LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2692, 18 October 1905, Page 78

LITERARY NOTES.

—It is announced in the Athenaeum that Messrs Hodges, Fig-gis, and Co., of Dublin, will publish shortly Mrs Dickinson's history of her brother Charles Stewart Par'neli. The truth of every word being guaranteed by the author (who is now revising hei book on the Anglesey coast), the book is likely to be of great interest. — The growth of the " Cameo Classics" continues satisfactorily. "The Beauties of Shakespeare," George Eliot's "Silas Marner," Lamb's "Esays of Eha," and AinsworLh's "Windsor Oast!e" arc now ready, completing the first dozen volumes of this remarkable sixpenny library, of which we are told that the sales have already reached 150,000 copies. — The New York Tribune quotes an interesting note of Browning's which was written to Lady Dilke, and is reproduced in her husband*- just-published memoir of her : — As lor news, 1 have none. We are all reading the "Life of Dickens*' and admiring his sensitiveness at having brushed shoes and trimmed gallipots in his early days, when — did he see with (he eyes of oerta-in of his sagest friends — it was the best education imaginable for the like of him. Shall I versify? In Dickens, sure, philosophy was lacking, Since of calamities he counts the crowning, That, young, »h© had too much to do with Blacking, Old he had not enough to do with B g. — B. B. —No doubt, James Maopherson was, practically speaking, a fraud, and the Celtic poems he produced were pure imitations. This can be said withotit reservation, but the mere fact of our being able to say so is a kind of satire upon the critics of the early part of the nineteenth and tbe latter part of the eighteenth century. Shortly after they cams out, the poems of Macpherson tvere translated into German, .French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Danish, Swedish, Polish, -and Russian. The German critics, especially, took him as seriously as he took himself. The poet "Voss ' exclaimed—"What is the use of beauty in Nature? The Scotsman Ossian is a greater poet than the lonian Homer." Klopstock held practically the same opinion, and even Goethe at first was blinded to the real character ot the poetry. — Academy. —We cannot help thinking (says the Montreal Witness of August 22) the disillusionment of Mr Henry James in his native land almost pathetic, though perhaps not unnatural. Before leaving England, which he did with a light heart, it was said that ho had become more and more Americanised as years rolled on. He had thoroughly idealised the men, women, and life of his own country in his bcoks, and now this from the Tribune: — "Mr Henry James is going 1 back to England inext month, and his book on his recent impressions of America will probably appear early next year. It will, no doubt, be welcomed with much curiosity, for marly of Mr James's countrviven believe lhat he is too much out of sympathy with his native land to write of it impartially and with understanding." — The 15th of September is the seventysixth birthday of a very great man — General Porfirio Diaz, who has been President of Mexico for thirty years with a short in-" tcrval of four years, when he was ouL cf office. We understand his life is beinj; written by Mrs Alee Twee-die (Hurst and Blaekett) whose former book, "Mexico a« I Saw It," had such a large sale three years ago. Mrs Tweedie was in Mexico last winter again as the guest of the President, and is compiling his life with his .sanction, and from authentic diaries and documents he placed in her hand for the purpose. It promises to be a remarkable volume about the life's history of a man who was born in obscurity, lived a wildly exciting life as a soldier, jilayed an important part in the history of Maximilian and Carlota, and has now assumed the position of a Perpetual President, and brought his country from chaos and revolution to peace ajid prosperity. — Lord Acton, who may rank, perhajjs, as the most learned man that England has produced since Porsoti or Beiitley. once defined the purpose of reading in any young man as follows: — ' To perfect his mind and open windows in every direction, to raisehim to the level of his age so that he uiay know the forces ihat have mads our world what it is and still rcig'n over it, to guard h'm agui'ist surprises and agamst the confctynt .sources if error within, to supply hin> both with the strongest stimulants lv,l\ the surest guides, to give force and fuinc-ss and clearness and sincerity and independence and elevation and ger erosity and serenity to his mind, that -he may know the method and law of the process by which error is conquered and truth is won, dis corning knowledge from probability and prejudice from belief, that he may learn to master what, he rejects as fully as what he adopts, that he may understand ihc origin as well as the strength and vitality of systems and the better motive of men v.ho ai-ft wrong, to steel him against the ehann of literary beauty and talent; sc that each book, thoroughly taken in, shall be the begiHinng of a new life, and shall make a new man of him." This passage occurs in an article which embodies Lord Acton's famous hst of the Hundred Best Books (pieviously unpubli&lied). It appeals m tha Pall Mall Magazine. —In a licok more or !o*s for scholarly t.-.stes, entitled "The Mythology of tie Brirish Inlands," by. Mr Charles Squiic (says the New York Times), the author h?s rnaels an interesting attempt to l-eionsU'-ict

thp mythology of Ireland and England ouE of material gat ho red by Celtic scholars from the ancient lecords at their disposal, as well as from traditional tales and legends. The work would no doubt be more authoritative for readers, and certainly eascir and inor-o satisfactory to the author, had ha understood the Gaelic sufficiently to read the original documents and draw his own conclusions rather than to depend entirely upon those of ethers. It has been said l by students that much of the contents of the ancient manuscripts is moiely imaginative literature written by monks to while away the wearisome hours of ( life in the monasteries, and, indeed. Mr Squire makes clear that history and mythology on h s chosen ground have become &c cntanglodl in the passing centuries as to require considerable ingenuity and nice scholarship to separate fact, or what stands for fact, from fiction— but whether true or not. portions of it form extremely interesting leading. — The Pall Mall Gazette:— "Mr Kubusaua is a Kaffir minister of the Gospel, who speaks perfect and scholarly English, and is seeing through the press in London an unauthorised vei&ion of the Bible in his native tongue. He is the author) too, of an ' Iliad.' an epic poem that is to fill 500 pages of print, and immortalise for Kaffir posterity the deeds of the great chiefs of a century past, down to the coming of Christianity. A Daily Chronicle interviewer has been very sincerely impressed with him, for he is over 6ft high, proportionately broad, and at 50 years of age has ' a mouthful cf gleaming teeth that a girl of 20 might envy.' The truth is that your Kaffir has more intelligence than th© untravefled Englishman imagines. Some day, not very far in the future, lie will discard his Bantu with the ' click ' for English ; and in the meantime we may be favoured with a translation of this * modern ' Homer, who, though polished and erudite in the present year of grace, wore, until 18 years of age, a sheepskin, an assegai, two sticks, and the tip of a jackal's tail. Verily, we live in a romantic age." * — "Nature and Man," by Edwin Kay Lankester, F.R.S., published' by Henry Frowde, is a reprint (says the Pall Mall Gazette) of the Romanes Lecture delivered in the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, last June. It was worthy of the permanence of print, and one can only regret that its price is somewhat prohibitive of the wide circulation it deserves. It is an exhortation to mankind to exert every sinew and obtain ~more knowledge and control of Nature. So far man has clone practically nothing beyond gathering knowledge. He attempts the cure .of disease; but he has "never ventured to investigate seriously whether civilised man is "doing best fox.his'" health m behaving like a savage about his food." Ho has won the secref of disease-producing parasites — "a thing of greater significance to mankind than the emendation of a Greek text" ; but the control of this tremendous power, and further investigation into tho subject, are left to the unorganised efforts of a few enthusiasts. The State .dees practically nothing to protect its citizens, but the. duty lies with the State, and not with the individual. In this recognition of the value of Nature-knowledge, in its adoption and control of the purpose of national education and as a guide for administration, the Japanese have set a commendable examrle which Western nations will have to follow. A NEW ART MAGAZINE. Messrs George Newnes (Limited) are about to issue a new monthly illustrated magazine, which will be devoted to the fine and decorative arts of other days, and will cover a field scarcely touched by any existing publication. The magazine* will deal with every phase of the arts and crafts of past times, and in order that the articles may be as reliable and instructive as possible the services of the leading English and foreign experts have been engaged. "Very particular attention will be paid to the illustrations, of which from 80 to a hundred will be given in each numbe 11 , and all the most successful modern reproductive processes will be employed to make them a<3 attractive ss possible. The first number of ihe maarazin-e will be published in November, and the price will be Is net.