LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2513, 14 May 1902, Page 60

LITERARY NOTES.

I — Dr Andrew Balfour, the brilliant author of '"By Stroke of Sword," and other stories I of Southland Scotland, has been in South ' Africa. As one result of the experience, he has written a volume of war tales. It will be published by Messrs Nisbet. Dr Balfour j has not yet reached his thirtieth birthday. ! —No dead English novelist, unless it might perhaps be George Eliot, ever com- ■ pletely emancipated himself from the idea ' that a novel was a mere "story," to distract ! and divert, and though most had moral aims ; or persuaded themselves that they had, their I leading notion was" that the art of the novel was the art, to use Scott's phrase, of maintaining the reader's suspense. In a word, | they lacked admiration enough to use aright : their undoubted creative gifts. — Academy. — Just 100 years ago Percy Bysshe Shelley was sent to school at Sion Park House, • Brentford — formerly known as Sion House ' Academy. He was then 10 years old. The fiouse was to be sold last month. Shelley ' often used to walk) over to a circulating library at 110 High street, Brentford, which ! still stands, and, like the academy, is very little altered. The poet is described as ing been a most remarkable scholar, "who even at that early age exhibited considerable poetical talent, acaompanied by a i violent and .extremely .excitable temper, which manifested itself in all kinds of eccentricities." 1 —We should have thought, says the Westminster Gazette, that the biographer of Isaac i Walton had very little chance in these days 'of making any fresh "find." But Mr Geo. Dcwar, who is to edit a new edition of "The . Compleat Angler," which Messrs Freemantie are to issue, has, it seems, been fortunate enough to discover a document of "intense interest," which has hitherto escaped the researches of the numerous editors of Walton, and which will now be made public for the first time. Among other features of the edition will bo a reproduction in facsimile of Walton's will from the original in Somerset House, an essay by Sir Edward Grey on the secret of "The Compleat Angler's" perennial charm, and etchings by Mr William Strang and Mr D. Y. Cameron. — Messrs Blackiwood" have in the press a volume of reminiscences from the pen of Dr John Kerr, the doyen of school inspectors in the North, whose experiences as an educationist embrace almost the entire latter half of last century. The book will be rich in anecdotes and personal sketches of the old parish schoolmasters and their pupils. In his record of parish schools Dr Kerr relates that among those who went direct to the university from the village school of Udny, in Aberdeenshire, during the 12 years preceeding 1826, were the following : —Sir Jas. Outram, tho distinguished soldier; Joseph Robertson, the historian; John Hill Burton, James C. Robertson, Canon of Canterbury; f and George Smith, one of the founders of Chicago. "Memories Grave and Gay will ! be the title of Dr Kerr's volume. ! "I was born about 8 o'clock m the I morning on May 4-, 1825, at Baling, which ; was, at that time, as quiet a little country : village as could be found within half a dozen miles of Hyde Park Corner. Why I was christened Thomas Henry I do not know; but it is a curious chance that my parents should have fixed for my usual denomination upon the name of that particular j Apostles with whom I have always felt most i sympathy." This is an extract from the autobiographical sketch prefixed to Messrs , Macmillan's sixpenny edition of Professor Huxley's "Lectures and Essays." The book, is well printed, and will no doubt be .welcomed by many thousands of readers — not a I few of whom will probably make their first 1 acquaintance with Huxley through its q cypUCV , — The publication of Mr Benjamin Kidd's new book, " The Principles of Western Civii lisation," recalls to mind the fact that when ! his first book, "Social Evolution," was pub- ! lished, som» eight years ago, the author was ' an obscure clerk in the Inland Revenue department at Somerset House. The collection of the material of this book and the / writing of it occupied him some ten years. It attracted widespread attention, and withm a year it was translated into French, German, and Latin. The German translation was accompanied by a weighty introduction by Dr August Weismann, the eminent berman biologist. Since 1897— when Mr Kidd resigned his appointment— ho hae been enj cased in the further development of hi* ideas of social philosophy which were ov< I lined in his first book. i —Mr George Allen will shortly pub- ' lish " Paris in 1789-1794," with 60 farewell I letters of victims of the guillotine, by Mr John Goldworth Alger. Nearly 20 years study, not merely of the latest publications on the subject, but of the mass of manuscripts, mostly uncalenderrd, in the national archives, enables the author to throw new ' light on the French Revolution. Tho municipal authorities, the real masters of Pans, and therefore of Fiance, receive with thensingular medley of extravagance and of common sense, ferocity and humanity, the attention hitherto monopolized by the Legislative Assemblies. Some of the picturesque and grotesque episodes of the latter are, however, depicted. The love-making ot the time is illustrated by a curious pi— -n'-al courtship, and by Madame Rolando pi. -on letters to Buzot. . „ Mr Augustine Birrell s "Miscellanies, a collection of literary lectures and essays published a few years ago, has speedily been rewarded with the honour of a second edition. Everything that Mr Bin ell writes is impressed with scholarship, with easy gracefulness, and a charming individuality of manner. And his "Miscellanies " do not fall short in any of these respects from his "Obiter Dicta "' or his "Res Judicatae. He ranges at v.ill from a brilliant appreciation , of John Weslev to hi» "Ideal Commons. 4.ud whether he is discussing James Anrhoii' Frotide. Robert Browninjr. or Walter Bacshot, we (Sunday Sun) find him ever the well-equipped and perfect literary critic. We are glad, then, to have his second edition of "Mescellanies," produced with all the simple taste of good print and wide margins whioh befits the i.ublisher who for so many years devoted a grrat deal of his energy to issuing to the world the works of John Rus- — Mr John Murray is within siarht of the completion of his upw fine and valuable edition of Byron. - Mr Prothero's part, the prose, was. finished four months ago: and , Mr E H. Coleridge had come to tho penulun.ate volume of the poetry. Ono more volume., to contain "Don Juan," will brinpr the work to its «nece=i=f"l end. The present volume, the fifth of ihe poetry. include 1 ! F.vron's poetic d«-pn>s" — "f*arclanapahis," "The Two "Fo^-ar!.'' "Oin " "H-iivn and Faith." "Wrrnrr." and "Thf Deformed Xian-Joraied." ttt&fitL&i- with. '• Xfce Ace of

Bronze," and "The Island." And all these together made only part of two years' work, which included also ten cantos .of "Don Juan," "The Vision of Judgment," "The Blues," and "The Irish Avatar," besides minor poems. Poets are less- prolifio now. " Cair> " was dedicated to Sir Walter Scott, and " Sardanapalus " and "Werner" to ' the illustrious Goethe." But though both those eminent makers and judges of literature admired Byron's poetic dramas prodigiously, Mr Coleridge suspects that the world does not and will not read them. "Proof is impossible," he says, "but the impression remains that the greater part of this volume has been passed over and left unread hy at least two generations of readers." Yet the admiration of these mighty contemporaries was sincere, nor was Goethe beguiled hy the dedication. He admired "Heaven and Earth " most of all, and that was not dedicated to him. He told Crabb Robinson he preferred this "mysterf" to all the other serious poems of Byron, and thought a bishop might have written it ! — a German bishop, perhaps, suggests Mr Coleridge. ! HALL CAINE'S MOST PLEASANT RECOLLECTION. During Mr Hall Caine's visit to America he had some most interesting experiences, which, if rumour speaks aright, will enlighten the pages of his forthcoming novels. While in New York the author of "The Christian " expressed a wish to see glimpEes of life on the Bowery. A noted guide, in the person of "Chuck" Conors, was chosen — one of the last of the Bowery boys. One morning Chuck Conors ■ received a letter from the great author, whom he now calls "Me fren, de swell writer/ asking him to be his guide. Chuck did not at the time know of the high position held hy Hall Came, nor if he did would he have treated him with any more respect than any one of the hundreds of English visitors he shows round during a year. Together the author siid the Bowery boy visited Chinatown. Here, before the eye of the author, was presented a sight whioh is seldom seen in any other town in the world. A city of dark, dark shadows — New Yorkt's most •flagrant menace. When dawn broke, Mr Hall Came returned to his hotel, the guide to sleep in his tenement house — the one to think of what he had seen, the other to dream of the £2 he had received from "me fren, de swell writer." "Chuck Conors's personality haunted me." said the author a few days later, "and again I returned to Chinatown to renew an acquaintance with one of the most original characters it has ever been my fortune to meet. We have nothing in England, not even the coster monger, to equal the type. Chuck Conors will he one of my most pleasant recollections."