PERSONAL NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2244, 4 March 1897, Page 46

PERSONAL NOTES.

•.•Queen Elizabeth of Roumania, "Oarmen Sylva," is said to be the only living author who has written verse in four languages — Roumanian, German, Swedish, and English. ■ . * When the late Archbishop Benson was a student at King Edward's School, Birmingham, he carried off five prizes in one year — namely, those for English verse and English prose, Latin verse and Latin prose, and Greek verse. • . • Li Chung Tong's foreign visitors since his return to China notice a marked change in his manner of address. He has lost much of bis old brusqueness. The old gentleman constantly uses a walking-stick of General Grant's, presented to him by Colonel Grant in New York. • . • Emperor Menelek specially honours Hebrews at his court. He asserts that he is the possessor of the genuine ark of the Covenant, and that it was transported by miracles from Palestine to Abyssinia. As did the Levites, the priests of bis church danoe before it on the most joyful occasions of worship. •,• It is not generally known that Sir John Millais was the first to oall Mrs Langtry the Jersey Lily. When he painted her portrait in 1878, which was exhibited at the Academy, he christened it " A Jersey Lily," a title that has clung to her ever since. Report says that her daughter Jean is lovelier than even her mother was. • . • We (Literary World) have not sufficient faith in the statement to found any congratulations to Mr Thomas Bailey Aidrich, the American poet and novelist, on it, but a legend has gained currency that an I admiriDg and wealthy countryman, a maker ! of chocolate, has left Mr Aldrich close on £100,000 as a mark of practical appreciation of his writings. • . • Wbittier left 250,000d01, though for his earlier poems he received nothing. Lowell, on the other hand, published his first poems at his own expense, and to the end his income from them was small ; and it was only in the closing 10 or 15 years of his life that Browning, who had a similar experience with his first volume, received anything from his- poems. - .' Mr Rhodes was a considerable collector, and some thiDga of mach historical and artistic value have perished in the fire at his house in Capetown. Among other things he had gathered a large number of Union Jacks. ! These were flags that had been in the wars j and had been carried in many a battlo. Many of them were torn and tattered, but; they bad all an interesting history. Mr Rhodes has also lost in the fire a collection of valuable and artißtio tapestry. • . • Mr Sidney Colvin has been approached with regard to the form the proposed Stevenson memorial should take, and gives it as his view that a shrine erected on Calton

Hill commanding the Bea and Edinburgh would be as fitting ai any scheme for a memorial yet suggested. The shrine would be a sort of elaborated summer house, decorated within with portraits in stone or terracotta of the author, and reproductions of soenea and characters from his works. He does not think Stevenson would look well in statuary. ■ . * Some time ago a small boy who was interested in natural history got rather puzzled over some point connected with the habit* of shrimps. Finding that books did not help him to solvt the problem, he determined to write to Mr Raskin to ask hit assistance, having beard that the great writer was a man who knew " all about everything " in connection with open-air life. Mr Raskin thereupon wrote a very kind letter back to his young correspondent, congratulating him on the interest he took in natural history, and giving him all the information he required. •.• Mis 3 Christabel Rose Coleridge, the editress of the Monthly Paoket, is the daughter of the Rev. Dsrwent Coleridge, the son of the poet. She lives in a villa at Torquay. Mi«B Coleridge has a faint recollection of seeing Wordsworth. She has a strong impression, too, of hearing Keble preach, and of being present at one of Rogers's breakfasts. Her father waa the originator and for many years the principal of St. Mark's Training College at Chelsea, where the Chapel Royal choir boys used to sing from time to time in oratorios. At Rugby, in her girlhood, Miv Coleridge joined an essay club which Miss Charlotte Yonge had started. Another member of the club was Mrs Humphry Ward. Miss Coleridge's first novel, "Lady Betty," was published in 1869. • . * The Hon. Sir Harry Keppel, whose autobiography will shortly be published, is now in his eighty-eighth year, having been born in June, 1809. He is Admiral of the Fleet, and very active for his years, and can read without glasses; bis only ailment is, like that of Mr Gladstone, that he is troubled with a slight deafness. He is a great favourite with the Prince and Princess of Wales, and " the little admiral," the Golden Penny lays, is often a welcome guest at Sandringbam. Sir John Astlev in his life relates an anecdote how that the PrinceßS of Wales said to him one day, " Do you know why we call our youDgeat daughter • Sir Harry V — because she is without fear." Sir Harry is a lineal descendant of the Keppel who came over with William 111. •.• M. Edouard Lookroy, who is taking the lead in demanding the reform as well as the increase on a large scale of the Frenoh navy, is a man who has been associated with some famous names ontaide of politics. When he was still a young artist be accompanied the elder Dumas in his Italian journeys. He also accompanied Renan in his archaaological tours in* Syria and Paleitine. Later he married the widow of Victor Hugo's son Charles, and thus had the oare of bringing up those two grandchildren of the poet about whom the latter wrote some of his best-known verse. Jeanne Hugo became the wife of Leon Daudet, son of the novelist. The union was an unfortunate one, and was dissolved, and the lady was again married some time ago. An author and journalist, M. Lockroy has also been an active Deputy since he entered the National Assembly in 1871. • . • Sir Albert K*ye Rollit, M.P., whose marriage with Mary, Duchess of Sutherland, has been the talk of society, had in his earlier dayi a considerable turn for the stage. When a young man, living in Hull, his native town, he was one of a brilliant band of Masonic amateur Thespians, whose annual performance for the benefit of local charities was the most fashionable event in the flourishing seaport, and drew a large assembly to applaud the amateurs and the professional ladies, Mies Fanny Brough and her charming, mother (Miss Romer), who aided them. Mr Rollit — he was on a lower round of the social ladder then — when appearing in the charaoter of the Kinchin in the burlesque of "Trovatore," reminded a press critic of Mr Paul Bedford, the original impersonator, and as Captain Oakum, in " The Porter's Knot," he wai said to look and walk " every inch a jolly British Bailor." Miss Elma Rollit, whose marriage preceded her father's by a few days, was his only child by his first wife, who died in 1885.

— Ahead of Date.— "Your wife seems tnxiouß to be up-to-date, Tugby." " Up-to-flate J I should say so 1 She's a long way Scad; she's got a lofc o£ tcooble borrowed J e W alter next- 1 '

I — The Diver's Joke.—" Wby do you wear I that very uncouth-looking suit 1 " said the I mermaid, perched on the bowsprit of a I sunken vessel. " Oh, for divers reasons." re- » plied the hamouiisb of the divins-bel)