LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2504, 19 March 1902, Page 70

LITERARY NOTES.

—Mr Charles Godfrey Leland is in Italy making a selection of ballads for a newedition of "Hans Breitmann." and revising the same. It is 30 years since they were first published. England is said to have purchased more than 10,000 copies of Mr Leland's books.

—An interesting announcement is made by Messrs A and C. Blade. The second edition of Colonel do Villebois-Mareuil's

" War Note=," to be published shortlj-, contoiiT the completion of the colonel's char}-, v Inch was found on his body after his last and fatal reconnaissance. Thi« portion of the diary is actually written up to the day before his death ! — A book which Messrs Longman announce — namely, the correspondence of Princess Lievcn, should be interesting. She was a great figure in London society in the early pjrt of la«t cntury, and these letters were written during her residence there. It extended from 1812 to 185+, a period of no small stir and interest in various ways. — Miss Agnes Weld, niece of the late Poet Laureate, is engaged upon a memoir, written from an intimate and personal point of view, of her uncle. Miss Weld — who is a resident in Oxford and has Miss Maud Tennyson, another niece of the late Laureate, as a neai neighbour — was a great favourite with the poet, and accompanied him on his many ualLs, when he was wont to »peak without restraint of his work.

— The " gentle Eha ' is an ever-welcome companion, and when in doubt what book to buy for a gift it is almost safe to secure

"The Essays of Elia," but it is not always possible to obtain an edition so admirably produced as that now issued by Methuen and Co. An introduction by Mr E. V. Lucas and excellent illustrations by Mr A. Garth Jones increase the attractiveness of a handsomely-bound and veiy finely-printed issue of a favourite classic.

— Naturalists as well as medical m"ii will be interested (says the Westminster Gazet'p) in the monograph on mosquitoes, containing all tho knowledge existing at present on the subject, prepared by Mr F. V. Theo1 aid, of Cambridge, the specialist employed in the Natural T-iistoiy Museum at South Kensington, and edited by Professor Ray Lankester. which, ie X expected, will bo issued by the department immediately. Tho work will, for tiie first time, describe the mosquitoes of all parts of the world. — The last two volunio<? of tho Warwick edition of the woiks of George EHot have recently been i-.-ued by Blackwood and Son, the eleventh volume containing "The Spani-h Gypsy," "Jubal." and other poems; the twelfth contains " Theophrastus Such," "Essays," eto. The eighth volume of the finely-printed library edition of George Eliot's worku published by the same firm is "L>ar>iel Deronda, ' which has an excellent frontispiece.

— Two of the largest printing establishments in Edinburgh are busy iust now with the supplementary volumes of the " Eucyclopasdia Britannica," which, in all likelihood, will be^jssued before the end of 1902. Mr Hugh Chisholin, who is editing the supplement, has enliste<l the services of wellIcnown experts in various branches* of knowVdge, with the view of making the "Enelopaedia" as a whole thoroughly up to date. Mr Chisholm has as his chief assistant Mr J. A. Manson, who was connected with Messis Cassell for 30 ycais. — Lord Wolseley, who since his retirement has been devoting himself exclusively to literary work, ha= nearly completed a volume on Napoleon's campaign of 1796, a subject of peculiar interest to military student*. Ho i« also engaged in writing his memoirs, with which he has made considerable progress, although it is not true, as has boen widely leported, that he has finished them. As soon as the=e two pieces of work are ready for the press Lord Wolseley propose? to return to his "Life of Marlborough," for a second volume of whioli he has already collected the greater part of tho material.— Athenaeum

—Dr William Jack?, late M.P. for tho Loith Burghs, siuco ho filled in the wcarisonio pniiods of paihamcntary debate by translating l,o~siii£>\ " Xalhan" fie Wi=o." winch \vn, j=-suod with a pictiico by his friend Arc lidoaoon Fanni, h.\* spont (says the Westminster (!a7oltc) many happy hours after business m learning languages and preparing various volume? for the pres^. B« produced " Robort Burn-. in Othc-r Tongues," and a history of Prince Burr arck, whinh won the marked approval of his son said eof ti.e (Jeymaa- Emperor. His latest book i-, " Jame? "Watt," while he is bu>-y with a "History of ilio Hohenz.illerns," and may reprint a =elootion of flic many , lectures and addresses whic-!i he has delivered dunug the pa-t 30 yoars.

— The announcement of a new edition of the pn^ms of Adam Lindsay Gordon from the liou«p of Longman is a melancholy inf.tnncc of posthumous fame. Thirty years have pa s'e<l since this greatest of AngloAuatrahan poots shot him^olf in a fit of despan at Brighton, nine miles from Melbourne In In- lifetime hi* pootioal achievements mot with hut thp smallest recognition from iho Au^trilian pio^-. and pnl>iic, but m tho tlnoo docadr- ihat have ])a-scd • ni''-> his dp.ith hi 1 - ce'.rbrity, both in Austialij and England, ha^ gioun ste idil} . Hi-,

"How We Boat tin. 1 - Fa\ourite \3\ 3 ally acknowledged to be the* fiiip^l niici mr-t btiiriiig inetiical do=c ripticm of :i li'ir^o mo over penned. He wa-, a strango and on ati gpnim, everything by turns and nothing long--so!dier, mounted policeman, :notji l n r of Parliament, jockuy, journaliht, hotelkeppcr, livery =table proprietor, and variou= other ;i=»rrted avocation".

—Of the making of book- there is ro end. That we know on the best authority, and it i-> manor of common experience. But theio l- a falling off mi the output, go far ai our 'iv n coun'ry i-, concerned. Xo doubt il.i war 1= mainly, if not wholly. rr-poii-ii>lf> for tho reduction Dining the fii-t v< ar of tho campaign tho total v\a^ louri'd by alioiil SCO; during the scoond jr.ir 11901)" thr chcD i»,i' about a. thousand. Still time was no lack. Acroiding *o the '■tatomont on tho '-übjort in tho '" Fub-li-hri-' Cirrular." the total number of now no\ol- nnbliihrd in 1900 wa-, 1553: in 1901 it \vr • 1513, only 50 fewer. Pootiy show a fall of ni'>rc tlian 10Q. Of nev uoik.-- o:' \ovag"-> and tiavol, tho ii:nnho- i -s pr^ci-cly th~ =ai.i" a^ m tlio p'v.ion, yoar. I>ik m reprints Ukto i- a fall cf 40. In IC.'JO1 C .'JO 1 i - tory and bioniaphj (vi« lu'ling South African profits, 'rrntork -. i.ir ? s . and no'abil'liot-) rompoiPd one of tiiu fow tl.'' c '-os wlurJi showed fin mrrca-e ; now it sho\v= a locroa=o of n°ar!v 200. The total for tho yo f ir under all liouds \ia> 4955. not lpfluduig 1039 nn p \\ rditioiis. — liOpdi Mtivurv.

— Mr Symonp has rp\"ricd th*> usual practiftS fii £oeU taitt'9 the 4^t£P>£ Ui^ vi *l>e

course of its review cf Mr Arthur Symons'* " Collected Poems "). He has watched his own Soul with alert and hungry vigilance. He has sat by it night and day, and put down its every movement in verse. Not a tremor, not a rustle, not a shiver, eludes his gaze. He has kept a minute record of all its waverings and all its colourings. He has tried to capture tho dimmest outlines of transient emotion, and so well has he succeeded that it is possible to trace in his poetry the exact course of his spiritual pilgrimage, to wo-teh one mood melting into another, one illusion fading into the next, emotion obliterating emotion, and the whole patti of sen«ation undulating in curves that correspond to ''the strange irregular rhythm, of life. His mese characteristic poems are the very essence of the modern spirit, for they ache from beginning to end with the tad self-knowledge that is its dominant characteristic.