NOTES.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 681, 4 December 1909, Page 9

NOTES.

': On more than one occasion, shortly befprehis death r (says'the "Westininster : Gazetto"). Jehn Davidson himself disposed of. small parcels of his books. / In-, effecting their ' sale the poet, maintained his usual taciturnity and silently, accepted'tlie'book-dealer's pft'or. One "of the yolumos thus disposed of, writes a correspondent,' hasjusteome.intomy. possession—interesting alike from . its: authorship, its rarity, and: not least from its association with John Davidson. Exclusively issued towards the close of 1883—"A /Three-fold ■ Cord. Poems by Threo "Friends. Edited .by George Mac Donald,"the 'book,: containing poems by the editor,;his brother, and: another, was later published by Messrs. Chatto andWindus. In some of Davidson's verse pno finds an echo-.of several pieces in the little volume—absent, by tho way, from tho British Museum Catalogue—and whon I ono'recalls the pathetic statement intho poefs last "preface"—"Tho '.tiino has 'corao to makd an ond"—the following lines, to give only ono instance of those."pencilled"— .•'■' "' .

I'm tired o' life's rockin' sea; An' dinna be lqng, for I'm nearhan foar't 'Atl'mmaist owcr auld to dee, give an enhanced significance and value to tho book. Mr. Bernard Shaw has written a remarkable preface for the new editions of Mr. Hall Caine's latest noiel, "The White Prophet"— a book which dealß with Nationalism in Egypt, and which has been severely condemned by the best critics both for its bad art and its worse politics. Mr. Shaw defended Mr. Caine veiy \fgor. ously. "Hall Caine's Prophet.'i hg obsarves,

.docs not wag his tail at the door of tho British Consulato and. bark andbito at the door of tho mosque. Ho is a 'humane and'honourable preacher, who '.' appears superhuman in hnglancl only, because he is neither, a snob nor a,sensualist. =. But suppose he 'wore a reincarnation of Jesus! Docs any Christian who has tho faintest notion of what his religion means'doubt that tho spirit of Jesus is kept alive among ns by .continual reincarnation, and,cannot bo kept alive in any other way? ~.- .•■■; The illiteracy which would forbid a man of letters to write an Imitation of Christ might bo forgiven to: the Irish peasant who is afraid to mention the fairies, and tremblingly alludes to thom as 'themselves' when the terrifying subject is forced on him; but that London journalists, should have sunk to such an abyss of tribal ignorance is : enough to niako us ask, with a gasp, how long it will bo before the civilised nations of Europe and Asia will come and conquer us for our good, a3 Caesar conquered us in tho comparatively enlightened age of Boadicca." •