LITERARY NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 2661, 15 March 1905, Page 73

LITERARY NOTES

■» — Colonel Henderson, who attained fo lruch eminence as a military writer, left a posihumjus book dealing with "Tho Scence of War."' Tt has now been edited by Captain Xeil .Ma'colm. and will be published, with a 'ijonioir of the author by Earl Rr.beita. At the time cf his death Colonel Hender-o'; engaged on the official history of the South African war. — RepoiN of the disco\cry of a fir^t edition of tho poems of Robert Burn* conic fi'im Avstral'a. It belongs to a Scotchman j Hfin'od Gardner, an old lc^dent of the- ' Ri\er!na district of Xew South Wale*;, \\h.> 10 years ago met a =swa?man camped under a bridjja reading tho b<) >k Xecdle=3 to say, the svvigman was wU ; ng to i,&rt wuii

ib for a «ir, ill monetary ronsicc.i.W-" 1 . M* (iard'icr. on bo-no; informed tha* c- oony _oi th« boelz uas recently sold in Pai'lov 01 5:1000, «iLI he would "ot part with hieo t jy at any price. —■ A niirr> I cr o f extracts from Thcieav. = l--r-\ ate journal, in 39 manuscript -. sue io 'inp. ir n forthcoming n im'ucrs ci the Atlantic Mo th'v. Mr Bmdford T( r. ?" l- cditin * 'r"»e i.^lti'nirpts. Xc f-ay=? c< re mine; th - d!ar;. "Tf a man Is cuf/ju: <o kiio v v '■■at -urli .vi original. pl'<:n-s-;.gI:'" ", . r. n if~cf on *r j-ir-r. cmontion ue«>pi-in.*. (lo .na-di-.b-Mievinq, wl-c'om-lovin v . -ham hating. X^'m " i -»\o-ship;Mii7. poicrtypit'ud ivn« In the 1 hnbit of confini:iS[ to so pattent .i l;-tcier <<t tho c!^=r of the c'aj . he ha^ only to roa r l th- journil."' — Mr Edmund Downey, who ha- \\ nfcton n.any novels und-er the norn de sruerre or "F. M. Allen,"' hi= finished a volume of roimni~-c^n< cb i»2itill<-d "Tv.-ot.tv Years Ago," which M-ssr? Hurst srd B!ackott I>rac in preparation io: . arly publication. Twenty year& age — befoic ho smarted the publishing hou?-e of "Ward and Downey — • Mr Downey was li-hi-hand man to Mr Wm. TiJislcy, who. In hi-* "Rpndo-n Recollections of a a Old Publisher," c'aims io have given Mr Downey hi? fir-t insight into iitersry London life. The Tiijslcy Brothers wore connected v.nb iianv int-prc-siin 5 people, and Mr Downey hs.s hrcr-abt ma->y of the-e into his forthcoming- recollections. — Where, inquires JL- .lame' Douglas, in the Ix>n don Star, are th" bards of yesteryear? Here is .a list cf tho ch-Jr :—"William "Watson, John Davidson. Richr.rr^ "La Gallicnr.e, Stcoh°n Phillips. L-icn-pl Johnson, Francis C'outts, Ernest Dcvi-son. "Lav.--rrnco B:nyon. Norman Grl?. Arthur C Benson, Frincis Thompson. A. K. Poii^eman, Arthur Symoii', Jo T m Gray. "A> E.,"' W. B. \eats, Mrs Me;, noil. Mr- Morgaier v. "Woods, Katharine Tynan, Z.lrs Marriott Watson, E. Nesbit. Dora Siqjorson. Xora Hopper. Olive distance, Mr and Mrs Ernest Radford. Most of thc*o ar<- still alive and voe?J, but th^y have not fulfilled the rosy promise of 20 years ago. Some frost has niprced their bourgeoning. What is it? — The Seotti'h people are becom ; ng very diligen*- in the eelcbrat'on of literary centenaries, particularly of min-ur v.-rilers cf prose and verse. But then Scotia nc 1 has had many men who=o writings arc wanting in th© morr important elements of permanency, and who vet served helpfully their own generation and some of its successors. Among these is John Mr.ckay Wil^-on, who p!ai no:l the "Tales of the Borders," but did not live to se" the completion of even th© first volume cf a work that was long the favourite literary food of rural Scotland, and even now is far from fcrsjotten. Ithas bee-i claimed for Wilson that he is tho real Father of the Kailyard. That is hsrdly a. claim that is likely to raise him iti the eyes of the moderns, but it nrusi; be siicl that he was <i much n:ore robust vrii-er than most of those who have in re-cent years come within tho seoce of Mr Henley's huppv appellation. — The Rev." R. -T. Campbell, says theWestminster Gawtt-?. has been making hia apparanoe as a Xe.v Vagabond (not ar rho City Temple), and speaking in culogry of MiHall Ca'ii?, wLom hs prefers by 1-cng- chalks to Mr George Mer-jdiih, though Mr Came would be all the bettrr for a little W. W. JfU'ob.sein humour. One wonders Mr Camptell did not drop into poetry ; perhaps we may do r o for him — I like Hall C?ine. his sort of myth Ts r.ot a bit 'ike Meredith. His books, I think, are siiup!y grand, A little child could understand. Yefc even so I sometimes wish For something missing from th<- clisli; Ancl thet there was the humour titie Of Jacobs — Double TT. »So, Master, when you'ie next a>t Iprge, Go visit " Beauity and the Barge." Sirce Homer nods, let Shakespeai - s se "Xo "aim but affability." — Another Browning; book to be- issuoell this year is Mr W. Ball Griffin's monograph cr- tha poet. Somo idea of the -Rork is furnishod in the article "Robert Browning and Alfred Domett,"' contributed by Mr Griffin to the euri-?.it Contemporary. Having made a sj>ecjal study of Browninsr's conueetion with South London. Mr Griffin will make clear some disputed points concerning tho poet's early life, and he will present many fresh facts relafng to his friend= and his cliff ere-it res.dences in London — Southampton strep-t, Xew C^oss, and Warwick crescent. Alfred Domett, the original of Waring in "Bells and Pomegranates." i+ is not generally known, was a Camberwell man, pnd attended for a time the «amr- school in Peckham as the poeL Mr Griffin has no doubt that the school was thr.fc in whi.-h Goldsmith was for a short time an ush«r\ Domett published a volume of ver=e in 1833, and one of his contributions to Blackwood's before he left; England for Xew Zealand in 18-1-2 elicited praise from Christopher Xort'i —An obvious achievement of womenwriters which no man can equal with such certainty is the exposition of female pasfion. XDharlotte Bronte leaps to one's mind; so dors tha Portuguese Xun : so does Mademoiselle, de Lespinasse. That apart, we should find the greatest distinction of women writers in a note of comedy at once fine, ligtu. and meiciless. Mr Meredith has laid it down that good comedy can exist onl3- ;n; n a =ocie-ty which contains cultivated women. However that may be, cultivated women have achieved written) comedy of a peculiar delicacy and point. Of its kind the comedy of Jane Austen is incomparable. It is utt?rly merciless. Prancing victims of their illusions, her men ond wom?n are utterly bare to our under* standing, and th"ii- gyrations are irresistibly comic. There is no explaining awfy, no invitat'on to a pathetic view; she is as free from that a* Mjliere himself. That, no d-TuLl, would not be enough for a feminine note. . But Miss Austen does not stand alone, though «he stands unapproaehed of her sex. It is lamentably true that contemporary womea writers are mostly in. dead earnest, or that they cannot Lo earnest and amusing a' 5 well. — Times.