LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2734, 8 August 1906, Page 71

LITERARY NOTES.

—It is indeed, the day of the triumphal reprint — it goes forward from one triumph to another. That favourite scries — the Canterbury Poets— is being re-issued by the Walter Scott Company in a new form. It contains over 100 volumes, half of which are ready in the new binding. The sale of these "books in the past ha 6 shown that however wo may lament the decline of original poetry there are still many people who 'read the old poets, or, at all events, buy them. Shakespeare remains triumphantly the "best seller." — The first week in April Professor Nathaniel Southgafce Schaler died at the age of 65 years. He had a busy and useful life, occupying for some yeara the post of professor in geology in Harvard University. He had turned his pen with advantage to the discussion of many and varied subjects. While his sociological studies are perhaps most widely known, he was a poet of no mean order, his dramatic poem, "Elizabeth of England," filling five volumes of more i ban commonplace verse. —It is but little under a century and a-half since William Blake was born in London, but the exquisite sweetness of hie work is still ac much appreciated as ever. He had little advantage in the way of education, and early .had to work for a living, as he was the 6on of poor people. Being somewhat eccentric, he was deemed by some a gentle madman, his indifference to worldly advantage poebibly helping on the idea. He was never well enough off to be relieved from care, but being "incessantly away in Paradise," ac his wife remarked, he cared little for that. His life and poetry form the subjects of two recent volumes, " Blake's Poetical Works" and "The Lyrical Poems of Blake," both edited by John Sampson and published by the Clarendon Press. The second Js naturally the smaller, but both volumes arc well editeJ, t'je publishers' name speaking for the binding. — Professor Goldwin Smith, who pre ceded Freeman and Froude in the History Chair at Ox'*ord, gives his view of these famous fightere in the Atlantic Monthly. Of Froenian. he sj^eake more kindly than is quite the fashion now. "Freeman was a peculiar being, an Anglo-Saxon without guile, a Thane who had stepped into the nineteenth rcntury; blunt, rather grotesque, and *pt to be peppery in debate. Coming to this country to lecture, he mistook the America is for Republicans, and

adapted himself, as he fancied, to their rude Rerubl ; can simplicity. But he was honest and truthful to the core, a hearty lover of righteousness, and a hater of iniquity. As a writer be lacks art ; he is diffuse and somewhat pedantic; not popular, and now, save by earnest students, little read. But hie profound erudition and his perfect conscientiousness make him master of the limited period of history to wiiich he was specially devoted " On Froude the verdict is much le3s favourable. Goldwin Smith— and there is no better judge — praises Froude'e style. He thinks that he bore away a full measure of the literary graces of Newman's school. " Hi» style is eminently lucid, graceful, and at-y-active. In that respect there arc few more fascinating- writers." Bift he looks upon Froude as by nature inaccurate. — Ux Robertson Nicoll, in the §k§tch.

A desert void of peace; I missed the goal I sought to gain — I missed the measure of the strain That lulls Faroe's fever n the brain,

And bids earth's tumult cease. Myeelf? Alas for theme so poor!—

A theme but rich in fear; I stand a wreck on Error's shore, A spectre not within the door, A 'homeless shadow evermore, An exile lingering here!