LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2515, 28 May 1902, Page 66

LITERARY NOTES.

— A new edition of Scott's "Minstrehv of the Scottish Border," to be edited by" Mr T. F. Henderson, in four volumes, is announced by Messrs Blackwood. No revised or critical edition has appeared since Lockhart'e some 70 years ago.

- — Few men know more about the Bohemian side of life in London than Mr Joseph Hatton. He has written a great deal about the subject. In a novel he has recently finished, entitled "A Vision of Beauty," he gives pen-portraits of many men with familiar names who have distinguished themselves in journalism and art. The book is to be published shortly by Messrs Hutehinson.

—Dr Margaret Todd's new novel, "The Way of Escape," about to be published by the Messrs Blackwood, is likely to be one of the most prominent works of fiction issued this spring. The following are the lines on the title-page: — The Moving Finger writes, and, having writ, Moves on; not all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash, out a Word of it.

— Mr Grant Richards is beginning a new series, entitled "Music in the Nineteenth Century Series," the inaugural volume of which will shortly be published under the title "English Music in the Nineteenth Century," by J. A. Fuller Maitland. The aim of the book is to give in a brief space an account, as exhaustive as possible, of theprogress of music and of musical knowledge in tho nineteenth century in England. Future volumes will deal with the development of nmsiic in other countries.

— Tolstoi and Howells, and Whitman and Kipling, and Zola and Hauptmann and Gorky have all written descriptions of "democratic" life ; but none of these celebrated authors, not even Jlaupa(=<,ant himself, has co absolutely taken us inside the life as do Henry Lawson's tales "Joe Wilson's Courtship" and "A Double Buggy at Lahey's Ci'eek." And it is this rare, convincing tone of this Australian writer that gives him a great value now, when 49 out of 50 Anglo-Saxon writers aro insisting on not describing the cla^s they were born in, but straining their necks and their outlooks in order to describe the- life of the class -which God has placed beyond them. — Academy. — The Week-End calls attention to the number of our clever authoresses who are either the wives or the daughters of clergymen. Mia Harrison ("Lucas Malet"), whoso lateat novel, "Sir Richard Caimady," was undoubtedly the book of last year, is tho widow of a clergyman, though few readers of that very pronoiinced fctory might suspect, it. Mrs L. T. Meade is the daughter and Mrs Craigie the grand-daughter of a clergyman. Mrs B. M. Croker, too, i- a daughter of an Irish and Mist Mary Cholmondley of an English rector.

— "Maxwell Gray," the author of "The Pilence of Dean Maitland" and otlicr wellknown works of fiction, has been telling a King interviewer that it would not matter much if no more novels were written for the next 50 yearn. She ih not alone> by any means in this opinion. "People." she said, "write too many novels now, and they write hastily and badly." And- again: "Novelwriting has become a. trade ; h is no longer an art. Writers oug'it not to live by literature. It fchould be a staff, not a crutch. The moment an art is pursued for gam it its lost."

— Considerable interest is being taken in Athens in t-ho literary performances of Prince Nicholas, the third son of King George. He appears from all accounts to be a playwright of great talent and promise, and some of his works have gained him considerable distinction. Two of hie comedies, which are said to bo exceedingly witty, have been particularly successful, ono of them being awarded the first iprize in a competition and tho other being produced with great success at the Royal Theatre of Athen«. In the latter case he did not acknowledge his authorship till the success of the piece was assured. •

— Genius springs not from race, but from personality, that moeo inscrutable of all mysteries. Speculations as to the part played by race in the evolution of genius from personality are almost always idle. What had race to do with the evolution of Keats, or Shelley, or Burns, or Coleridge? The truth is that in the higher altitudes of poetic genius race is nearly eliminated. The poet in hi= loftiest moods touched the goal towards which humanity is blindly stumbling. He soars above material trammels into the unimaginable realm where spirits differ only in the intensity of their vision. Poetry is cosmopolitan even when it wears the -garb of a national dialect. — -Athenaeum.

— The anonymous author of that successful parody, "The Letters of her Mother to Elizabeth." bars lately finished a sequel, which is called "The Grandmother's Advice to Elizabeth." It is to be issued by Mr Fisher Unwin in the same style as the first volume. Of the "Mother's" letters some 60.000 copies were sold in Groat Britain, while in America the sale was very much larger. The author has also completed a long novel, to be entitled "A Girl of the Multitude." The heroine is the extraoralInary character known as Eglce, mentioned by the Comto de Beugnot in his Memoirs. — The author of "Ships that PabS in tho Night"' and •'The Fowler'" is 38. Miss Beatrice Harraden is an exceedingly wellread and well-travelled woman. Few object? of interest escape her vigilant eye, and she ha« a habit of storing up the exciting eveute of Jier foreign tours for the benefit of the family circle. Her education was undertaken by tho tutors of many colleges — Dresden, Cheltenham College, Queen's College, Bedford College,— and eventually she graduated B.A. Ac London University. She has done a great amount of work for Cassoll's, besides writing many books. Tho t^o things ehe is most fond of are music and travelling, i . — Mr Holman Hunt, who, although well advanced in his seventies, looks much | younger, has for come time past been en- | imaged writing his reminiscences, in which ! he will recount the story of his early assoi ciation with Mtflais at a time when neither 1 had much thought of Pre-Ra-phaelkm. The two young painters first met in the Academy Schools, and Holman Hunt frequently spent days and nights in Millais'i studio. As the only survivor of the little group of painters who founded the Pre-Raphaelite movement, Mr Hunt's book will, of comw. contain much that is of interest in than connection. — A new novel by Lucas Cloevc, entitled " Blue Lilies," was published by Mr T. Fisher T'nwin in April in his Colonial Library. The timo of the novel is 1900, and the heroine is a rich and fascinating person, mho leaves her husbajid's roof on account of his unfaithfulness. She takes the castle of an impecunious young nobleman, whose poverty is due to the disappearance of the will made by his predecessor in his favour. Unaware of his identity, tho heroine engages him as her head gardener, and in the relations of mistress and servant they drift delicately into love. Here are the germs of :» romance which makes very pleasant reading. It is delicately treated by the author, who works out the plot with skill until the successful ending is accomplished. — Long ago («ayo Mr Andrew Lang, m the Morning Post) Mr Thorold Rogers wrote the familiar couplet : While ladling butter from their mutual tubs, Stubbs praises Freeman, Freeman praises Stubbs. This would really have been, or, at least, might have been interpreted as ''logrolling," the applause being reciprocal. But then the applause, as a matter of fact, was r.ot reciprocal. Mr Frcomin was a re\iewer; he admired Mr Stubbs's work (which was admirable) and said so. But then Mr Stubbs was not a reviewer, and was not writing things about Mr Freeman. When the attention of tho satirist was invited to these oircumstancos he vrvy candidly and amiably altered his couplet, it i& said, to this : While half concealed behind the paper screen, The blustering Freeman praises blundering Green. In the new instance both men were, on occasion, reviewer*. They were also friends, their work lay in similar fields, and perhaps not very many reviewers *nad knowledge enough to criticise either of them. — The late Mr R. S. Gardiner, of whom Sir John Seelcy declared that hp wae "the only historian who has trodden the controversial ground of sevonteenth-century English political history with absolute fairness and impartiality," was responsible for an extraordinary amount of literary work. Some i idea of its extent (^ays the Westminster Gazette) is afforded by the catalogue of tho British Museum, where nearly 50 entries appear under his name — a goodly record in any case, but specially remarkable considering the special character of his work. One of the few entries relating to works of other than peculiarly hif.torioa.l interest is lna Introduction to an edition of Browning s "Strafford." Mr Gardiner was. of couiso, chiefly known by his great History, but. like other specialists, he did a vast amount of work of which little wa* known except by a comparatively limited circle His contributions to the Camden Society's series may be cited in illustration of this. For this f-ociety ho edited, eiiher alone or in •collaboration with other writers. 14- or 15 volumes, for tho mo.-t part relating to thrt period of our hi.-tory which he made his own— the =e\enteenth century; and in addition to tl-r=e ho had a 1,,0 in preparation fiy" more volumes, which now. of cour-e. will have to be undertaken by other hands. That sccieiy will certainly mios him.

I —In a recent issue of the British Bee Journal, Mr F. W. L. Sladen raises the question whether bees can hear. The ! author claims to have discovered that the so-called Naesanoff's organ — the membrane between the fifth and j-ixth don-al segments of the., worker- — is really a scent-producing organ, and that this scent forms a means of communication between bees. He further .suggests that be^s have cngrni=nnce only of tao well-known '" hum/ and do net recojg-