LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2541, 26 November 1902, Page 69

LITERARY NOTES.

— The next volume in Mr Fisher Unwin's "First Novel Library" is an historical romance called "'Behind the Arras," the scene of which is laid in France in the early eighteenth century ; and the author who thus makes a literary debut it Mrs Philip Champion De Crespigny, who has already made a considerable reputation as «n artist.

— Lord Tennyson, Governor of South Australia since 1899, and Acting-Governor-general, who has just celebrated his fiftieth birthday, was educated at Marlborough, and Trinity College, Cambridge, and for over 20 years acted as private secretary to iiis father. On his own account, Lord Tennyson has contributed articles aud poems to different magazines, has edited Charles Turner's "Collected Sonnets" and "Poems by Two Brothers," and five years ago published "Alfred Lord Tennyson — a Memoir." He is the owner of some valuable pictures. —In my earty life I had t- passionate fondness for the .poetry of Burns. I have sometimes foolishly hoped to ingratiate myself with his countrymen by expressing it. But I have always found that your true Scot resents your admiration of his compatriot, even more than he would your ~j;ateznDt for him. The latter h» imoutes

to your "imperfect acquaintance with many of the words which he uses" ; and the same objection makes it a presumption in you to suppose that you can admire him. — Charles Lamb.

"—.lt is not very well known that the Poet Laureate who succeeded Lord Tennyson is also a man of law as well as a man of letters. Mr Alfred Austin, five years after his pen had first introduced him to the world of letters, was called to the Bar at Inne" Temple, and old journalists in the north (remarks the St. James's Gazette) still remember his occasional appearances in the courts of the Northern Circuit. At that time, however, Mr Austin had already written several poems and published a novel, and after half a dozen years of lawyer's li's he left the courts for sunny Italy, where he made up his mind to address himself through books to the public rather than through briefs to judges and juries.

—Mr W. Roberts has lately been burrowing into the history of "Bookia That Have Failed," with the help of the reminder catalogues of Bohn and some more modern booksellers. ' Perhaps the most tragic incident in it is the story of Lord Kingsborough's "Mexico." It cost its author more than £32,000 to produce, and got him into difficulties with his paper manufacturer, who had him arrested for debt in Dublin. When thrown into gaol he caught typhus fever, and died in a few days, a true martyr to the love of completeness. The book was published at £140, and can now bo had <6ays Mr Roberts) for £35.

— Rolf Boldrewood, the leading Australian novelist, who has just entered on his seventy-seventh year, has not been in good health of late. As * boy he was in Melbourne when it was only a hamlet of- 100 houses. He has lived to see it develop into one of the greatest cities of the Empire, and he is spending the evening of his life in its most fashionable suburb. Mr T. A. Browne, as Rolf Boldrewood's name is in real life, enjoys a pension for 20 years' service as an Australian stipendiary, coroner, and goldfields warden. His earliest efforts appeared in the Cornhill of the sixties, but he had contributed many stories to the Australian weeklies before. "Robbery Under Arms" revealed him to the Englishreading public He is a native of Thomas Hardy's oouo/ty.

—In literature, as in actual life, virility — sheer strength — redeems much. We read Hazlitt to-day because of his virility and sheer strength. In his life there was- much that was distinctly unpleasant and more than a little that was positively disgusting. His strength, courage, hearty enjoyment of ■things enabled him to pass through all his various experiences and escapades with hardly any loss of dignity. And so in his writings he manages to communicate to us his immense joy in living, compels us to delight in the things that delight him. He talked out of the fulness of his heart: painting, drama, the conversation of his friends, the writings of his enemies — nothing came amiss to him so long as it was solid and he could take hold of it. — Saturday Review.

— " An Australian Girl in London" is the title of a new work which is about to be issued by Louise Mack (Mrs J. P. Creed), a writer who has won for herself in Australia no small reputation by her contributions both in prose and verse. The book takes the form of a series of letters from the Australian girl to her friends at the antipodes. Starting- from Sydney, she . describes, with vivid touches, her impressions of the voyage to the Old World, and the ports and'pedple seen en*, routes Arriving in London, she brings a fresh eye to the vision of the great city, finding material for sprightly humour in scenes both familiar and unfamiliar. Life "in a * Bloomsbury boardinghouse is quaintly pictured, and London parks, London skies, London streets and houses take a new aspect under her facile pen. At the present juncture, when the question of the strength of the links of the Imperial chain has become so important, these expressions of the antipodean point of view should have a peculiar interest.

— Admirers of the poems of the Key. Dr Walter Smith — and they must be many even in these days when thoughtful verso stands a comparatively poor chance of finding a hearing — will be gratified (says the Westminster Gazette) to learn that a collected edition of his work in one volume is to be published by Messrs Dent. It is 41 years since the doctor made his debut as an author with his volume. "The Bishop's Walk and the Bishop's Times" — a work which he followed up some years later by the better known "Olrigr Grange," which, like his "Hilda Among tho Broken Gods," has run into several editions. Among others to whom the thought pervading all his poems has specially appealed is Mr J. M. Barrie, who, in his sprightly "Edinburgh Eleven," has written a warm appreciation of the famous preacher. Dr Smith, it may be recalled, celebrated his ministerial jubilee not so long ago. The new one-volume edition of his poems will contain numerous corrections ana additions, and will further be enriched by a portrait of the author.

—In the New Liberal Review, Mr Churton Collins shows that a very large percentage of our pithiest sayings are the wit and wisdom of ancient Greece and Rome. "His baric is worse than his bite" is as old as Quintus Curt ius, who himself cites it as a proverb. "Heis a wise child that knows his own father" is from a passage in the "Odessey," where Telemacnus cays, "My

mother indeed says that- I am -his [child]*; for myself I know not, for never man yel knew his own' father." -"A' rolling stond gathers no moss" is simply the translation of a Greek verse, "more" being substituted for "seaweed." To Aristotle we owe "One swallow does not .make spring," but even Aristotle quotes it as a proverb. "Familiarity breeds contempt" is taken literallyfrom the Latin version of a sentence ""ia Plutarch's "Morals," "Nimia familiaritaa conteinptum parit." "D» inortuis nihil nisi bonum" is from. Plutarch's "Life o£ Solon," where, speaking of Solon as ~ a legislator, he says, "That law is also justly commended which. forbids men to speak ill of the dead; for piety requires us to consider the dead, as sacred." "The receiver is as .bad as the thief" is a translation .of a hexameter verse of Phocylides. ' "Better late than never I . we owe to Dionysiua of Palicarnassus, "It is better *to begin . late doing our duties than never.". "Tread upon a worm and it will turn" is tho Latin "Habet et mueca splenem." /'Set a thier to catch a thief" is Gate's saw, - "Ars de^ , luditur art©." "An old bird is not caught with chaff " is but "Annoea vulpes haud capitur laqueo " ('/An old fox is not caught with a snare"). "Coals to Newcastle. is the exact equivalent of "Owls to Athens."