LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Volume 01, Issue 2123, 1 November 1894, Page 44

LITERARY NOTES.

Mrs Mannington Caffyn has now completed the story which she began immediately after the publication of " The Yellow Aster." It will be called " Children of Circumstance."

The Speaker says that " The second book of the Rhymers' Club " is quite equal to the first. As before, the honours are carried off by Mr Le Gallienne, Mr Yeats, Mr Symons, Dr Todhunter, and Mr Lion Johnson.

Under tbe title " The Pilgrim's Progress as John Banyan Wrote It," Mr Elliot Btock will shortly reissue his facsimile of the first edition of " The Pilgrim's Progress." It will have a new introduction by Dr John Brown, of Bedford.

The death is announced in America, at the age of 81, of Mr George Rex Graham, who fonnded at Philadelphia Graham's Magazine, in which some of the most important works of Poe, Hawthorne, and Longfellow first appeared during the forties.

The Rev. James Wood, of Edinburgh, has just oompleted Part I of "The Oarlyle Reader," which consists of leleotions, with notes, from "Sartor Reeartns," "Past and Present," " Chartism," and " Heroes and Hero Worship." The work Js intended for use In sohools, and will be published by Mr Thin, of Edinburgh.

An American publisher reoently "annexed" one of Miss Beatrice Harraden's stories, added a number that were not by her, and published them under tbe misleading title " The Umbrella Mender, by Beatrice Harraden, and Other Stories." Another " pirate " haa »old 90,000 copies of "Ships thafc Pass In the Night." Sir George Ohesney, M.P., the distinguished administrator, taotioian, and author, is about to bring out a new edition of his "Indian Polity," long out of print. Sir George is a small, aotive-looking man, with frizzled hair., ma ft face. Ten touch janntd J

by eastern suns, whose rather sharp features and qulok, dark eyes are full of capaolty, vigour, and brightness. Sir George is one of the ablest soldiers in the British army. Under the title of "The Boottish Songstresp," Ollphant, Anderson, and Ferric? announce a sketch of the life of Caroline, Baroness Nairne, authoress of "The AulrJ Houses," "Land o' the Leal," &c. Itl I written by her great- grand-niece (Mrs A. R. Simpson), and will contain a number of portraits, a facsimile of writing, and a reproduction of a drawing by Lady Nairni of " The Auld House " at Gask.

It is just seven years ago since Mr Raskin, writing to a student of Edinburgh University, testified to his admiration of the SoottisH tongue, wbioh he characterised as "the sweetest, richest, subtlest, most musical of all the living dialeots of Europe." The Master — the British Weekly records — has occupied a part of his time lately in the perusal of Mr S. R. Crockett's ''The Stiokit Minister"— the idioms with which the work abounds doubtless proving rather difficult of enunciation to the friends who usually read to him— and has written an appreciative and friendly letter to the author.

Miss Hall Oaine, a younger sister of the novelist, contributes an article to the Sep* tember number of the New Review, entitled " A Child's Remembrances of Rossetti." The sketch reveal's many sweet and tender aspects of the poet-painter's oharaoter, and shows that, though he never had any ohildren of his own, Rossetti had the preoions quality of charming ohildren by pretty attentions and stories of good magicians. Miss Hall Game is just now playing in the provinces — with great success, if we are to trust the critics-— the leading part in Mr Henry Arthur Jones'i recent society drama, "The Masqueradere."

The " Dr6amthorpe " of Alexander Smith is Linlitbgow. How few of the English people who overflow Scotland in the summer take the hoar's journey to visit the exquisite rained palace of Linlitbgow, where they can still see the cbamber in whioh Mary Queen of Scots was born, and the tnrret in which James lVs English wife sat day after day looking for the spears and banners which never came back from Flodden. Why does not some publisher bring oat a new edition of that delightful book " Dreamthrope " ? Archdeacon Farrar has long been at work on a book to be called " The Life of Christ as Represented in Art," which will probably be ready before Christmas. "He will not," says his publisher, " intrude upon the fanetions of the art critic, but pass in review the predominant conceptions of Christ, and of the events narrated in the Gospels, as they are expressed by great painters in varioni epochs. One 'object of the book will be to, show how widely the theological and religious views of later oentnries differ from that simplioity of which we posses* the fast disappearing records in the many paintings of the catacombs during the first three centuries. The book will be profusely illustrated."