LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2842, 2 September 1908, Page 81

LITERARY NOTES.

— Mrs Archer Huntington, who has lately been visiting England es the guest of her sister-in-law, the Princess Hatzfeldt, has collected her impressions of London society, and contrasts them with her experience in New York in a novel she is writing which will be called "The ' Sovereign Good." ' • ' * — Among the most noteworthy autumn publications of Mr : Heinemaim. will be the biography of Whistler, by Mr and Mrs Joseph Penneil. This is the volume concerning which there was considerable litigation a short while ago. As was to be expected, the work will contain a large num.ben: of reproductions of ' Whistler's piclures. — The first number of the Paris-Londires Review, which is "to be the organ of the "Entente Cordiale," has been issued. It is proposed to publish the magazine twico monthly. The little review is illustrated, andi contains much information on AngloFrench, affairs. — A book that is certainly timely is "France in the Twentieth Century," which Mr Alston Rivers publishes. Mr W. L. George, the author, has perhaps unique qualifications for 3ns task, for, though an Englishman by birth and domicile, he is French by education, and has served his time in, the French armj. He considers the ecoleeiastioal question from a standpoint that to the average Briton is entirely novel. —Mr H. W. Lucy has completed a book of reminiscences, which will bo published serially in the Cornhill Magazine, and subsequently by Messrs Smith, Elder, under ihe title "Sixty Yeare in the Wilderness." It contains recolleotions of men eminent in politics, literature, art, and the dTama, rather as regards their private relations than their public career. — Yet another edition of Thackeray ! This will be in 17 volumes, will be edited by Professoi George Siintebuxy, and will be published uniform with the Oxford India Paper Diokens. The text will be as Thackeray finally left it, and the variations from the earlier editions will be duly noted in appendices. The first six volumes will be issued shortly. — Diego Hirtado de Mendoza's brilliant story "Lazarillo do Tonnes," which takes rank with "Don Quixote" as one of the world's classics, is now for- the first time about to be adequately presented to the English public. It is translated by Sir Ckments Markham from the fir3t edition, that of Burgos, in - the Duke of Devonbhire'e private collection. The book is full of satiric humour. It is to be published by A. and C. Black. — Sheriff F\fo has for some time been engaged: on "A Treatise upon tho liaw and 1 Practice of the Sheriff Court of Scotland," and it will be published shortly by Messrs Win. Hodge and Co., Glasgow. The Sheriff Courts Act of last year has. radically altered court procedure, as well as widely extended Sheriff Court jurisdiction. It is felt, therefore, that a comprehensive and reliable up-to-date book of reference will be -welcomed. — If it bo true, as reported, that President Roosevelt is to get over £12,000 for. hie projected book on his African; hunting adventures, it will take a very high place indeed among lucrative volumes, although (says the Westminster Gazette) there have l>een many tlu't have run into five figures. Gibbon's ' "Decline and Fall" yielded £10,000, and a single cheque for £20,000 represented only three-quarters of Macaulay's profits from his "History of England." "David Harum" is said to have produced the enormous sum of £25,000, and a few of Mies Corclli'a and Mr Hall Oaine's novels are credited with approaching this figure. Mrs Rice's popular story "Mtb Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch." has already, «o they say, yielded £20,000, or a sovereign for every word in it; Mr Barrle's "Little Minister," in book and dramatic form, has enriched its author by at least £40,000, fi-nd General Grant's widow is said to have received £100,000 from the memoirs of her I distinguished husband. — One of tie moat interesting of many attractive lots at Sotheby's Sole-rooms in London on a recent afternoon, where were dispersed for a total of £3776 one hundred and fifty books and manuscripts from

various sources, consisted of a series of S5 autograph letters, covering- 353 pages, written by Scott to the Marchioness of Abercorn, 1806-26. Scott consulted tha Marchioness on many literary and other questions, sent to. hor the ballads which , ; Bsrr. bo _ gathered,^ and- - /:d»w»e43©v:3»e!r , „ afflatialrißi*Bncs. s. Aixiut -30" -Of those.' .i&r^ths." . r^*^ n^:i?^^cti^c . 9?Balos£»e<U*3 - ih# pfoy*.. X'-Tlfirty XJf-.'^Jta. cffipfety-'ramw.iTi ■* tnTmvMigfcsH- -- - £100, .jJM^«r^g§ifc> ~ jraß-th&ibqg^r cc^ihe^soiies- againstrJiessrs l^earsottS^HP^B6t&"^"So£sar -as we-6b*acl gather, . Scotland, was un?epr*aßented..fi, tha competition. With -the exception "of the* • " original autograph "M.S. of ! The Lady ; of i-tfcbeV'Lake^Tstls^h in 1897 -.fetched £ltttt against £64^ guineas, 30 -yeaff^.^rJiev.ihift,^ is thb highest sum "ever, paid at, auction" foir~-i a Scott autograph lot. ' " "^ — Both children and grown-ups mwst havei ~? been -tiioved" "to hear of- the dtiath. of Joel , ■Chandler- Harris, t&e author of.,l*Ußi6le Re- " mm*" ♦•Who'-has.-nofc deHgkted "ii those inimitable stories, so full of h^saour and "quaintoese, so'ipacked with natutsT'otbserTation and. the; true stuff of lifeXT'TEveft fchei . r4ifneuH£ -of -the dialect was not tin obataoler. l to the appreciatioapeT^ose^etories by Eng- - riieh. readers. And not only was the work delightful as literature, it "bad great value from the iolk-U>re point of view* Learned essays have been written on it, and Brer Fox, Brer Rabbit, Brer Tarrapin, Miss Meadows, and "de gals" have a place in, the world of ethnological study witJi Saturn 1 and St. George and the Bessy 'in a Morris Dance. Mr Harris was born at- Ba-tonton, Georgia, in 18,48, and spent all' his life id the south. After serving an. apprenticeship* to the printing trade, he became a leader. . writer on different. Southern newbpftpers.. His first negro , dialect stories wer-e published in the Atlanta Constitution, of whicrt he yra& one of the editors for 25 yeair.. His "Songs and Sayings" appeared 1 in. 188 ft. Besides Unole Remus," Mr Harris was. the author of a .number of other works mostly dealing with life in. Georgia.—*' T.P.'e Weekly. — The real • works of Oscar Wild© H«J | partly in the delight •in «rt and letters* the joy in things- of beauty of all kinds ex-> perienoed to-day by people who, pextaape, never suspect that to him 4hey owe thet impulse to seek their pleasure in such things ;; partly in the echoes of old laughter, the recollection of sallies that used to set tha table in a -roar, or of brilliant flashes ot capricious -wisdom struck out, «s it seemed, almost by, accident; HtunJet'a jnelancholy and yet inspiring thoughts of Yorick* Wilde'e chief inft&noe -w6& a. personal influence. Through, his personality and his) poses he did more than anyone to ap*e»di abroad the not too abttrae© elements of tha esthetic doctrines excogitated by wiser end more eilent men than- himself, and 1 to give: minds and men of middle okss something, at least, of the-, benefit; of c movement whiohi we have -now so completely absorbed into; our daily" lives that we forget what our «ul« ture owes to it. Through his personality^ | again, and 1 ' his reokieas Irish wit, he* became the delight of* dinner tables, whera ho prodigally scattered the ' best of hisj genius. The spoken., not the written, wotrw was his proper vehicle; and no one evet| , so teCt&ed a Bos-well.— Time*. I — Professor J.^MT Wafcar, t,E.T5 y • lessor of Poe.trj.,-.at . Oxford. Univaraityv speaking ** the celebration of Milton's ter-> centenary at Cambridge, said -that the studies for which Cambridge was even then becoming famous gave a specific direotiort and left an indelible impress on Milton'^ genius. This fact was not without aignifi^ canoe. In the "Paradise Lost," where MiT-^ ton knew that he could give immortality tot . any name by the mere mention of it, her hael deigned to mention one, and OP© only: among bis contemporaries. It was not at statesman, a soldier, a scholar, a theologian, nor even a poet. Milton gavd the name ofi Galileo, 'as if to indicate that science anxj art were in inseparable conjunction, aa they were in his own person and in hist own poetey, -for in that poetry the science! was as wonderful as the art. In the scienoel of his art Milton stands alone among thej English' poets. It was nothing short on perfection that he set before himself. From! first to last he trod his own path, solitary, haughty, austere. He- was apart froml i his age, aloof from his contemporaries^ j With the developments of soventeenth-oen- ' tury poetry, with 'the movements whica s , carried our literature from th« age on Shakespeare to th©~ age of Dryden and Pope, he had no concern and no connec- | tion. Milton ha 3 little offset upon hia j own contemporaries or upon their suol oessoTS. He founded no school. He gavo i no impulse to letters, except that impulse given to all true artists when they ccc and* recognise perfect art. His object and scope were higher. - Ho aimed at perfection, and attained it. He stands now as he stow then— awful, magnificent, alone. —In Bradford education has advanced another stage.- It -has been, decided, to supply one of the schools -with blacking, and brushes, in ordeT that children, putting, in an appearance with uncleaned boots and* clogs might have facilities for remnedvm*' thie defect in their appearance on reaching j school.