FROM . . . Bookstall and Study.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18418, 21 March 1928, Page 7

FROM . . . Bookstall and Study.

MORE LETTERS OF VICTORIA.

DISLIKE OF GLADSTONE WAS VERY PRONOUNCED. (By E. R. W.) The Royal Archives situated in the Round Tower of Windsor Castle, and deposited —so it is stated —in a chamber constructed under the marble stairway have yielded up further material for another stately volume of the correspondence between Victoria “ Regina et Imperatrix ” and her ministers and others. A little confusion seems to exist about the preceding volumes of these letters. There have been five of them before this, the one I am reviewing, all specially authorised by IT.M. the King. The three first edited by A. C. Benson and Lord Esher, and called Series No. 1 brought the correspondence up to 1861. Two volumes followed edited by George E. Buckle, with letters from 1862-1878 called Series li.. volumes 1 and 2. and now we have the sixth called volume 3 of Series 11., so that is how it stands to date with more letters to follow in due course. The one we are immediately concerned with is edited by the same careful hand as the two last, George Earle Buckle, and though the years treated of are few, 1879 to 1885, they were portentous and full of interest. Consequently we have a book almost congested with fateful things, far too numerous to be fully particularised in a review. Take a sample of two and “ ex pede Herculem ” judge as to the bulk. Among the tragedies in those seven years were the Cabul Mission, massacred. the French Prince Imperial killed, the Phoenix Park murders, General Gordon's betrayal and sacrifice, the death of Disraeli. Prince Leopold, and, may I add, “ John Brown,” and many other persons of note. Then the Majuba Hill disaster, the Soudan reverses with other minor military mishaps make up a sad total for that short period. Of course it reacted on the Queen, so as to cause her much grief and physical indisposition, but the martial spirit of her race always came to the front urging her to counsel the strongest measures to retrieve the temporary put-backs, and assert the power of Britain. It is amusifig. with the knowledge we have of Joseph Chamberlain’s after career as a high and mighty Conservative and Imperialist, to see him iri these years going about as a roaring Radical lion seeking what Tories he could devour. The Queen disliked the very mention of his name. He had at a large meeting in Birmingham committed the “ faux pas ” of saying that “ there were no Royalties there but no one missed them.” He later on wrote to his chief, Gladstone, in whose cabinet he was, making a sort of retraction for the expression, but H.M. placed him on her black list. The Queen took the Gordon tragedy very much to heart and blamed Gladstone for the delay in sending relief forces. “Mr Gladstone and his Government have Gordon’s noble, heroic blood on their consciences. May they feel it and may they be made to do so. it is awful! “ So H.M. writes to Sir Henry Ponsonbv, emphasising certain words in a way habitual to her. She never really liked Gladstone who. she said, always spoke to her “as if he were addressing a public meeting.” She wanted to make him a peer to keep him quiet but the G.O.M. declined the honour. He. who was unsparing of himself when he was well, was easily alarmed when unwell, taking to his bed on less provocation than most people would do. I notice for the first time in the correspondence the name of Arthur Balfour. It occurs on page 62 in connection with a Conservative effort to prevent Mr Bradlaugh from participating in the business of the House on account of his openly expressed atheism. A small but vigorous group of four men was formed into a committee. Their names were Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir 11. Drummond Wolff, J. E. Gorst and Arthur Balfour. This was in 1880. Later on. 1884, Mr Gladstone in a letter to the Queen, writes. “ Mr Balfour, nephew and private secretary to Lord Salisbury, again threatened the House with a second rejection of the Bill ” (the Franchise). So the young statesman, under the aegis of his powerful uncle, was forging his way to the front. The imperious nature of the Queen frequently found expression in letters and memoranda to her Ministers if she thought they were not keeping her well informed on all matters; and if instead of the nineteenth it had been the sixteenth century one can easily picture her, like her Tudor predecessor Elizabeth, clapping her disobedient Ministers into the Tower for some real or fancied dereliction.

“ I am not a machine, nor do I intend to become one,” she writes in a note to Lord Granville in reference to a request for her signature to a document she had not perused. By the way it was of this nobleman she wrote from Windsor, November 23, 1883: “Saw Lord Granville, who is a very weak reed to lean on.” The noble lord was then leader of the Liberal party in the House of Lords. She took strong exception to Gladstone’s cruise on the “ Pembroke Castle ” while head of the Government, and her letter on the matter to Lord Granville, who was Foreign Secretary, is worth quoting as showing her demand for recognition of her authority and her distrust of Gladstone. Balmoral Castle, September 18, 1883. Though the Queen expects to hear from Lord Granville, she cannot delay writing to express more fully what she has done in cyphered tele-

grams, viz: her unfeigned astonishment at Mr Gladstone’s want of all knowledge, apparently, of what is due to the Sovereign he serves —in going on a cruise far away without asking the Queen, or at least submitting to her that it was his wish and. intention, and then going off to Norway, and still worse to Copenhagen, where the Emperor of Russia and the King of Greece are staying. The Prime Minister, and especially one not- gifted with prudence in speech, is not a person who can go about where he likes with impunity. At this moment, too, when his absence is a great inconvenience. . . . Indeed, he told the Queen he was not going on a cruise this year. The Queen believes everyone is much astonished at this escapade. But what would they say if they knew that the Queen knew nothing whatever of it? The Queen is very indignant. The G.O.M. wrote to her • Majesty from Copenhagen, offering his humble apologies for “not having sought from your Majesty .the usual gracious permission. etc.” He goes on to mention Mr Tennyson as a fellow voyager, and the Queen later on. when she had graciously accepted Gladstone’s apology, expressed her intention of conferring a barony on the laureate. A great deal of the personal interest appertaining to the correspondence disappears with the passing away of Beaconsfield (in April, 1881), for this remarkable man always brought with him a certain clement of romance and the unexpected. His written communications with the Queen were addressed in different phraseology from all her other official correspondents, and with their exalted sentiment and delicious flattery make most amusing reading. Beaconsfield—how one unconsciously calls and thinks of him as Disraeli! believed in flattery; “and when,” he says, “I am addressing Royalty, I. put it on with a trowel.” He is about publishing "Endymion,” and is sending an advance copy to the Queen, which is accompanied with a most flowery letter, ending, “I would pray to be allowed to send it to her who is the Sovereign, not only of my person, but of my heart. Your Majesty's most devoted Beaconsfield.” And, again, it is the 14th of February, 1880, St Valentine’s Day. The practice of sending valentines was fairly common in that year, and H.M. sent her Prime Minister one. which he acknowledges in hyperbolic language as “falling from a rosy cloud this morning,” and concludes, “Lord Beaconsfield, no longer in the sunset but the twilight of existence, must encounter much anxiety and toil; but this, too, has its romance when he remembers that he labours for the most gracious of beings.” It was during a debate in the House in 1880 that Beaconsfield used that phrase concerning his opponent, Gladstone, which has tickled the ears of the generations following, and made the Chamber resound with laughter at the moment. He indicated the right honourable gentleman as “a sophisticated rhetorician, inebriate with the exuberance of his own verbosity.” The Queen vouchsafed a smile when the report of the speech reached her, for Gladstone’s orations and letters were frequently a weariness to her. Lord Granville told Lord Beaconsfield that Gladstone said to him, “I can always dismiss from my mind the disagreeable subjects of the day an hour before going to bed.” “Yes,” said Beaconsfield, “that’s the sort of thing people do say—and belie\*e.” The Queen always took great interest in any important ecclesiastical appointments which had to be made, so that when, owing to the death of Dr Tait, Archbishop of Canterbury, a new Primate had to be found, her Majesty was much exercised in mind as to the proper ecclesiastic for so dignified and exalted a position. Mental and physical vigour were considered, family connections, learning, accomplishments, personal appearance and manners were reported on, and perhaps the spiritual fitness; anyhow, the inquiry was pretty exhaustive. • Dr Benson, the courtly and dignified Bishop of Truro, seemed to fill the bill, and was duly elected. Underneath the imperious nature of Victoria there was ever a womanly tenderness which sprang to the front spontaneously when the occasion called for it. and the volume before me contains quite a large number of most touching, tender letters to various persons who had suffered bereavement in any form. “A woman of sorrows” herself, she had a fellow feeling for others passing through the dark valley. She mingled her tears with those of the Empress Eugenie, distracted by the tragic death of the gallant young PrinCe Imperial, and I could name a dozen and more in these pages who must have felt comforted when reading “your affectionate Friend, V.R. and I.” at the end of a kind letter. Some of Victoria’s dislikes were very pronounced, and expressed plainly. She detested khaki, which came into use in the Beer War. her love of the old uniforms of her different regiments being very deep. On page 646 is a letter from the Queen to Sir Henry Ponsonby, in which occurs “Two Expeditions stopped in the very middle. We are becoming the laughing-stock of the world. Can the G.O.M. not be roused to some sense of honour?” These initials had only just come into use, and for the Empress-Queen to employ them partakes the nature of slang. The Underground Railways were in these years in course of construction, and H.M. rather mistrusted them, so that when applications were made for permission to tunnel under the Park near Westminster, she writes from Balmoral: “I will only give my consent on the condition that no airholes, or smoke or noise shall come near the Palace, or the former be seen in the Park.” Tradition was always opposing itself against modernism with the Queen, though she liked to be considered progressive. Home Rule for Ireland was slowly but surely casting its shadow before, and Her Majesty had very

strong views on the matter which the assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr Burke in Phoenix Park (May 6, 1882) intensified. She was very pleased when the Government arrested Parnell and interned him in Kilmainham Gaol. “It is a great thing,” she wrote to Gladstone. A large number of important events, both at Home and abroad which cannot be enumerated in this notice, but which crowd the pages with interest, bring the volume to December 29, 1885, and an appropriate conclusion. A Conservative Government has just been elected with the Marquis of Salisbury at the head; Gladstone is out of office, and quite committed to Home Rule; the Queen has received the new Cabinet and tendered them her best wishes for the New Year, and this selection of Royal correspondence ends. Between this date, 1885, and Queen Victoria’s death, January 22, 1901, sixteen eventful years roll inexorably on, so we may expect, indeed we are promised, further instalments of these intensely interesting, illuminating documents. A retrospective summary of the five preceding volumes, and the one just concluded, leaves a very clear-cut, welldefined portrait in the reader’s mind, of the Royal lady who is the subject of it all, the centre round which it revolves. We see before us a Queenly woman, or shall we not rather say a womanly Queen: one who, with many tragic family sorrows and bereavements of her own, could find time to sympathise with, others who were suffering—one who when she ascended the throne at the tender, inexperienced age of eighteen, found herself in the midst of a society in accord wth the very worst traditions of royalty, but made it a Court with such a high moral idea as had not been imagined since “the mythical days of The Round Table.” Further, volumes will be genuinely welcomed. (Copy from the publisher, John Murray). LITERARY NOTES. “Dickens; A Portrait,” by Ralph Straus, contains a great deal of unpublished material which has been placed afc the author’s disposal. A collected edition, in pocket size, of the tales and romances of “Q.,” Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, is being prepared, and the first four volumes will shortly be ready.

Lady Tree recently unveiled a memorial tablet at Cobley’s Farm, Finchley, England, where Dickens wrote “Martin Chuzzlewit.” Major Segrave, the racing motorist, , who dares death at 200 miles an hour, has finished a book, which has taken all his spare time in the last two years, about his experiments and experiences on the racing track and the conclusions he has drawn from them. The book will have the appropriate title, “The Lure of Speed.” From “Putnam Book News”: During the history lesson the teacher asked the question: “What do you know of Margaret of “She was very fat, sir,” answered one of the boys. This was new to the teacher, and he asked for the lad’s authority. “It’s in the book, sir. ‘Among Henry’s stoutest supporters was Margaret of Anjou! ’ ” I have for my friends books, friends extremely agreeable, of all ages, of every land; of easy access, for they are always at my service; I admit them to my company, and dismiss them from it, whenever I please. They are never troublesome, but immediately answer every question I ask them.— Petrarch. Mr Carr Laughton and Mrs Heddon, in a new book called “Great Storms,” give the lie to the legend, on which we have all been brought up, that many ships of the Spanish Armada were destroyed in a tremendous tempest. The worst they can say of the storm is that it was “heavy enough to endanger a ship caught on a lee shore, but such as a stout ship in open water might weather without serious damage.” Lampshade reproduction rights is the latest source of income open to successful authors—and their illustrators. We shall soon be able to buy lampshades showing Mr A. A. Milne’s Christopher Robin,Winnie the Pooh, and perhaps James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby, George Dupree and other of the figures made familiar by Mr E. H. Shephard’s illustrations to “When We Were Y r ery Young,” “Winnie the Pooh.” and 1 “Now We Are Six.” This is believed to be the first sale of lampshade rights by an author. The romance behind moneymaking and the history of a great family of

- financiers will be revealed in “The Rise - of the House of Rothschild,” by Egon 1 Casar Conte Corti, a monumental work, which, translated by Beatrix Lunn, will be published by' Victor Gollanez. It will tell, among other matters, how some of the early' Rothsj childs engaged in smuggling, and how they helped Wellington, first in his j campaign in Spain, and finally to de- * feat Napoleon at Waterloo. Another' , interesting page in the history of the family is concerned ivith the development of the Rothschilds’ private postal service all over Europe—a service of which Governments were glad to avail > themselves. I f * v r That amiable essayist and sound ■> bookman, Mr Augustine Birrell, entered 1 upon his 80th in January. A - writer in the “Sunday’ Times” say r s that - Mr Birrell attributes, in his own whimsical way*, an exceptionally healthy life chiefly to an avoidance of doctors. 5 Once, however, as he confesses, he fearf ed that he might have contracted a r mortal malady, and went to Harley t Street post haste. It was a hot July 5 day, and the specialist’s waiting-room T was like a bakehouse. While waiting, ' he turned the pages of a medical journal, and came upon an article dealing with the very malady he dreaded. The first words that met his eye were: “The , patient suffering from this disease ’ never perspires.” He wiped his drip--1 ping forehead, took up his hat and t gloves, and stole away rejoicing. 1 :: , According to Mr T. P. O’Connor, j writing in the London “Daily Telegraph,” Thomas Hardy’s first wife, who 1 died in 1912, was a very vigorous, even flamboyant, personality, given to cavalier criticism of her husband’s work. The story is told that, when, as usual, he showed her the manuscript ; of a new novel, in this case “Jude the ■ Obscure,” she pitched it into a corner * of the room and said something rather ‘ devastating about it. Hardy’s delight * in observation never failed; he had * the roving eye as well, as the “musing ‘ e>'e,” writes Mr J. Cj. Squire in “The * Observer.” Nc) monolith could he pass without remembering the Britons, rto * straight road could he tread without visions of the Roman legionaries. The , famous description of Egdon Heath may seem in memory but a sombre and boding landscape; return to it, and. mingled with the scenery, you will : find interesting facts drawn from Doomsday Book and the antiquary'

. Leland which at once exhibit Hardy , darting curiously from shelf to shelf. 1 X « « ; A Soviet schoolboy's diary has been - published in Moscow. It is entitled, “ The Diary of Kostya Ryabtzev.” He - is dissatisfied w’ith his name (Kostya r is the Russian diminutive for Constan- ; tine), and wants to change it to Vladlen. in honour of \ r ladimir Lenin. He -• dislikes the name Constantine, because, ; in his own words, “ Constantine was - some Turkish Emperor who conquered 1 Constantinople, and I despise this sort f of thing with all my heart.” The 1 Court, however, checks his ardour by .telling him that he must wait until he is eighteen to change his name. The environment of the present-day 1 school is distinguished by the very 1 wide latitude which the pupils enjoy l in the matter of self-government. The b disciplinarv authority of the teachers -in Kostya’s school is very shadowy’, i Every question of misbehaviour or . poor scholarship comes % up before a - school council, elected by the children 1 themselves. This tends to make the r children somewhat precocious; it also r diverts a certain amount of attention t from their studies. . “ Outside activities ” play an import- - ant part in the life of Kostya’s school. \ The lessons are constantly supple- - mented with excursions to factories, - museums and other places of interest. ; Moreover, the children are supposed to - do a ceft-tain amount of “ social work.” I So Kostya goes with another boy to visit the “ Bezprizorni,” or hortieless waifs who are to be found in the markets and railroad stations of Moscow. ’ Accompanied by teachers, the schoolboys go out to a village “ to study pea- ’ sant life and customs,” as he seriotMiF 1 puts it. J Kosty'a’s diary has its fresh, chal- ’ lenging sides; as a product of the new Russian school, he really displays a • good deal of the resourcefulness and originality which the new methods are supposed to stimulate. But, although he is brighter than most of his class- • mates, Kostya seems somewhat lacking ' in the ability for concentrated study; ; so large a part of his time is taken up with meetings and discussions. His diary indicates, better than any dry ’ and formal reports, some of the problems and difficulties which any sweep- ‘ ing change in educational methods is bound to bring as its immediate consequence. 1

A collection of the works of Robert Louis Stevenson brought £4BOO at a recent sale in New York. Thirteen autograph manuscripts were sold for £620. A first edition of "The Pentland Rising.” Stevenson’s first book, brought £570. A presentation copy of “Some College Memories” sold for £220, and £64 was paid for a first issue of the first edition of “Treasure Island.” A sketch book, in which Stevenson’s drawings record a trip to France in 1878, brought £7O, and a first edition of “A Child’s Garden of Verses.” with a library label removed from the cover, realised £2O. From “Premature Epitaphs,” by Kensal Green:—• SIR HALL CAINE. Hall Caine here waits the trumpet call Which will not worry him at all. ITe knows he’ll get the recognition That’s due to one of his position. G. K. CHESTERTON. Place on his hand the jewel, on his brow the diadem Who in an age of miracles dared to believe in them. Chesterton companion His companions mourn. Chesterton Crusader Leaves a cause forlorn. Chesterton the critic Pays no further heed. Chesterton the poet Lives while men shall read. Chesterton the dreamy Is by sleep beguiled; And there enters heaven Chesterton . . . the child. H. G. WELLS. God found the universe Going from bad to worse. So He said, “Send for Wells, Something within Me tells He with his common sense Outvies omniscience.” So the great Azrael came, Mentioned his Master’s name, Mentioned his errand too, Said, “We have need of you.” Wells said, though looking glum: “Very good; say I’ll come. ...”

“The war has increased reading forty per cent.” We are so accustomed to gloomy comparisons of our post-war selves with the nobler being who lived before 1914 that the words seem almost incredible. But Mr John Buchan, who used them, speaks with authority; he has made many books, and we hope will make many more, and he has had no small part in the launching of other crafts upon, the uncertain waters of public taste. There are some, indeed, who fear that the habit of listening to the wireless, or that other custom of visiting the pictures, may keep us from books. But further reflection convinces us that the wireless may lead us into the land of books; we Lear a lecturer, or a historian, or a poet, and we like him so much that we make a note of his books. Or w r e see a thrilling romance on the pictures, and when it is over we buy the book so that we may capture that thrill. When we are puzzling this week what we can possibly give to this friend or that, we can at least be sure that a book chosen with care is a safe lead; when the last cigar in the bo* has .become dust, and the umbrella has been left in the railway Ijain, the book will still remain a tried friend, which will carry down the years the grateful name of its giver.—The "Sunday Times.”

of public taste. There are some, indeed, who fear that the habit of listening to the wireless, or that other custom of visiting the pictures, may keep us from books. But further reflection convinces us that the wireless may lead us into the land of books; we Lear a lecturer, or a historian, or a poet, and we like him so much that we make a note of his books. Or w r e see a thrilling romance on the pictures, and when it is over we buy the book so that we may capture that thrill. When we are puzzling this week what we can possibly give to this friend or that, we can at least be sure that a book chosen with care is a safe lead; when the last cigar in the bo* has .become dust, and the umbrella has been left in the railway tjain, the book will still remain a tried friend, which will carry down the years the grateful name of its giver.—The “Sunday Times.” According to the author of “Sport and Travel in the Highlands of Tibet,” Sir Henry Hayden, one of the outstanding characteristics of the Tibetans is their .almost incredible filthiness. The author says he could not even look at the streets without experiencing a certain feeling of revulsion. The numbers of dogs in Lhasa itself must run literally into thousands. For the most part they are ownerless; they enter no houses, but roam about the streets day and nigKt. It is not, therefore, difficult to imagine the state of pandemonium that can arise, and in fact does arise nightly throughout the town, whether from a local quarrel over a bone or from some unexplained night fear. A bark is heard and is taken up and echoed by hundreds of throats throughout the town. It is, indeed, doubtful if for any consecutive five minutes during the whole night there is even approximate quietness. The hospitalities of Tibet are hardly less disagreeable than the nuisances. The Chinese tea which the people drink is “at first horribly nauseating,” consisting of a thick, greasy mixture compounded of green tea boiled in a brass pot for some time, a small quantity of carbonate of soda being added. When sufficiently boiled it is transferred to a churn, which is a long, wooden cylinder, often as much as thrive or four feet long and six inches wide, with a tightly fitted wooden piston. Salt and butter are then added, and the whole mixture churned to a thick emulsion, which is poured into a teapot and then put on a charcoal fire to be kept warm for use throughout the day. Before drinking one has to blow away the greasy film of butter from the edge of the cup, and as this butter was never really washed when it was made, and has been kept sewn up in a goatskin ever since—sometimes for as many as fifty years—it may be imagined that to the tyro the task of swallowing two cups is not an easy one. But etiquette demands that at least two cups of this obnoxious stuff shall be consumed when offered by a host.

According to the author of “Sport and Travel in the Highlands of Tibet,” Sir Henry Hayden, one of the outstanding characteristics of the Tibetans is their .almost incredible filthiness. The author says he could not even look at the streets without experiencing a certain feeling of revulsion. The numbers of dogs in Lhasa itself must run literally into thousands. For the most part they are ownerless; they enter no houses, but roam about the streets day and nigKt. It is not, therefore, difficult to imagine the state of pandemonium that can arise, and in fact does arise nightly throughout the town, whether from a local quarrel over a bone or from some unexplained night fear. A bark is heard and is taken up and echoed by hundreds of throats throughout the town. It is, indeed, doubtful if for any consecutive five minutes during the whole night there is even approximate quietness. The hospitalities of Tibet are hardly less disagreeable than the nuisances. The Chinese tea which the people drink

A atrange case of imposition arising cut of the sale of alleged relics of Shakespeare was heard at Aylesbury (England) in January, when Hunter Charles Rogers was sentenced to twelve months’ imprisonment. For the prosecution, it was stated that in 1924 Rogers had collected two parcels of books or documents which he alleged were Shakespearean relics, purporting to bear in some instances the signature of William Shakespeare. He approached Mr Jaggard, an antiquarian dealer of Stratford-on-Avon, in August, 3925, and induced him to purchase one parcel, telling him that Mr Gibson, the Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum, and the secretary and librarian of the Trustees of Shakespeare’s Birthplace, were satisfied that the relics were genuine. Mr Jaggard parted with £BOO, relying solely on the authority Rogers had given. A week later Rogers told him that he had discovered a second parcel of books in a warehouse where he had stored some goods belonging to an aunt who was connected with the banker-poet, Samuel Rogers, of whom he claimed to be a descendant. Mr Jaggard paid a further £BOO, but received judgment in a civil case at Birmingham Assizes. Rogers purchased in November, 1926, a small iron chest resembling an old deedbox. He conceived the idea of placing in the chest a considerable number of documents, and pretended he had bought the chest at a sale at Stoke Court, the home of the Penn family, in July, 1926. Mr D. S. Crossfield visited an antique dealer of Windsor, and after making considerable inquiries was satisfied that the documents were true, and agreed to pay £2OO for them. Suspicions, however, were aroused before the cheque was passed. Writing in the London “Sunday Times,” *ir Edmund Gosse says:— “In reply to some report in the Press, Thomas Hardy stated, in 1901 that his

HlllilllljlM earliest novel ‘had never been published and would never see the light.’ Until that time I had supposed, with the majority of his readers who thought of the matter at all, that ‘Desperate Remedies’ was his earliest novel. I took an early opportunity to talk to him about it, and extracted from him the confession that a still earlier story had existed. He became aware that some interest attached to the matter, and he begged me to make, with his authority, a statement in print of the conditions in which ‘Desperate Remedies’ came into being. This I did in 1901, and since then the story has so far been pretty correctly repeated. But still there was nothing clearly known about a yet earlier work, and it is of this which I now propose to speak, because the time has come when, in the magnificent explosion of Thomas Hardy’s fame, the smallest contribution to a knowledge of his mind must be found interesting, and this, or I am much mistaken, is anj-'thing but a small contribution. If I speak too confidently of the novelty of the disclosure I must be excused by the fact that so far as I can discover no other record exists.” Sir Edmund Gosse goes on to tell how this earliest novel, “The Poor Man and the Lady,” written in 1867, was declined by John Morley on behalf of Macmillan (for apparently sufficient reasons) and later was rejected by George Meredith on behalf of Chapman and Hall. Hardy destroyed what he thought to be the whole of the manuscript, but later found four or five pages of it. Apparently these are still in existence. Sir Edmund Gosse gives an outline of the story (obtained by him from Hardy) in the “Sunday Times.”

Miss Alice Law, in an article in the

“Empire Review,” tells of the ebb and flow of the demand for Runyan's “Pilgrim’s Progress”:—“Written during the twelve years of Runyan’s imprisonment for nonconformity in Bedford gaol, in the ’sixties and ’seventies of the seventeenth century, jnd published by him after his release, the book had already gone through thirty editions by 1758. It was a volume dear to our fathers, dearer still to our grandparents; but now. for half a century, it has lain rather dusty on our shelves, its precepts out of tune with our material age find the religious fervour which g&ve it birth, and fostered its popularity, evaporated almost as if it had never been. Long after the passing of the first Puritan Age. in which, and for which, it was written* the advent of Wesley and the great Methodist revival gave it a fresh vogue. It appealed especially to the illiterate, to the heart of the poor working man or woman who frequented the lowly chapels or other places of assembly, and it also came into worthy popularity with the Evangelicals. But the High Church movement put it out of court again, probably.as a work savouring of dissent, so that the inspired tinker of Bedford has never had fewer readers than at the present day. The loss is ours, for, although the religious influence of *The Pilgrim’s Progress’ has undoubtedly been waning, and may never wholly revive, its value as literature rather than dogma abides. We do not now look to Bunyan's masterpiece any more than we do to Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ for specific religious instruction; the inspired beauty of both suffices to make them immortal.”

Volume 111. of “ The Letters of Queen Victoria ” contains a diverting correspondence in which her Majesty, Hartington, the Minister for War (afterwards Duke of Devonshire) and Sir Henry Ponsonby (the Queen’s private secretary) took part. The Quo.en had telegraphed direct to Lord Wolseley on receipt of the news of the battle of Abu Klca, and the first letter is from Lord Hartington to Ponsonby, pointing out that “it would on the whole be most convenient that any message from the Queen should be sent through the Secretary of State. . . cases might occur in which it would be desirable that the Secretary of State should be responsible even for the terms of the telegram.” %r Henry evidently passed the note on, for the next letter is from the Queen to him. Osborne, January 24, 1885.—The Queen always has telegraphed direct to

her Generals, and always will do so. as they value that and don’t care near so much for a mere official message. But she generally sent an official one too, and somehow or other she forgot or omitted sending it to Lord Hartington. But she thinks Lord Ilartington’s letter very officious and impertinent in tone. The Queen has the right to telegraph congratulations and inquiries to any one, and won’t stand dictation. She won't be a machine. But the Liberals always wish to make her feel THAT, and she won’t accept it. The Queen must think Sir Henry must feel this and trusts he will make Lord H. understand his impropriety. This is how Sir Henry Ponsonby transmitted the rebuke to Lord Hartington : My dear Hartington,—l am commanded by the Queen to observe that her Majesty has always been in the habit oi telegraphing in her own name,

to the General commanding a force which has achieved a victory. But she regrets that in the case of Abu Klea she omitted to telegraph the message simultaneously to you.—Yours very truly, Henry F. Ponsonby.