SWINBURNIANA.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 550, 3 July 1909, Page 12

SWINBURNIANA.

Mr. Frank ,Ear?lake, w tho latest number of his "Book Auction Records," supplies some interesting notes on Swinburne irom personal recollection. Mr."David White, with whom Mr. Karslake served hm apprenticeship, was pa Ultimate terms with Mr l< , . S ELhs, the wcLl-knoyn bookseller of Bond Street, x aj;d, J§tor, of the Eolmscott Chaucer. —"Just then Swwburne had written"'h\s pamphlet 'Under tho Mioroscopo' in answer to Jtobort Buchanan's 'Fleshly Sohool of Poetry,' and Mr'. Ellis had been asked, probably by Roseetti, of whose poems he was the publisher, to i£suo the pamphlet for Swinborne. After it had been printed Mr. Eljis, for some reason unknown to me, t but prpbablv because of tho criticism of Tennyson afterwards to be referred to, did not wjeh tp pybheh it/and he asked Mr. wTnto to allow his name tq appear on the titjo aa the pubheher. , ' 'llio request was acceded to, and when it was decided to} cancer the") offending" it foil tq Mr. Kafslake's duty to removo tho cancels and replace them with the substituted

loaf. Prom Mr. T. J, Wise's privately printed (.'Bibliographical of_ th,e Scarcer Works and Uncolleetod Writings" of Swinburne, of whioh only fifty copies were printed in 1907, Mr Karslako quofoe the following passage bearing upon the incident —"Upon examining any copy of 'Under the Microscope' it will be, observed tha.t P 5 (pp 41-42) is a cancelleaf. The original leaf vas wisely suppressed, as' certain oTtho expressions used in relation to tho characters of Tennyson's 'Idylls of the Kmg' were lyiduly harsh i Tho following passago, describing 'tho courteous and loyal Gawain of the old' romancers' as 'the vory vijest figure m »H that eyeje of strumpets and scoundrels, broken by, here and there, an imbecile, which Mr Tennyson has set revolving round tho figure of his central wittol' is uniugt as, woll as' severe It is believed that ojily three, oppi.es, of this cancelled leaf wore preserved." Mr. Karslake adds that he had the entire bundle of cancels in his care for some months, and then destroyed them, and he .thinks Mr. •Wise is. correct in hia surmise that only three cop ; «s of the pamphlet got out with the leaf in'them.. It was just as tho brochure was being issued that Mr.,Ellis became alarmed, and took advice, with tho result stated. Mr. Karslake a.lso tells of Mr. Swinburno coming to his shop one evening over thirty years ago to buy spmo feljzabethan plays,-and ho remained "talking divinely" for two houre almost entirely about books. Mr. Karslake, still remembers the, poet's "wonderful flow of diction, without a moment's cessation from first to last." What struck Mr. Karslake most forcibly respecting Swinburne's personality was extraordinary excitability of his temperament, and his marvellous physical energy. "During "tho two hours that he talkecj, he never ceased to drum his fingers on tho table, or to nervously handle and open the books whioh he was selecting, and there was absolutely no roposo from the moment he'eat down till hq. rose to go."