LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2376, 14 September 1899, Page 60

LITERARY NOTES.

—Mr Edward A. FitzGerald has finished bis travel book on South America, which has been delayed some considerable time by his illness, and it will be published shortly by Messrs Methuen and Co. under the title of "The Highest Andes." — An account of his sea-going experiences has been written by the eldest son of the Duke of Montrose for early publication- The Marquis of Graham served in a sailing vessel in the capacity of fourth mate, and his impressions should prove interesting. — The "History of Lord Lytton's Indian Administration" (1876-1880), which Lady Betty Balfour has compiled by the aid of offi- „ cial documents, is now in the press, and will be published by Messrs Longmans, Green, and Co. at an early date. — The retirement of Lord Kelvin from the chair of natural philosophy in the Glasgow University has just been announced. The distinguished mathematician became professorially attached to the university at the age of 22 ; he is now in his seventy-sixth year. — The story of the stage in England, America, and France for the past 60 years will be told in the work which Mr Clement Scott is now engaged upon. Ifc will appear in twosubstantial and well-illustrated volumes, under tlie title of "The Drama of Yesterday and To-day." — Mrs Marcus Clarke, the widow of the famous Australian novelist who wrote "For the Term of His Natural Life," has landed in England, the chief object of her visit being to arrange for the publication of a couple of novels left behind by her husband, as well as to re-issue here stories and sketches from, „ the same source which so far have only had a ' colonial circulation. —Mr Charles Duguid, the city editor of the "Westminster Gazette, has -undertaken to compile a souvenir of the London Stock Exchange. The work is to be of a very elaborate nature, and over £3000 is, it is estimated, to be spent in its production. It will give the history of the foundation, growth, and memorable events of the great market, with,

of course, reference to some of its more notable frequenters. — The well known critic and literary historian, Professor Heinrich Duntzer, who lately celebrated his eighty-sixth birthday, has just given a proof of the freshness and vigour of his mind. He not only saw through the press a new revised edition of Ins commentary to Goethe's "Faust," Part 11, but he also published with the Deutsche Verlagt-Anetalt of Stuttgart a one-volume edition of Goethe's select works, to which he prefixed an extremely well-written life of the poet.

— Aberdeen, which is specially interested m Byron, seeing that he was educated there, has under consideration at the present time a scheme for a statue of the poet, to be placed in front of the Grammar School. The modern school occupies an entirely different site from the ono in which Byron was educated. All that remains of the earlier building now is the quaint old belfry, which etands in the grounds of the new school, the headmaster of which has been the moving spirit in raising funds for the proposed statue. The portrait of Byron in the stand-up collar, which was recently reproduced in the Sketchr is to be used for the statue which Mr Lewis propopes to erect in Oxford street in memory of Byron's birthplace.

— "L'Ennemi," by G. Montbard, is, in the form of a yellow-backed brochure, a cry to France to keep warm her hatred against the Prussian, and to allow no Fashoda cry, no affaire Dreyfus, to divert her from the revanche. The idea of coquetting with Germany oufc of hostility to England fills M. Montbard with disgust. He does not think John Bull is to be taken very seriously : "Leave him to his shop counter; Let him. colport his Bibles, and sell his whisky and cotton. That is all lie wants." For Germany, on the contrary, their motto must be "Delenda est Germania, si vult vivere Gallia." The German is the robber who has already half ruined and half strangled hia victim, and who wants to complete the work. Trance must be beforehand with him :

"Lot us renew our dying energies in a. bath of blood ; it is the heroic remedy, the only one for the deathly torpor into which we are sinking." Let them have their Paris Exhibition, and then, with Ihe millions it brings in, mobilise and fight ! A nice sentiment truly for the Peace Conference and the end of the century !

— Any one who listened to the speech o£ Dr Temple at the ceremony of the unveiling of the statue to Tom Hughes at Rugby musb have noticed, says Literary World, that the archbishop had much more to say about his famous predecessor, Di Arnold, than about the author of "Tom Brown's Schooldays." Tom Hughes, he began by explaining, was "not a man of commanding ability, and, except in one respect, not a man of genius." The saving quality was his ability to "drink in the spirit of his master's teaching." In quite another vein Mr Gqseben praised Tom. Hughes. He described him as, "in a certain, sense, the most distinguished schoolboy who ever lived." And bo far from being indebted to Dr Arnold for everything, "he possessed something which no schoolmaster, no great man, could have given him — that was the peculiar temperament and constitution of his own nature." Sympathy, Mr Goschen declared, was one of Hughes's chief characteris-. tics. Ho was a hero in hiß way, representing a peculiar kind of heroism, "a moral heroism, ready to battle againgt all that wag iagloiioua

or mean in the world." It was, perhaps natural under the circumstances for a former headmaster of Rugby to enlarge, to the point of exaggeration, upon the influence of his great forerunner in the office. The "wax" theory, against which the writer in the Spectator contends, is almost universally held by schoolmasters.