LITERARY NOTES.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16162, 16 March 1918, Page 7

LITERARY NOTES.

"Mr Britling Sees It Through" easily holds the rccord as the t*est idling hsi novel. it is understood that over 100,000 copies have been sold in Great Britain, and more than 209,000 copies in America. "What are the 'best sellers* in the States and Canada just now.'" a puolisher from America was asked by an English Dapcr. "In Canada the of j{. Y\. Service, now on active service in France, are in demand. \ 7iew ;":tnor who has been ma.-.jng a name ss -Mr Codv. The books of H. G. Wells have iiad a big run. vo are now expecting a large sale lor Ralph Connor's liew story. In America the book 'Over the Top' has been very popular, and lan Hay's stories." The authorship of the famous "Canadian Boat Song"' is a recurring subject for dispute in England. The discussion lisually arises out ol somebody's misquotation of the most famous stanza, which, as it appeared in Blackwood read: From the lone shioijue of the miftr island Mountains divide us." and the waste of seas— Yet srii! the biooJ is warm, the- heart is Highland, And we in dreams bobold tho Hebrides. It has been customary to credit the either to J. G. Lockhart or to '•Christopher North" (Professor J. Wi;.-o:i), hotii, of course, might;--"Blackwood's" men at the time ill question. These "attributions." howeve-. say;, the ".Manchester Guardian," w'lil scarcely survive examination. The verse was introduced 'nto the famous "Blackwood" symposium "Nootes Ambrosiaine," and by September, 1629, it is pretty certain Lot-K----har t had allowed Wilson to become whollv responsible for this collcction of tabic talk—written in quasi-dra-inatir; form and introducing a medley of wine-bibbing, garrulous characters. And though, in the "Nox" we are now considering "'North" sketches himself with some sest, and it is he who brings in tho Hebridean verse, he does so in this manner "By the by (he says), 1 have a letter . . . from a friend of mine now in "Upper Canada. He was rowed down the St. L:nvrence . . . by a set of strapping fellows, all boin in that country, and vet hardly one of whom could speak a word of any tongue but the Gaelic. They sang heaps of our old Highland oar-songs, he says' . . . and they iiad others of their own, Gaelic too, some of which my friend noted down. He has sent me a translation of one of their ditties—shall I try how it will croon?" North then "croons," tlia titi-; of his dittv being announced as "a Canadian boat-song (from tho Gaelic)." By some people the verse is ascribed to John Gait, a ScotcnCanadian. Au ingenious attempt to prove from "internal evidence" that the "Canadian Boat Song" was the work of "Christopher North" (Professor Vinson) has been made by Mr G. M. Fraser. The idea that it _ was a translation from a Gaelic original .ie sets aside for the reason that no vestige of a Gaelic original has ever been discovered. The claims made on < ehalf of Gait and Lockhart-he dismisses on the ground that neither had quite enough talent to write it. Ho also puts aside the twelfth Earl of Eglinton, to whom the poem has also been ascribed, on the ground that that nobleman was too much of an aristocrat ever to have written verses so democratic in feeling. On behalf of the authorship of Professor Wilson he pleads that Wilson's was one of those minds ■which are subject in a higher degree than others to fixed mental pictures—pictures, that is, which, after they have once been expressed in an image in prose or ver.w, do not thereafter fade and vanish, but remain and aife used again and again. In the "Canadian Boat Song" Mr Fraser claims that there are three such "pictures" which are to be fount continuously in Wilson's writings of the same period. To begin with, there, is the "lone shieling" itself. By J quotations from Wilson's works h,'s advocate seeks to prove that Wilson at that time was haunted by the thought of shielings in lonely places. In one set of verses the lonely shieling is "on the mountain's secret top"; in another it is set in the central glaom of the woods; and in a third it is in a deep glen; but always its site is in a wilderness. Even its absence is observed : "No shepherd's cot is here—no shieling." The theory is ingenious, and deems to establish a strong case in favour of Wilson's authorship. But there have been, unfortunately for Wilsou's advocate, claims with much more substance behind them put forward on behalf of others. The publication of the Oxford English Dictionary has been carried a stage further by the issue of another portion of ' the section SI—ST, cf which Mr Henry Bradley has had charge (Clarendon tress, os net), ranging from "Stillation" to "Stratum." The section is a double one, including 1115 main words, 657 special combinations, and 411 subordinate entries —nearly twice as many words as there were in the corresponding section of the Century Dictionary and its supplement, and fifteen times as many *s Dr. Johnson was able to find! About half the space is occupied bv words of native English origin* no t withstand; ing that the section includes many scientific terms which come to us from the Greek, mainly through Latin and French; but it derives practically nothing from" the Celtic, and has nothing at all of Oriental, African, or American origin. One entry which is of particular interest just now reads: "Strafe (straf) v. slang (from the Gcr. phrase Gott strafe England, "God punish England," a common salutation in Germany in 1914 and the following years), trains. Used (originally by British soldiers in the war against Germany) in various senses suggested by its origin: To punish; to do damage to; to attack fiercely; to heap Imprecations on; also absol. Also Strafe sb., a fierce assault." When everybody is reading his "Recollections" it may appropriately be recalled that, in the late eighties, ono who knew him well related that "Mr Morle.v found it essential to composition that he should bo absolutely quiet. He wrote with great care; he knew exactly •' what he had to say; he knew exactly how to say it."« In a letter of Lord Morley to Sir Arthur Helps, incorporated in the recently-issued volume of "Correspondence," ho thus closes his epistle: "I wonder whether you -agree with me in the garb proper for writing. Like Buffon, I insist upon shaving and clean linen beforo sitting down to composition." The output of so much poetrv during tho last three or four years naturally sets a man thinking in terms of that poetic resurrection which fashionable opinion assures us is here. Yet it is well to check the mind from sliding along this glibness of statement too readily. .Resurrection, after all, implies a preceding death, and has the poetic continuity of the last century really been broken; are we witnessinc ' a soulrisiug, as in a mediaeval woodcut, out of the mortified body? Francis Thompson, I may allow, was the last of | the great Victorians, but no visible gulf opens between him and ourselves. Thomas Hardy, Sturge Mooro, Robert j Bridges, W. H. Davies, are they unworthy contributors and sustainers of the tradition ? The truth is that we , cannot postulate a rise until we can be . sure of a fall. What, j u f actj ]S j ing place is not so much a revival of . poetrv as a transference of the poetic allegiance from the hands of individuals into those of sets, classes, and groups. [ Names we have had during the last

few years, but they have onh" been titles with no solid estate belund tin Budded at the morn, thov have been cut down at dewv eve. Clique*. to . we have had. patronised by hui._J. critics, wealthy society, and _ fin .' 1 , ) critic:? 1 public anxious to <.o the uu but. tliongh an ill-consequence of tins transference, they do not by an\ means either account for it or con demn it.—'The Nation." At the conclusion of • the a rt ' c ' c "Literature in Lord Morlev s , lections.'" " "C. H. EL" said in uManchester '-'Guardian' : ''It was ■-•ot for nothing. . . - that Herbert fP enc^ r chose him of all his inends to P nounce the last commemorative worcis over his agnostic grave. ' _ fepencer stated the reasons for his choice when he asked Lord Morlev to dcli\ei < a Ijrief address over his remains: Un looking round among my friends you stand ""out above others as one from whom words would come most fit.lv; partly because of our long friendship, partlv because of the kinship of sentiment existing between us, and partly because of the general likeness or ideas which distinguishes us from the world at larrre." In giving a willing assent to the request Mr Money (is he then was) expressed his thanks to Spencer for "this high mark of your confidence."' At the time of Spencer s death, however, Mr Morloy was voyaging to Sicily to recuperatc from overwork, and "was therefore unable to fulfil his promise. In the directiins for his funeral Spencer had expressed the desire that, in the event of Mr Morloy not being able to speak, Mr Leonard Courtney (now Lord Courtney) should give the funeral oration, and at much trouble to himself Lord Courtney carried out the synthetic philosopher's wish.