LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2905, 17 November 1909, Page 80

LITERARY NOTES.

— A new *ovel by Mr W. G. Wells. It is entitled "Ann V«ronica," and. will be published by Mr Fisher Unwin. It is a aoodcrn, a rery modern, story. The heroine, Ann "Veronica. >s modern in ethics, in point of riei*. in Habits, and in conduct generally. . — There are in England to-day men who could wtite -good and valuable books who will not put a pen to paper, because if they did they would siarve; and there are others who deliberately write below the l«vd of which they are capable, because if the pablic ever; buy book® at all ' iihey insist on buying rubbish. — Daily Sketch. , — Messrs MacLehose will publish shortly a much-needed work of referent 3. It is by- Professor Sanford Terry, and is a catalogue, with subject index, ofs..the publications of Scottish iuatorioa! and kindred dubs and societies, including the Record Xolumes, and embracing the period from 1780 to 1908. — Laet autumn Mr Edward Arnold published Lady Randolph Churchill's - reminiscences. This autumn he promises us Lady St. Belier's "Memories of Fifty Years." As Mrs Jeune, Lady Jeune, and, when Sir Francis Jeune was raised to the peerage, Lady St. Helier, she. has been a very leading figure of English society. Of her book Mr Arnold says: "This is the ' grand via ' of society, sparkling and unique*" — The pilgrimage to, the house- at Ecclefechan where Carfyia was born "stitl con- 1 timxes without abafceiment. For^ the 12 months to August '31 last 1189 visitor had signed the book, an increase of 55 from the previous year. Of this number 56' oatne from the Unitod States. «x fttfm Canada, 19 from Australia, nine fro.m South Africa, four froar South America, three from China, two from Hongkong, four from New Zealand* two tiom India, three from Germany, two from France, and one from Switzerland, i — There is this curious feature regarding the work of that popular novelist, Mrs W Dssmond Efatophreys, known to the world as "Rita.'*' She only needs a title for a book, .and that serves as a plot. The characters evolve "themselves. "Peg the Rake" was suggested by a chance remark of" her husband, who is an Irishman. "Rita" took the three little words to heart, and created the wild, irrepressible Peg, whose doings have entertained so many thousands. ,. A chance remark, teo, led to the title of "The Pointing Finger" — on© of "Bita's" most draroat-'o stories, which Has been added to the Newnes' Sixpenny Famous Novels. It is a book of rare interest to both sexes. —Mr Frederic Harrison, who is close upon his seventy-eighth birthday, bae completed a volume in which he gathers up. as it were, the threads of his literary ar.d philosophic fife, and. sooner or later— for ; JJo date of publication has yet boen decided — will present it to the world as his "last leaves." Well •nigh ha4f a osntury has passed since Mr Harrison gave us his first work — "Meaning- o. History."— and among the volumes for which he is responsible are included "The Choice of Books," 1886; "Oliver Cromwell," 1888; "Victorian Literature." 1895 ; and "Tennyson, Ruflkin, Mill, and Others," 1899. Since the opening of this century something like a score of publications have come from his pen. —Mr W J. Courthope has now completed his "History of English Poetry," a work upon which he nas been engaged for many years. The period covered in it is included between the age of Chaucer and the age of Scott. Mi Courthope was a Civil Service Commissioner, but retired two years ago to enjoy a well-earnied leisure. He was Professor of Poetry at Oxford University from J895 to 1901, and has dor.3 much literary work. It Is some 40 year's ago since his first book appeared. He wrote the Life of Addi l =on in the Men. of Letters series, and he is a!so the author of a Life of Pope, and has edited Pcpe's works. The first \olume of his ''History of English Poetry" appeared as long ago as 1895, so that the publication of t!:e work has extended over a period of 14 y-euis. — Madame Duclaux (Mary Robin=on) dedicates her forthcoming book, "The French Procession," to Vernon Lee. "To me," writes Madame Dttflaux. ''the literature of a great nation — in its vast succs?sicr and continuity, as it passes down the agesappears as a spectacle, a progress, a pageant, wherein every figure is not only a marvel in itself, but the embodiment of a whole invisible plexus of uifluenoes. : <?€as, traditions, and revolts. . Tha throng of the French procession is too numerous for me to distinguish every figure, but hero and there some accident of pese, some wandering gloam of light, throws into strong relief some wonderful picture creature, infinitely French, a marvel in himself, and a compendium of his age." In her book, accordingly, Madame Duolaux seeks to give her readers silhouettes of some of tb& chief figures in 'this procession. — When Max Muller's '•Deutsche Liebe" first appeared, now more than 52 years ago, it was t!e*<eribcd as "full of tender

grace, touching sympathy, and noble compassion," end as "a . humanising, refining, chastening volume." It was published anonymously, and Mr Max Mulle; n a preface to a pocke J edition of tiie Englie-h transiatiot of the work, just issued by Messrs Longmans, celk us that for three or four editions the secret of Hb authorship .was well kept, only Baron- Buneen in Germany and J. A. Fronde in England guessing correctly ; ts author. The, book is now in 'ts fifteenth edition in iermaay, and stil) commands a regular sale. , Two years after :t: t was first published Mrs Max Muller translated it into English, but this was not published till 20 years later. This translation s now in its eighth edition. — A reader who has lived in. the poetic -atmosphere created by, say, Swinburne and Morris finds it hard (says an English paper) to admit eighteen th^century verse to be poetry at all. It is rhymed rhetoric, and in Dr Johnson's case rhetoric »n the dialect and technique of Pope without Pope's faetiditious grace. Airy lightness is not Dr Johnson's quality. He gets nearest it in the- epigram on Warton's poems beginning "Wlicresoe'er I turn my, x'iqw." His work is eminently quotable, however. Everyone knows the lines about "Panting Time," "Slow rises worth," and "Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the gaol." Everyone knows the following couplets, too,- although few would , ascribe them to'Dr Johnson, and 4ewer still could offhand locate them in hit "works: — From Marlborough'a eyes the streams of dotage Sow, And Swift expires a driveller and *. ' show. The drama's laws the dram*'s patrons give, For we that live to pleura must please tc live. He left a. nszoe at which the world grew pale, ' To noint a moral or adorn a tale — Greet difficulty is being experienced in finding a resting place for tbe statue of Heine, which the German Eaiperor deposed from its pedestal ;n; n the Corfu Par! purchased by him from the late Em-press .of Austria. For three years if was allowed to lie, like a piece of rubbish,, in a shad. A German banker, Herr Oamjpe, saw it there, and made an offer for itf and he was allowed to take it away on the ground that,- as the Kaiser's Chamberlain -put it, it had "nokjcal value." His >dea was to' present it to the town of Hamburg, with which the poet had so many early associations. His letter to the Hamburg Senate being left without an answer, ' he called upon the Burgomaster. That functionary objected that the monument would obstruct the traffic, and might be c centre of objectionable demonstrations, if anj place in the streets were assigned •to it. Herr Campe then proposed to set it up,, air his own expense, in the Zoological , Gardens; and this tims the reply was a formal refusal, for which no reason was given. So the matter stands at present, .-. and the. statue still goes bsgging for a site, Germany being still unable to forgive Hems for employing his bitter tongue at the expensa of Germane. •' —Mr J. H. 'Skifer. reviewing in the. Connoisseur the last English book auction season, which extended from Oo&beT, 1908, to the final . days of July last, points out that the total : sum obtained for eight libraries or collections amounted to £76.722. This "was considerably more than half "of the grand total of £129,654, representing the yield for the entire season, the prcduct of some 36,000 "lots," ecattered over 58 sales of th& better class. Thee? figures disclose an average of £3 11s 10d v > as against £2 13s Id in 1907-8 and £4 4s 2d in 19C6-7. Many high-class and very expensive books changed bands at the Amherst sale esoeoially, but Mr Slater regards the redult of the season's book ' sales as disappointing. Dealing with the printed books. Mr Slater notices a copy of the first edition of Walton's "Compleat Angler," which r-salieed £1085 — a high but not- a record" price, for the Vail Antwerp copy so!d for as tn-uch as £1290 some two years ago. It is strange, remarks Mr Slater, that , a little book published at eiguiteenpence, and at one time comparatively common, ihoold have such a hold on book-lovers of to-day ; bat; so >.t is. The Arahersfc Sale was productive of the highest prioas, as may be eadily conceived. One volume of the "Mazarine Bible," so-called, though circumspect and very preoisa bibliographers scout the title, sold for £2050. and ' a block book; the "Apocalypsis S. Johannis," printed in Holland about the year 1455, £2000. — Aproposof the article by Mr HaldaneMacfall or Ambrcsa Bierce in T.P. 'sweetly. "Spero" writes to that ,jape.r as follows: — "It may interest Mr Macfall and his many readers to know that the subject of his excellent critique was widely read, if not greatly admired, as far track at least' as the «irly eighties. In 1884 I wa» editing a -daily papar in New Zealand which devoted a column a week to .current literature, and on one occasion 1 received from a local publisher c parcel 'of .new book 3by the mail, inerudimr ' The F'erd'a Delight,' by Dod Grile. It was a small, common-lodking American thing, a bad imitation of the first edition of ' Artemus Ward, His Eock,' ban at the height of its fame ; but its queer title caught my attention, and I read it through oarefuily. I found the contents were as odd as the name on the cover, about half consisting of nondescript- paragraphs, sketches, anecdoes. or reflections, mostly referring to low life in th-e Uni-ted States, ar.d the rest of epigrammatic sentences in the manner of Bacon, called 'Laughorisms.' All alike were hitler, cynical, and pessimistic in the last degrea, some were very profane, and a fow were brutally coarse. On the whole the * book was revolting, inhuman ; yet throughout it thorc ran a vein of lurid wit ar<» an arresting honesty of expression that allayed disgust and even aroused sympathy, in the same sense in which Swift cftf>n touches our inner feelings, in spite of his ribald ferocity. 1 knew not whom to pity most — a writer of such power afflicted by such a state of mind, or the forlorn, calamitous objects of his satire." — Ths corresnondent continues: — "I had for a neighbour and literary crony at that time one of th* New Zealand judges, Charles Robert Dudley Ward, well "known at Rugby in Arnold's day as ' lone Ward." on account of hia being over six f eet hi.srh at fifteen, when he was the terror of the town boys — and to him 1 took ' The Fiend's Delight' for an opinion on Dod Grile's quality. Judpe Ward was a gocd scholar, an omnivorous reader in- many laafcueges, and a trenchant writer and critic, and his first comment on the book was that he hail never met with anothei like .

it, and that if Dcd Grile siuck to hi* original style he would certainly- -make a. name for himself A the result of a second reading he gave me some critical notes on it, by no" means s pert rig faults of taste, and these I embodied with my own observations in^a >-eview for my^paper. which.-. gate 'The- Fiend's DsligMr some measure of popularity In. the colony. At the conclusion of roj review, having acknowledged the^ author's singularj-faculty of conveying a vivid impression pfr indirect suggestion," X expressed a hop^jfad Belief that the people h< depicted w4&^BM%ansirT. because it was .inconceivable 'tha|; sadh. .voriqs of humanity Wuld exist in J a4JsJTHissd country. I bad not then been In I&rfteriea. It was my fate,, however, to spend .fthreeyears there later., moving about jSnongst all classes, in ■ many different StatfJjSfckrid, I found myerff constantly reoogni^^f Dod Grile's characters and bearing?2Ms&teßs fa> the terrible trutrrfurnesj .of -_lnV > types. There- w«» nothing to laughs his ' Laughorisms ' or those they were-.- aimedat, bat a- great dea. 1 to maJc-aithe- heart s,ink and the blocd run cold." ~- —At >a time wh©D tbe lihrar ; es overflow with very perishable fiction* ; jwhan- the novel itself appears to be in.*, Jit^e- oftransition', it was perhaps risky fpjNa nenr writer to go to actual life for his crjaraotere, plot, and atmosphejje, an-d to offeV n&, startling, sensational sops to the maflyj-neaded one. This is whet Mr J. E. Patterson- did and did tto£ do to his "Fkhea^rof the Sea" ; he has done it a-gain Tn *Watribeirs by ■&*& Shore," and innpenitantly ■ declares that be- will continue to do it so. .long as he " can find in contemporary life thai., vitfticn. interests Mm and is worth writing . about. By tbe- way, some- Church of .England, clergymen ha-ve written to tbe publisher* testifying to the fidelity wilfli which "Wett&e-rs by the- Store" portrays ionsshore Iff* on tire Suffolk coast, and the vicars of AldeburgJi sod Goxleston have beetk preaching on the lessons of the book. Mr J. E. .P*tteraon. ran away to- sea as a youngster, ; beoame ,ra due' course, .a chiec ! roat», and .after spending 10 years aflbtjt and some in' foreign lands, wa& thrown ashore at Cardiff 12 years ago, apparently a cripple for life. While fe&ynig cargo on the dock side these he wrote r a long poem that, on its publication nrtet with conakteraijte attention in the critical journals. He- then took to journalism, and did. his share of reviewing for Lj£er*ture, the St. James's Gaaette, .tiyet . Daily Chrcnicfo, etc., and was * for eoWtime onthe staff of ohe Westminster Gaietie. Being descended partially from farming stock hia interests are pretty equally divided 'between land cultivation, saafarin^ mobters, and human nature in general. Heno», be "« now bus; upon a forming po^eL,,and has chosen a part of the Essex coast as ». locale. — Bookman. r — A volume based on the advertisements which figured in the- old "Spectator"- of Steele and Addison has been compiled by Mt Lawrence Lewis, who, as -'the result cf his researches, is able to pre^e, a good deal of inconsistency against tfye,. famous journal. Th'a policy of the Spectator, aa set forth Tn° : te editorial columns, was- to "reform the world." -to "sat 'up' the linmoral Man as the Object of Derision." and to provide' "a new Weapon against Vice and Irreligion." Yet, says Mr Lewis: "Almost side by side with essays on honesty andi 'square dealing '-s%ss advertisements of the most bra&ext 'and cruet swindling schemes; beside appeals for clean thoughts and continence were, notice of prurient books; of such a common >Jaoe of assignation as the notorious, masquerade, and ' personals' ' that probably *hi!d to do with dueb orliaisons. While thfi" editorial department '- was agtrin«t oharlatan doctors who rode in gift- coaeht-s and dined f rom goM plate, the ' bueirtegit department ' was printing scores of. th^r advertisements, and was accepting krge sume of J:he money such ' impoetors ' extorted from those they 'tortured' and ' murdea-ed. 1 "' Nor is that all. The 'editorial puff'— the. veiled advertisement introduced i into fch« editorial columns as a concession to-. a large advertiser— is qften denounced ,as a -. journal- • istic innovation of the present, .commercial epoch. Steele and Addison, JioWeWo:, knew all about it." One doint at which !r the contemporariee of Steele and Add-isom 'differed from their '.descendants was {remarks The Times) ~ thejr^ curious habit of, /transacting all their , serious business at ,, purJichouset. The scientific lecturer, the profeasor of dancing, the private tutor, the dentist, the oculist, the man who has lost 'or- found a stray dogj all agree in announcing, that they are? to be '/heard of" at the tavern:, which if i» thoir .custom to frequent. ' The ."beauty doctor," . though the name was not yet invented, was already "flourishing. offered "the " most excellent •urlosjtije&^for preserving" -the Face, Hands, and 7 Teeth in present ' Beauty," and also foi '"colouring red or grey "Hair to x lovely Ma.* i or black," and her ''Royal Chymieal Washball" was alleged to be admirable for "maiking tihe skin so delicately spjt and smooth as. >ot to be- parallefed." The dental surgeot was already vi *\Vhe field with the promise that his dentistry should be painleee. "That inveterate 'paJin bf the Tooth- Ach" is cured by him <• "without drawing them, by bleeding in. the. mouth, three or four Ounces at a time, ~*s there is Occasion." Ho "cups wifeb an Engine without Fire, scarcely to be- felt.'* and "is to bs spoken with at seasonable houra. except on Wednesdays ;nd Saturdays." Gather particulars of the art 'of ' healing are prepared to cure any complaint from gout to smallpox, and horn tp cancer.