LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2210, 9 July 1896, Page 53

LITERARY NOTES.

*.* Mr Rudyard Kipling is just finishing a new serial story which, according to the Bookman, promises to rival the Mowgli stories in interest and novelty. It is a tale of life on the Ood Fishetiw, and is described t>y the author as being "marine, special, technical, and adventurons." Altogether, Ifc promises to be one of the most important works which Mr Kipling has yet written. '.' Another new Scotch writer is announced! His name is Mr A. J. B. Paterson, and he will claim to be judged by a short pastoral story with the title "A Mist from Yatrow: a Story of the Hills." The book will bo illustrated by Mr G. M, Paterson, and will be published by Messrs Oliphant, Anderson, and Ferrief. The fourth volume of the Famou3 Soots series, which the same firm are issuing, will be " John Knox," by Mr .A. Taylor Innes. •.•Mr Haweis's "Travel and Talk" is nearly ready. It is a popularly-written account of his " hundred thousand miles of travel" in 1885 93-95, through America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, (Joy lon, and the islands of the Pacific. Mr Haweis can always make his matter attractive, and in this te&pect his latest work will certainly »how no falling off. " Travel and Talk " will be in two volumes, and Messrs Ghatto and Windus are the publishers. • . • Mr J. M. Barrie has written a pleasant

and appreciative letter to Mr Gabriel Setoun over the publication of the last-named gen-

.tl6man's new story, " Robert Urquha'rt." Mr .Barrie is rejoiced at haviug at last encountered a thorongbly Scotch story without the old dominie in it I " The dominie," said Mr Barrie, "had such a way of marching into the story as Boon as he heard there was one on hand that I think Mr Sstoun must have gone about his work on tiptoe I " • . • There is no good biography of Hugh Miller in existence, and yet there are materials enough ready to the hand of any man who knows how to handle then?, and some of the best of them, as all. the world knows, aro of an intimate autobiographical kind.

"My Schools and Schoolmasters," to take

but one instance, is a rich quarry f re m which .hewn, if not polished, stones stand ready to

-fee drawn, and Jn ''FiMfc Impnssions of England and its People " there are artless, ''self-revelationß of the utmost value.— Speaker. • . • Mrs Hodgson Burcett eajs that four of

the stories she has written took possession .of her, and insisted on being written, so to speak. Something weird and interesting had kept her spell-struck. Oae, "A Story of the Laun Quarter," so overwhelmed her that she could uot detach herselE from it, and she has . no dcubt her friends thought her ill or partially demented. When tbe closing words . came into her mind she broke down in an angui&hed fit of crying. • .• Tho edition of "The Poetical Works of Robert Burn*," published by Messrs Biss, Sands, and Fester, claims to be ope of the , most complete yet issued. We certainly know

not c cheaper— ssG pages, printed in large type,

with luxuriously broad margin, for 2s I Mr John Fawdide is tbe editor, and has made good use oE the editions of Cunningham, Alexander Smith, and G. A. Ailken. 'Poems ascribed to Burns are given in an appendix, and there are brief notes, a glossary, and a portrait. , ■ . * Captain A. T. Muban expected to finish bis " Life of Nelson " by the end of Jane. The distinguished naval historian has been at work on the book for some time past, It may be remembered that when visiticg

England on the United States cruiser

Chicago a year or two ago he said there was yet another volume to be written before his exhauuive treatise on "sea power" was com-

plote.' Now that his ' Nelson" is almost out of liS.;d, it is to be hoped that he will bs abb io get on with the last-mentioned Tolame. % .'lt 1b refreshing to see Me William BtacVs came on a title page. He will never be a great " artist in fiction/ bub he wiU never be anything but pleasant to read. The

vrond as he imagines it is not precisely like

the world &c we know it ; but it is at least a - Wdrld that we should have no objection to ' Jfnow — a comfortable, breezy, sporting world, peopled with men who either lead orderly married live 3, or fall in love solely with a ' view of leading such, and women, in whom ■ tha reader circa litslra d:cem can recognise - the type -of womanhood which had power - to move 1 himself and his contemporaries.— ' Athet seam. „' ' '•.•Mr' William Morm's new romance, " The Well at the World's End," is now at the ' binder's. It; is printed in double columns (the ' first Kelmscotb Press - book in this form), quarto in size, and bas four illustrations by Sir Edward Burner Jone?, and borders and orEamentsby the author. The binding is limp vellum, with silk ties. Thcee hundred and fifty persons are to have the privilege of paying sgs each for an ordinary copy. Eight special copies may be clamoured for by those prepared to lay down 20gs.

\ • In the opening chapter of Charlotte Brontes famous cove), Jane Eyre is described

as looking out of tbe window at the 'dreary November day, and reading a corresponding description of it in "Bewick's History of Uritish Bird?,'! in which the lines occur :-—

Where the Northern Ocean iv vast whirls

Boils round tbe n a tire melancholy isles

Of farthest Tfaule ; and the Atlantic surgt Pours in among the stormy Hebrides. A copy of this work in two volumes has been lent to the Bronte Museum at Haworth by Mr Law, of Littleborougb, the copy having belonged to the Rev. Patrick Bronte, and bearing bis name on the flyleaf.

- , * The second volume of the new edition of the "Life and Works o£ Burns," by Dr Bobert Chambers, edited by Mr William Wallace, is now ready. It contains sis illustrations— two by O. Martin Hardie, R.S.A.; two by R. B. Nisbet, A.R.S.A.; one by G. O.Rsid, A.R.S.A. ; and Naamyth'u portrait. Like the first volume, it has been partly recast, and almost completely rewritten, to admit of the inclusion of new biographical material and letters which have been discovered since 1851, Mrs M'Lehose's letters have been introduced into the correspondence between Syivander and Olarinda, and an attempt has been made to trace the gource of Burns's references and quotations In bis letters in order to show the extent of bis reading. V With the May number the Dnblia Review

celebrated its diamond jubilee. It was just GO years ago in May sinoe Mr Michael Qoin suggested to Cardinal Wiseman and Daniel O'Oonnell the idea of starting a Catholic rival to the Edinburgh and Quarterly. Among the many well-known contributors to the Dublin Review, which has always been regarded by Roman Catholics as their chief literary publication, the names of Wiseman, Manning, Newman, W. G. Ward, Russeli, and Allies stand out prominently. During the progress of the Oxford revival the Dublin was looked upon as a director o£ the movement from the standpoint of the Roman Church.

• . • A marvellous specimen of the bookmaker's art is the " Thumb Prayerbook, with Hymns Ancient and Modern Added." The little book consists of nearly a thousand pages, is clearly printed on Oxford Indian paper in type that can be read without strain, and is o£ a size to fit the waistcoat pocket, Messrs David Bryce and Son, of Glasgow, in point of size do even more than this. They issue a Bible containing both the Old and New Testaments measuring' not much over an inch by an inch and a-half, and a "Mite Testament" that will swing at on6'a watch chain. Magnifying glasses, which are needed to enlarge the type of these little work?, are supplied.

, •■. ■ Sir William Hunter's Memoirs of Brian Houghton Hodgson should prove unusually entertaining. The subject of the work waa one of the ablest of the many able men belonging to" the old East India Company's civil service, and was, moreover, a scholar and a man of science. The Indian Office library, the British Museum, and many of the leading learned societies in Europe benefited by his knowledge aud the generosity with which he. distributed the various collections cf MSS. made by him. Philology and Buddhism were bis specialty, but time was made for ethnological and zoological research, and he wrote many papers on these subjects which attracted the attention of the leading scientific experts of the day.