke of Argyll has been making a special study of the • seven centuries of English misrule ' in Ireland, and has just completed a work in which are to be brought to light many new and^unnoticed facts bearing on this subject. The work, which is to be called • Irish Nationalism : an Appeal to History,' will be published shortly by Mr Murray." Mr William Watson, the English poet, is to publish very shortly through the Macmillans a daring poem entitled " The Eloping Angels : a Caprice." Ie describes the experiences and feelings of two adventurous angels who decide to exchange the conventional delights of heaven for the novelties of earth. A second edition of Mr Watson's •' Collected Poems " is also announced by the same publishers. It is remembered of the late Thomas Adolphus Trollope that he said one day, with the honest frankness and simplicity which always characterised him : "My English novels I cannot recommend; I know very little practically of English life ; but all that I have written of Italy and Italians is worth reading." For over 50 years Trollope lived in Italy, and those Italian novels of his have undeniably a marvellous truth to life;

Professor Masson, in Good Words for April, mentions the interesting fact that the cottage at Chalfont St. Giles is tbe sole I tenement once inhabited by Milton that is now certainly extant. We have, as a rule, been so indifferent to the fate of the homes of our great men that it is exceedingly satisfactory to learn that this cottage has not j only survived, but is under such care now that it will probably be long preserved. There was a goodly sprinkling of visitors to the cottage during the Easter holidays. Miss Charlotte M. Yonge, tbe writer of more than 100 tales, recently confessed in an interview to a fact modestly suppressed in her life of . her cousin, the late Bishop Coleridge Pattison, that the proceeds of her earliest and most widely celebrated book, "The Heir of Redcliffe," furnished the vessel the Southern Cross, on which the martyred missionary made his memorable voyages among the South Sea Islands. Students, librarians, and readers generally will rejoice to learn that Mrs Oliphant's " Victorian Age of Ecglish Literature," which has been looked forward to with so much interest, will bo ready for publication ishortly. The two volumes furnish an exhaustive history of English literature during upwards of half a century, and include an analysis of the character and writings of fully 500 eminent writers, from the time of Macaulay down to the death of Tennyson. A new book is announced from the pen of Maxwell Gray, the author of "The Silence of Dean Maitland," which the late Bishop Phillips Brooks was in the habit of saying was the most powerful work of fiction ever written. l< The Last Sentence "is the title of the forthcoming book, which the publishers affirm is a stronger, more mature, and more interesting creation than the work which established the author's fame and won such high praise from tbe bishop. Last December, it will be remembered, the MS. of " Poems by Two Brothers " was sold at auction to Messrs Macmiltan and Bowes, of Cambridge, for £480, the runner-up in the competition being a well-known American dealer. A hope was expressed at the time that the ultimate destination or the MS. might be the library of Trinity College ; but we hear that it has been purchased for the United States, at a large advance of price. Meanwhile, Messrs Maemillan have arranged to issue a reprint of the original edition (1827) together with the addition of four poemß from the MS. never before printed, and also the prize poem on "Timbuctoo." As far as possible, the poems have been assigned to their respective authors,

An interesting, and, in its way, exhaustive book, will shortly be published by Mr T. Fisher Unwin. It is "The Australians: A Social Sketch," by Mr Francis Adams. Most of the matter of the book has already been appreciated by the readers of the Fortnightly, but the author has thoroughly revised and connected the articles. The scheme of the book is to deal first with modern civilisation along the Pacific slope of the continent, the great writers {e.g., Clarke and Gordon), the statesmen, ice, and secondly with the Eastern interior, where he discourses on the land question, the primitive "bush people," and the squatters. Mr Francis Adams believes that the future of Australia consists in alliance with, and cot dependence on, the Blother Country.

The following is Tennyson's own story of the offer of the Laureateship :— " The night before I was asked to take the Laureateship, which was offered to me through Prince Albert's liking for my 'In Memoriam,' I dreamed that he came to me and kissed me on my cheek. I said in my dream, » Very kind, but very German.' In the morning* the letter aboufc the Laureateship was brought to me and laid upon my bed. I thought about it through the day, but could not make up my mind whether to take it or refuse it, and at last I wrote two letters, one accepting and one declining, and threw them on the table, and settled to decide which I would send after my dinner and bottle of port." Lady Wilde, the most illustrious Irish woman of the day, is leading a brilliant life in London. There at her residence on Oakley street are given those receptions to illustrious men and women from various parts of the worl d which, before her husband's death in 1872, were such a feature of her life in Dublin. Mrs Wilde, nee Elgee, was a brilliant political writer for the Irish Nation in 1847, and for some of her utterances the editor was arrested and tiied. la 1851 she married William Wilde, a famous oculist and aurist, and also a celebrated traveller, antiquarian, and Celtic scholar, Her most charming writings are her "Ancient Legends and Superstitions of Ireland" and "Ancient Cures and Charms," both filled with the fanciful and quaint traditions of her people. Her two sons, William and Oscar, are well known, the former as the husband of Mrs Frank Leslie and the latter as an tosthetic apostle, but more recently noted for his literary and dramatic work.