LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2663, 29 March 1905, Page 77

LITERARY NOTES.

— The- shilling edition of Mark Hatherford's books, which Mr Fisher Unwm rercntly brought; out, was a striking success. Ho means to follow it up with uniform ■volumes of some other works of fiction 1 aving more than an ephemeral interest. They will include "Trooper Peter Halket" and "Dreams," by Olive Schreiner; "Love and the Love Hunters," by "John Oliver Hobbes," and Mr Crockett's "Stickit Minister."

—Mr Unwiii is publishing in his Colonial Library a new book by Mr Thomas Cobb entitled " Sophy Bunco." The largepublic which enjoys this writer's novels will find this, his latest, no less fascinating than its predecessors It recounts the adventures of a beautiful flower girl, who is adopted and educated by an artist. She becomes surrounded by many admirers, and her story forms a singularly engaging book which is likely to appeal especially, though not exclusively, to women readers.

— An English edition of Professor Weisma&n's "Evolution Theory" is issue i by Mr Arnold in two volumes. It ha* been tianslated from the second German edition (1904), with the author's co-operation, by Professor Thomson, of Aberdeen "University, snd Mrs Thomson. Professor Thomson describes the work as ono of "compelling interest, the fruit of a lifetime of observation and reflection, a veteran's judicial summing up of his results, and certainly one of the most important contributions to Evolution literature since- Darwin s day."

— Mr John Murray (says the Tatler) has been telling an interviewer in the Pail Mall Gazette that there is to be "no final life of Byron so long as he can prevent it.'' and he goes on to say that all the people can reasonably ask about Byron is contained in the last authorised edition of his works ecited by Mr Prothero and Mr Ernest Coleridge. But this is not the opinion of Lord Lovelace, Byron's grandson, if it be true, as they say, that he. will shortly pnbhsh his version of the quarrel between Lord Byron and his wife. — We talk of "booms" in fiction, but is there any living writer whose books are. likely to reach a sale of four million copies? Taking- one edition and another, that, according to the Book Monthly, is now Mis Henry Wood's record with the two rirms who, in succession, have issued her stones. It. does not, of course, include any editions of those volumes by her which have gone out of copyright. "East Lynne,'" as night be supposed, is a long way first, its circulation being near the million. Seeon 1 in vogue comes "The Ohanning?," and a ir.od third is mad© by "Mrs Halhburtcn's Troubles."

— It has eves' been the fashion to laugh at literary critics for the varying verdicts ihev pronounce upon the books they are. called upon to review. Is this iiist? Would r.ct the wonder be if they did not differ in their judgments? Criticism is not an rx.iet science, it is an art, and art is but iho expression of the- artist's emotion, be he man of letters or painter. Just as two painters wil] see with different ©yes the same landscape, so will two critics road •with different mental vision the same book. Clitics do not vary in their opinions of modern works only, but also in those thr-y hold of clabsics, differing in th© littar cases more than they arc sometimes willine: to admit. What a fetish is .literary fashion ! Vv r ho dare confess that he. has ne-ver read "Paradise Lost"? That he cannot rtad Montaigne's "Essays" ? — Academy. — Mrs Craigie began her literary raro a r early. "I wrote my first story when T v<ts four years old," she said to a Westminstor Gazette representative the other clay. "I did my writing by dictation then, for I could not exactly hold a pen ! But £ remember that I used to tell my nurse long stories about anything. " Mrs Craigie-'s first novel, "Some Emotions and a Moral," vas published when she was 22. It was a great success. It was auickly followed by "The Sinner's Comedy " and "The School for Saints," which latter was probably the* most successful of all her novels. But Mrs Craigie has even a greater affection for "Robert Orange" and " The Serious Wooing." while the book that gave her most delight to write was her latest work. "The Vineyard." She is still at an ajye when many writers have just begun their career.

— This is the oentenary year of the deaih of Schiller, and th,© fact may be recalled that Burns and Schiller were born in the same year — 1759 — the one in January, the other in November. Carlyle made this observation when communicating with Goethe roncerning the translation into German of his "Life of Schiller." and boldly remarked: — "We English, especially we Scotch, love Burns more than any other poet for a hundred years." Goethe was dasposed _to encourage this Jove; but, whale accepting Carlyle's elevation of Burns 1o a like starry height with" Schiller, he recognised also that the two constellations belonged to wholly different hemispheres. Although Schiller survived Burns by nine y&ars, there- is no extant evidence that any of the ploughman's songs or poems had rea'ohed the author of "Wallenstein*' at Jena or Weimar. W. E. Henley was a r&al editor, *Qcf

he went through his copy with a pencil, amending and altering to his whim. Ho took infinite pains with a contribution which he saw to have the right "stuff ' in it ; but very frequently a new writer would scarcely recognise his own work when it appeared. He loved toying with the copy. Thus " 'tis.es" and " 'twases" were scattered promiscuously about the pages, and wore not necessarily the work of the writers themselves. He called his work of supervision "tickling up." His house was always open to his young men, and his counsel was always at their service. He had a "flair" for a likely man, whether he was 20 or 60. And he never hesitated to back his opinions by deeds. When Mr Kipling, failing an appreciative editor, sent him "Danny Deever," the first of the "Barrack Room Ballads," Henley wrote back saying he would take as many more of "that sort of stuff" as h-e oould get. The man who could appreciate genius so widely separate as that displayed by Mr Meredith, Mr Hardy, Mr Kipling, ani3 Mr Barrie must have had a broad mind. How generous and acute that was only those who served with him can understand to the full. — H. B. MarriottWatson, on "Mr Henley and the National Observer," in T. P.'s Weekly.

SWINBURNE: THE STNC4ER OF THE

SPRING TIDES.

My conversion to Swinburne was at Cambridge, and at a lecture upon Swinburne byMr Frederic Myers. The instrument of the sudden change was the end of "Tristram," recited in the deep, impassioned chant which I suppose Myers had learned from Tennyson. I can still hear the throb of the music and emotion deepening to the splendour of that imperishable close: — Nor where they sleep shall moon or sunlight shine. Nor man look down for ever; nono shall say Here once, or here, Tristram and Iseult lay; But peace they have that none may gain who live. And rest about them that no love can give, And over them, while death and life shall be, The light and sound and darkness of the sea.

And then came -the period, which most young men have parsed through, of intoxication, when we would hurl Swinburnian imprecations upon "whatever g-ocls may be," or in the interval between 'a football match and a hearty meal proclaim our thirst for annihilation to the unconspious stars.

Timo and the experience of sorrow wear down these earlier ardours : much of tha swinging stanzas appear in reality as rhetoric, or at best eloquence, rather than poetry; and much also is revealed as so detached, cold, and separate from "the labouring world" as to give the impression of a hard, inhuman glitter and brilliance — the brilliance of the Arabian Nights, the hardness and cruelty of the stories of fairyland.

But still the old spell in part remains; turning over tlie pages of th© Swinburne volumes recalls the fascination of the buoyancy and the passion, the sweeping waves cf eloquence, that violence of triumph and weariness which will make Swinburne always the singer of th© springtide, and only pass when youth has passed from the world.— G. F. Mastermann, in the Daily News.