LITERARY NOTES.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16144, 23 February 1918, Page 7

LITERARY NOTES.

Tfao •'Revue des Deux Mondesi in company with certain other review--C.. exempted from tho order drafted y - • 113 Clcmentcl enforcing a reduction 0 : t ™ d ' per cent, in the circulation ot Fre U™aic»U. It P<»« sts , a ( cl "G„ard° , special favour (the "ilnnclieiter Guam "• iL" »««), l'or oven duri» S the «W> ; . a ~ of Paris it never ceased publicatio. lle From time to time a number sent out :t ?" bv balloon told the provinces that tnc fi" "Revue" was still alive and that it had ' n succeeded in keeping a brilliant group iP> of writers together. While the military ,IC ! Mtuatiou is reflected in some of e iu articles published during this period, e '~ the large majority deal ivith literary, 01 dramatic, or historical topics, sue as ia- "Les <Jhants de la Finlande, J° S Joubert." -'Un Poeme de °corgo ne Eliot," "Les Financiers au Theatre, "Les Finances de l'Angleterre "eP" 1 ® ty Sir Robert Peel," etc. Two novels also aopeared in the "Revue during n * siege, one of them by George band. « st came out on September loth, or the opening day of the siego—and punctuallv on the Ist and loth of each o i the three following months, every.issuo 1 containing, as in normal times, about 1(1 180 pages. Paris capitulated just in _>d time to save its record of continuity in (every fortnight without a break f° r nt 87 years), the office stock of paper having been completely exhausted by the publication of the "Revue'' of March, fy iß7i. it —— st The veteran novelist, Mr J. T. P re ®~ Ie ton Muddock has lost his third and „ last son on the battlefield. Mr Muddock, as a servant of old "John Comj pany," had his own experiences of war during the Indian Mutiny; and he saw in active service again in America during d 1 the Civil War. As a novelist he has ,j written historical romances under his own name, and at the same time has won great popularity as a writer of detective stories under the pseudonym of it "Dick Donovan." Notwithstanding 56 that he is by no means man ho .]] has been doing "war -work" in "Whitejc hall, since the beginning of the war. Do<?3 the modern youngster count hi® blessings in the matter of Christmas s- books asks an English writer. What would he say if, instead of ono of the .j healthy, brightly-written stories that )0 now crowd the booksellers' windows r G jven in war-time, he received a copy of j one of tho books for juveniles in vogue ' a century ago? Tho very titles of some tn of these old vohimes would rouso the v back of present-day youth—"The AdZ, vantages of Education as Elucidated in ' s the History of the "Wingfield Family," 7 for instance, or Elizabeth Ann Dove's A "Tales for My Pupils; or, Juvenile Errors Corrected,''' "S. "W.'s," "A Visit a to a Farm; or, An Introduction to Variw ous Subjects connected with Rural d Economy." or Sandham's "Perambu>r lations of a Bee and a Butterfly, in ,o which- is Delineated those Smaller 3 - Traits of Character which Commonly t, Escape Observation." it . . > Apropos of Mr Galsworthy's opinion sr that titles are not for men of letters, y a correspondent of tho "Westminster i- Gazette" writes: "I have a long-ago ie reminiscence of a talk with Browning, just after Tennyson had been made a 3. peer. It was in the "quad" at Balliol, e where he was staying with tho Master, n and he had invited me—then an underi- graduate—to walk round with him. I was equally gratified and terrified at i, the honour, but he quickly put me at , e my ease, and I drew him into talking i- about contemporary poetry. Tennyson ir was discussed, and he spoke with whole- -- hearted hut discriminating admiration of a poet whoso ways were not his rl ways. Presently he said: 'Some poets ° think a peerage the right reward for a poet; I think a fellowship at Balliol.' f He had recently been elected an honorary Fellow of Balliol —a distinction ■t w hich gave him more pleasure than almost any othor that he had in his J life." Stephen Eeacock, in his latest book, r, "Frenzied Fiction," has a funny burlesque, entitled "The Prophet in Our Midst." Leacock had invited the Eminent Authority (straight from abroad) to his club to give some of the boys an £ inside on the European political situatlion. Tho bovs -wanted to know 6 whether "the Italians can knock the ■, stuff out of the Austrians? Aro the Roumanians getting licked or not ? How ° many submarines has Germany, anyr way ?" What they got was something r like the following: £ "Do you think," I said, "that Gormany will be broken by the war?" a "You mean Germany *m what sense? Are you thinking of Preussenthum ? V Are you referring to Junkerismus?" 6 "No," I said quite truthfully; ''nei--0 ther of them." "Ah," said the Authority, "I see. t Yon mean Germany as a Souveranitiit - embodied in a Reicfisland P "That's it,' r I said. - "Tlien, it's rather hard," said the b Eminent Authority, "to answer your - question in plain terms. But I'll try. P One thing, of course, is absolutely cer-tain—Mittel-Europa goes overboard. s This is the end of Mittel-Europa. I mpan to say, here we've had Mittelp Europa—that is, the Mittel-Europa idea 7 —as a sort of Fantasmus in front of 1 Tentonism over since Koniggratz." The Authority looked all around us in - that searching- way he had. We all s tried ,to look like men seeing a Fantaso mus, and disgusted at it. s "So you see," he went on, "Mittel- % Europa is done with. . . . And thore is no doubt when Mittel-Europa goes, Grossdeutschthum goes with. it. . . . Well, then, there you aro. . . . "What is the result for Germany—why the thing's as plain as a pikestaff—in fact you're ° driven to it by the sheer logic of tho situation —tliero is only one outcome —" a And so on, in the patois of the diplo- , mats, until Leacock and his friends e found themselves in the condition of _ the frog that listens to the singing of a s black snake. The statement that ended o the conference and broke it up was to the effect that: t "The .Dardanelles could easily be dej nationalised under a quadrilateral guar- ! □ to be made a pars materia of tho i e pactum foederis." j f Another historic document has been 0 presented to the British nation—the last - letter written by Mary Stuart on tho eve of her execution, and described as one of the most precious autograph a letters in the world." It was to have been offered at the resumed sale of the r Morrison collection at Sotheby's, but a it was purchased privately by Mr Levers ton Harris, M.P., Parliamentary Under- - becretary to the Minister of Blockade, 1 and other gentlemen, for presentation to the nation. Efforts will be made to - secure it for public exhibition in Edina, burgh. The four Cromwell letters pura chased for presentation to the nation > were secured (so a ".Daily Chronicle" - representative was informed) by a lady, - who desires to remain anonymous. She , is sending them to Chequers Court, tho " y an^2. tl in Bucks given as a residence t * or Prime l Ministers by Sir Arthur and r l; a dy Lw. One of the letters contains v famous description of the i nattle of Marston Moor. A number of poison letters, written to Lady Hamil--7 wcre among the lots sold, a Mr ■ iretterson buying them for £2500.. ! It is a frequent thing to find literary 1 news in the pases of some just-pub-Jished book. _ There is 6uch news in ; the very interesting volume cf Hawarden letters issued by Nisbet And i Co. "We learn from it "that Glad- • stone—why use "the late" or "Mr"?— j left about 40 volumes of diaries. That •, suggests the question, Will they ever i j be published ? i' The death of Mrs Clement Shorter, Irish poetess, better known as Dora ' Sisorson, was announced on January 7th last. irrs Shorter was born in the city of Dublin. Her father was Dx. George Si rrrson, noted as tha

aut ior of many important scientific works. The doctor was famous for ins collection of miniatures and pas- : , an d his artistic talents, devoted by him purely to recreation moments, wore reflected in the work of lis daughter. She was married in ISP6 to Clement King Shorter, editor of \ '".Sphere." the "Illustrated London News/' and other English publications. Mrs Shorter began her best work in 1594. when she published a number of verses. Mr W. Pett Ridge, in distributing the prizes and certificates to the students of the City of London College at the Mansion House. made some interesting remarks on reading. He mentioned that in a military hospital the other day a , man in one of the wards asked him whether he could get for him Jules ,TT e j ne ' s "T we nty Thousand Leagues 'Under the Sea." "I began it twenty years ago," he said. "I borrowed it from another man. Somebody pinched it from rce when I was half-way through it, and I've never had a chance of getting to the end of it." "I found the book." said the speaker, 'and took it to him. Ho said, 'I'm ver y stad to have it. I began it twenty years ago.' I said, ; Yes. but you've read a large number of books since then, haven't you?' The man replied, 'Oh, no; I never tried another.' "