LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2604, 10 February 1904, Page 69

LITERARY NOTES.

— A fine &et of the. Four Folios of Shakespeare cannot now be bought for less than £2500. and even for a poor set £1000 would be a low prio>&. The. reprinto of the Folios, which Messrs M&thu&n. are. preparing, will be at tho ooTimand of smaller purse's. A thousand copies of each Folio are> to b& printed in pure linen paper, and 750 copies of the four will be sold in sots at 12gs net. Of the- First Folio, 250 copies are being sold separately at 4gs net, and there are 250 eets of the Second, Third, and Fourth Folios at 10gs net.

— I see, snjg "The Bookworm," of the Academy, the advertisement of a reprint of "la Memoriam," which is to be accompanied by "a running commentary and copious annotations." Is* it not about time that the "commentator" loft the poor poem and poor poet alone? In ono year — 1901 — no fewer than three "commentaries" on "In Memoriam" were publifihed. One was by A. O. Bradley, another by L. Morel, the third by W. Robinson. In the previous year ■Canon Beeehing had given ue an "analysis" of the poem, with notes In 1888, Mrs Elizabeth R. Chapman came out with a "Companion" to the work. In 1891 there was a new edition of the well-known' analysis (1862) which ?et all tha other analysts at work. There are, no doubt, etanzas in "In Memoriam" which are not absolutely pellucid ; but surelj*, even the typical man in the etreet would not need all the assistance which the commentators insist upon forcing upon readers.

— A notable book of travel ie Mr Douglas Freshfield's narrative of travel in the Himalaya. Ranges — "Round Kangchenjunga," published by Edward Arnold. Mr Frefthfiold's new volume is more than a record for climbing, though it is descriptive of the first tour of one of tho monarohe of the Himalayas, . Kangchenjunga. It deals with the geological and glacial aspects of the great group of mountains of which K&ngchenjunga is the central height. It describes with the accuracy and the enthusiasm of a veteran climber the splendid scenery of the gorges and highlands of Sikhim and Eastern Nepal. Mr Freshfield declares that nowhere on the earth has lie found so entrancing a combination of beauty and sublimity. For his illustrations of the mountains he is indebted to his oompanion Signor Vittoria Sella, whose skill as a photographer of alpine scenery is world-known. Among other matters touched upon in hii3 narrative is the Thibetan frontier question.

— Mr Israel Zangwill began life as a teacher in an East End board sohool,_ but an amusing adventure led to his resignation of that not very lucrative- post. He had had some- local success among his coreligionists in Whiteohap&l with a penny etory written in collaboration with a fellow teacher, and essayed anoth&r work, this timein poetry On this occasion his collaborator did no literary world, but sallied forth at night ith some bills, a pot of paste, and a brush, and proceeded to spread the light on other people's hoardings. He was caught and arrested, and thus tho whole story cam© out, and the school committee told the young teacher that he must publish nothing more without their approval. Naturally thie was too much for Mr Zangwill, and he threw up the post there and then. A delightful example of Mr Zangwill's style of humour is to be found in the preface to his second 1 bock, "The Bachelors' Olub," in whioh he earnestly assures the publio that the work "does not libel any of the existing baohelors' clubs in particular, but all the others." He winds up by acknowledging his ind&btedness to his friend and fellowbachelor, Mr M. E. Eden, and adds : "Whatever the reader or critic doos not like in this work, Mr Eden suggested." Now that he is married, Mr Zangwill may ba lees in sympathy with bachelors. He may even — who knows? — be reformed of his bad habit of wearing a eoft felt hat with a frock coat. — A writer in the New York Critic has been unburdening his soul on the subject of "Linguistic Laziness." We are bad enough over here, but after reading thi>3 article we feel that Wi> are almost beyond 1 reproach. The write* says: — ". . . . Tho lazieefe of all lazinesses is the praotico of coming unnecessary new words. It might havo been supposed that, whin there i<s already in existence a" word which exactly denote? the idea to be expressed, it would be easier to fall back upon this wore 1 than k> invent another. In. fict, however, it oftem _ requires less effort to conslruot a linguistic monstrosity than to find the term that has been consecrated by good usage. Take, for instance, such words as ' extinguishment,' 'revealment,' 'withdrawnaent,' 'devotement,' 'denotement,' and 'etartlememt.' It is not : difficult to Iraoo the mental process. The ; word 'extinguish' was in the speaker's mind. Ha wanted a noun, and to stick 'rn&nt' on to the vorb was an expedient nearer to hand than the searoh for 'extinction.' Occasionally the qufek change is frorr the noun to the -\erb When r. man cays 'to adminie-

trate,' wo may be sure Miat ho first though b of 'administration,' and that he was then in too great a hurry to notice that the analogy with such p.ihs as 'celebrate' and 'celebration' would mislead him. If ono wore making a collection of linguistic curios one might add to it such exhibits as 'propellation,' 'affirmance,' 'clientage,' 'reminiscential,' 'moveless,' 'traditionary,' 'leieuristic,' 'un^ympathy,' and 'bishoply.' In tho mind of the offender there seems almost to be lurking a kind of predatory fak-e analogy which grabs at his expressions and distorts them before he can help himself." Some of these words are really wonderful, particularly "devotemont" and "startlement." — The story of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper is a familiar one. It was started in 1842 as a twopenny journal. Ten years later its founder, Edward Lloyd, approached Dougla3 Jorrclcl and asked if lie would undertako the- editoiship. Jerrold hesitated, and wanted timo for consideration. Wpll, said Lloyd, there was one thing they had not disci-sod, and that was tliO' matter cf terms ; be was prepared to offer Jerrold £1000 a year. Jerrold accepted the offer, and fiom the spring of 1852 until the time of his death, on June 8, 1857, he edited the paper with close attention and unfailing \igour. The extent to which Jerrold really edited' the paper on which he put his name is to be seen from contemporary records of his position. In the "English Cyclopaedia" of the fifties it was said, ''For three or four years Mr Jerrold has been the editor of Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, a journal of so enormous a circulation that its conduct involves t tremendous moral responsibility.

. . . . Its present sxiccess, compared with its previous position, is one of the many proofs that the largest number of readers are not to bo propitiated by what has been falsely considered as essential to popularity — to write clown to an imaginary low intellectual level." Another contemporary, referring immediately after Jprrold's death, to fiis connection with Lloyd's, declared that he had found 1 the- paper in the gutter and annexed it to literature. All of whioh goes to show that Douglas J&Told was — beeidea boiii~g a notable writer in various departments of literature — a practical journalist of acknowledged power. Certainly be was one to whom it would hare been impossible to lend his name where he was not prepared to add also the individual work whioh alone made that name of value. — T. P.'s Weekly.

— Mrs de Crcepigny is the author of the third volume in the- First Novel Se-riee, "From Behind tlie> Arras," arid is th« firet of the contributors to that series to publish a second novel, and the many critics and readers who were interested in her first essay in fiction will be curious io see* this second venture. Her new book 1 , "Th& Mischief of a Glove," deals with Jie adventures of a man and a maid in th© terrible bigoted days of Mary I of England, when heresy was a to be expiated at the etake. The heroine, daughter of a wild and reckless squire, is of a kir/dred soul to her father, and, in opposition to him, assists her lover as a heroine should in n any hairbreath escapes, being saved in the end) from a position of deadly peril by the news of Queen Mary's death, and Elizabeth'e accession, whereby a Protestant's life was tit once inviolate. Before publishing her first novel, Mi's d& Orespigny wrote a great deal for the magazines, and contributed to Golf some 50 sets of verses, humorous andpathetic, foi she knows the tragedy oi" the ehort putt missed and the rerrino drive that ran into the burn.. Beyond her writing she is an aitist, and held an exhibition in 1903 in Bond stroet, her forte being the portrayal of nautical, and more particularly naval, subjects. She is a firm believer in the correlation of the arts, and believes one may advantageously apply the same principles to the construction of a novel as to the painting of a picture. — Mainly About Books.