LITERARY NOTES.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19174, 3 December 1927, Page 13

LITERARY NOTES.

(FROM OtTB OWV COMKSPOSDrNT.) LONDON, October 6. One of the many interesting disclosures made by Lord Birkenhead in his series of essays, "Law, Life, and Letters" (Hodder and Stoughton) is his confession that he was taken entirely by surprise when Mr Lloyd George offered him the Lord Chancellorship just after the General Election in 1918. Ho comments on this incident in tho chapter which he calls "Milestones in My Life." "I made it quite plain (to Mr Lloyd George), almost in a sentence, that nothing would Induce me to accept the office ol Attor-ney-General upon this condition (without a seat in the Cabinet). And I added that I was in full sympathy with the Government, but that I was perfectly prepared to resume my practice at the Bar; and that I was suro I should be able to give him independent support from the back benches. As quick as liehtning tho Prime Minister retorted, How about the Woolsack?' It is literally true at that time it had never even occurred to me to bring to an end my membership of the House of Commons." In a chapter on oratory, Lord Birkenhead has this interesting reference to Beaconsfield: — "Disraeli, when his long period of prominence arrived, was a witty and sardonic speaker. His style is so modern that quotations from it would seem, except for their brilliance, transcripts from the 'Hansard' of to-day."

According to an exchange, it was tho late Mr Lewis Hind who sponsored Mr John Mnsefield. The young man, fresh to London, was introduced to the "Academy'' office —Mr Hind was then editor— by Mr W. B. Yeats. • Mr Hind used to draw a vivid little picture of a group of literary men, including himself, listening to Yeats reading his poetry in his rooms at Bloomsbury "The poet knelt on the floor by the light of ono candle, guttering on the table; on, on he read, impassioned, oracular, fine, until dawn came, and we crept downstairs leaving Yeats, I think, still reading."

Mrs Norman Grosvenor, who is Mr John Buchan's mother-in-law, is coauthor with her brother, the late Lord Stuart of Wortley, of the life of her grandmother, "The First Lady Wharncliffe and Her Family." Lady Wharncliffe, who was a daughter of the first Earl of Erne, saw a great deal in her 57 years of married life, and she had a lively and facile pen. Her letters, therefore, make the book an engaging mirror of her tifhe.

Among the passengers who left Southampton recently by the Canadian Pacific s.s. Empress of Scotland were Mr and Mrs Alfred Noyes, who had just returned from a' brief honeymoon in Paris. Mr Noyes was going out to Canada to give a series of readings and lectures in the Dominion, under the auspices of tho Overseas Education League, which aims at consolidating the relations between the Dominion and the Mother Country. Mr Noyes's acceptance of the invitation was inspired by a characteristic patriotism, which is in this case its own reward.