Literary Gossip. Sale of Burns's Manuscripts Count Yon Bousts Memoirs.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 203, 14 May 1887, Page 4

Literary Gossip. Sale of Burns' s Manuscripts Count Yon Bousts Memoirs.

Manuscripts of the late Gibbon Craig were sold in Edinburgh on April sth, and realised excellent prices. The original manuscript of Burns's " The Whistler," consisting of two and a half folio pages, fetched 230 guineas and was bought for Lord Rosebery, for whom also was purchased a volume of manuscripts and letters by Burns, among them being one to William Nicoll, dated February 9, 1700, and commencing, "My dear sir; That damned mare of yours is dead." The English translation of Count Beust's " Memoirs," which has just appeared, is mainly noteworthy from the lengthy introduction to it by Baron de Worms, which conveys a better notion of the Count than his own memoirs. Beust was, in truth,

neither so great a man- as. lie imagines himself to be, nor as Baron, de Worms imagines him to have been. He was a clever political adventurer, fussy, as I once heard Prince Bismarck say of him, as a devil in holy water and anxious to play a prominent part in Germany without much, caring what the part was or in the service of which German State he played it. He was amiable, witty, and possessed' of a large fund of minor talents. Again and again he put himself into rivalry with Bismarck, but he was invariably worsted by him. It may be true, as both he and Baron de Worms declare, that he did not encourage Napoleon 111. to rush into the war with Germany, but had he been more explicit before war was declared as to the attitude of Austria, it is very probable than there would have been no war. He was influenced by his habitual antagonism to Prince Bismarck, and he led the French Emperor to imagine than he would have the aid of Austria. Very probably he would have had it had it not been for his reverses in the opening of the campaign. It is true that there were no definite engagements between the countries, and therefore Austria* cannot be said to have been untrue to her pledge; but it is equally certain that Franc© was encouraged by Austria to place herself in hostility with Germany, and might reasonably Iwe supposed that she would be supported by that country. Count Beust, indeed, had much of the woman in his character. His dislike of Bismarck was womanish — he was glad to get others to attack him, but when they did he preferred looking on to affording them aid.