LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1788, 28 June 1913, Page 9

LIBER'S NOTE BOOK.

fTo Correspondents. G. MITCHELL (Wangariui).—Next week. SCRIBE.—Tho enigma on tho letter H, to Trhich you refer and which begins '"Twas whispered in Heaven, 'twas muttered in Hell," is an alteration, by James Smith, one of the authors of "Rejected Addresses," from tho • original by Miss . Catherine Fanshawo (1761-1831). .The first line of the original ran thus: "'Twas in Heaven pronounced; it was muttered in Hell." „ IA.H.S—See notes this week on The Shilling .Bohns." f ■ The Bookman's Curse. I see that Mr. Clement K. Shorter, in hi 9 always readable "Literary Letter in ■London "Sphere," has been lamenting the fact that certain more or less valuable volumes ha*e disappeared from his library. Says C.X.S.:-1 thought I had a comploto edition of George Meredith s works, including the "Poems' of 1851—the rarest —and-of Matthew Arnold s, including some of the rarer treasures, "Alaric and "Geist's Grave/' Now I have discovered that both sets of first editions aire imperfect, tho copy of 'Rhoda ileminsr" in the one, set naving disappeared, and "The Strajred Reveller" in the other. I suppose it is too muchi to hope that • the kind friends unknown who borrowed these partitulilr books in. the years- ox long ago will restore them.- That is too wild a dream.' But--if perchance a .second- • hand bookseller -who /reads this, should have : copies .of. these two somewhat valuable books, I wish that, he would, report them to me. Mrs. Groters plan with borrowers was to insist upon Q. sovereign from the borrower 'being put into an envelope and retained, but what friendship, could survive'such , eordtdness? Charles Lamb on the : Borrowing Tribe.Charles Lamb,' in his "Essays'o'f Eliaj" hag a delightful little satire on bookborrowers, gaily chaffing his friend, ComUrbatch..(Coleridge) -upon the gaps left, in his shelves, in "my little back study in Blooinsbury," by. the poet. Personally, I think I. should Tesent even my best and dearest friend making notes on books ho might borrow from roe, but Lamb was more tolerant. For he says:. Reader, if haply thou ait blessed ■with a moderate collection, be shy of Bhowing it; or if thy heart overfloweth.to lend them, lend thy books; mit let it be to suob a one as S.T.C.—he will return them (generally; anticipating the time appointed) with usury; enriched with annotations tripling their value. I have had experience. ... ■This is all very well, but when ths are mere impertinences, gilly; and useless personal oommeiits? That is quite a different matteiy /The Book-Trtief. The book borrower—who borrowoth and payeth not again—is. bad enough, , but how about the book thief? Publio librarians know Mm only too well—but lately detect him —he is, alas, terribly lard to catch.—and he is not unknown in book shops and at book auctions. But wlen he comes into a private library, in tho guise of a friend, .what onv.eartli can be done with him? Irving.vßrowne,; on ,[American bibliophile, advocated,_ 111 some ' ainfising verses, a policy of (retaliation A)i, gentle thief! ' ■ I 'marked tho absent-minded air. . .With whidh' yon tucked away my rare Book into your pocket... 'Twos past belief, I saw-you'near-the open, case. But yours was such an honest faoe I did,not lock it. • I knew you lacked ■ ■ That one to make your set complete. And when-that book you chanced to meet You recognised it. And when attacked By Tage of bibliophilic greed, Jou prigged' that small Quantin Ovide, Although. I prized it. I will not eme Nor bring your family to shame . By giving up your honoured name To heartless prattle.. I'll visit you, And under your unwary eyes Secrete and carry off the , prize,- ■ ' My ravished chattel. But. all of us have not the • neccssary pluck to imitate Mr. Browne's method. ■■ ■ i fThe Shilling Bohns. At a local bookshop the other day I inspected a pile of the new shilling reissuo of the Bohn library. Mr. Dent's good idea of using different coloured bindings for various sections has been followed, bv Messrs. Bell who publish the new Bohns. Thus history, represented in tho first batch of twenty volumes ,by Motley's "Dutch Republic" and Georgo Hooper's "Waterloo" is clad in blue; travels in gTeen, and poetir and lettres in_ brown. The print i 3 really excellent, being bold and clear. The paper seems a trifle thinner than that used in the "Everyman" series, but is satisfactorily opaque, and I specially liko the clear-cut, plain title on the backs. The excessive gilt "frills" of the "Everyman" books nover pleased me, and the titles on Mr. Dent's books, though doubtless "artistic"—nowadays a muoh-abused term—are very difficult to read, especially when you have a dozen or so of the volumes on tho samo shelf. Altogether, the new "Bohns" are highly satisfactory in the way of format. Some ■ of the titles in the first batch are of quite familiar friends—surely theie were enough editions of Lamb's "Essays" without any more—but others will bo pleasantly now to many buyers of reprints. Thus, I notice an edition, in two volumes, of Goethe's "Wahrheit and Dictung" ("Poetry and Truth from My Own Life" is the translator's title) which is practically a Goethe autobiography. Caverley's "Idylls of Theocritus" it will be interesting to compare with Andrew Lang's prose version, as published in Macmillan's "Golden Treasury" series, and Arthur Young's "Travels in I ranee," to which Carlyle so frequently alludes in his 'Trench Revolution," and which, gives, a wonderfully detailed and distressing picture of the French peasantry as they lived prior to the Revolution, is another good item. Personally, I advise younu Ix>ok-buyers not to pin their faith to any ono particular series of reprints, but to look out for the best edited editions, and select from all the many cheap series now boing published. The new Bohns are certainly worth attention. "The Nation's Library." Yet another new series of original works, at a cheap price—the popular shilling—is ■ announced. This is Collins's "Nation's' Library," which, according to the preliminary announcement, is to bo "international and encyclopaedic in character," each volume being "specially writ/ ten by acknowledged savants on subjects which are engrossing the thought and attention of the public." Amongst the lirst volumes to be issued aro: "Socialism and Syndicalism," by Philip Snowden, M.P.; "Industrial Germany," by W. Harbutt Dawson; "Eugenics—A Scienco and an Ideal," by Edgar Schuster ;• "Modern Views -of Education," by ThlSelton Mark; "Sane Trade Unionism," by W. V. Osborne, of Osborne Judgment Fame. So far as I can see, "Tho Nation's Library" will include much the same class of works as have been issued in the now ' well-known "Homo- University Library.' The very name "Collins" stands for clear, bold type, and 1. have no doubt that tho format generally will be ns attractive as is consistent with the low price (a shilling net; fifteenpence here) at which tho volumes are issued,

—James Thomson. /'Rhymes of a Rolling Stono." ' Robert W. Service, whose "Songs of a Sour Dough" and "Ballads of a Cheechako," ,with their , Klondyke and Canadian, background and their Kiplingesque swing, sold so well, has a third volume of vorso out with. Unwin's. "Rhymes of a Rolling Stone" is the catchy title. The style is much, the same. as in the earlier volumes. Thus in "A'-fjii>aska Dick":— When the boys come out from Lac Labiche, in the lure of" the early spring, . . To take tho pay of tho "Hudson s Bay, as their fathers-did before, They are all a-glee for the Jaboree, and they make the landing rin£. With a whoop and a whirl, and a "Grab your girl," and a rip and a skip and a roar. _ For tho spree of spring is a sacred thing, and the boys must liave their fun; Packer and tracker and half-breed Cree, : from the boat to the bar they leap;, And then when the long flotilla goes, and the last of their pay is done. The boys from tho bank of Lao Labiche swing to tho heavy sweep.' ' And oh, how they sigh! and their throats are dry, and sorry are they and sick; 1 Tet there's none so cursed with a lime- . kiln thirst as that Athabaska Dick. A "Buck-up Ballad." Mr. Service, preaches patience and plucli to the "raw-hand," the /'.tenderfoot. who. is inclined to .let.himself go ■ under.". As.thus:-r- , -. ■ "You're sick of. the game! . .Well,, now, ' that's .a shame. : .... .. You're young and you're. brave and . you're bright. - . , . You've had a. Taw. deal!... I knowr—but ■ . don't squeal,. . . . ' . . Buck up/ do your damndest, and light. It's the plugging away that .will win you . the day, . - . So don't be a piker, old yard! Just draw oil your grit; it's so. easy to quit: ■ ~ ■ , 1 It's the keeping-your-chin-np that shard. It's easy to cry that you're beaten—and •' die; ' l ' It's easy to' crawfish and crawl; But to fight and to fight when hopes out of sight— ' . ' ; .Why. that's the-best game of.them all! And' though you come out ofeach gruelling bout, " ' l All broken and beaten and scarred, Just havo one more try—it's dead easy It's the'keeping-on-living that's hard. I ' Some American "Best Sellers." According to the usual monthly tables published in the New York "Bookman, " the "best sellers" during March were "The Heart of , the Hills," by John Fox, run.; "Tho Amateur Gentleman/-' by Jeffrey Farnol; Elizabeth* frobins's' White Slave story, "Where Are You Going?" (which, I see, is published in America under a different title, "Little Sister"); S-'r Gilbert Parker's "Judgment House!." A novel by Davies, "Andrew the Glad," is well up m most of the lists.' Amongst English novels which sold well were Hutchinson s "Tho Happy Warrior"; and Locke's "Stella Maris." Mrs. Humphrey Ward's' "Mating of Lydia" appears in the Boston list,-but does not seem to bo widely popular. Plays by German authors uro popular/ vi ' ' Stray Leaves, - .Miss Lindsay-Russell, about whose new novel, "Souls in Pawn," I hope to say Bomething next ; week, is a Victorian writer. An English ■ paper . alludes to earlier novels by Hiss Russell, , entitled "Straws in the Wind" and "Smouldering Fires.". Miss Russell is also a poet, and, mirabile dictu, can actually induce publishers to pay for her poetry. For a collection of her poems, 'Road of Yesterday," to be published shortly, she was lucky enough to get a cheque for JISO. . * .* * Upton Sinclair, the author of /'The Jungle," who once denounced matrimony as "a legalised form of slavery, in which women are bought and sold, just , as any horse or dog is bought and sold," has .just married again. His first wife got a divorce on the "incompatibility of. temperament" plea. His second wife is a Miss Mary Kembrough, a' Judge's daughter, and, like Mr. Sinclair, a novelist, and contributor to the magazines. * ' * * ■ - To that useful little series, "Little Books on Art" (Methuen and Co., 23. 6d.). has been added a volume on 'fiarly English Water Colour," by C. E. Hughes. Bonington, Prout, D. Cox, De.Wmdt, and others are dealt with. I see that one of tho best of John Gait's novels, "The Entail," has_been, added to Froude's World's Classics Series. (Is. 3d.). Gait is a much-neglected writer nowadays. Some years ago Blackivoods published a pretty and cheap pocket edi" tion in seven or eight volumes. Those who cannot read French, but who would fain, know something "of Baudelaire's work should note the appearance, in Elkin Matthew's pretty little Vigo Cabinet Series (Is. Gd. cloth) of a translation, "Poems in Prose,' by' Charles Bahdelaire, translated by Arthur Symons. There is a little volume of from Baudelaire in Scott's Canterbury Poets" (Is. 3d.). r I also notice in Mr. Matthew's list a new' edition (2s, Gd.) of a book. Dilemmas," by tho late Ernest Dawson, which has lons been out of print. Harry Franclc, the American amateur "tramp," and author of that capital book, "A Vagabond Journey Round the AVorld," recently spent five months in tho Panama Canal zone, acting as censustaker and "plain-clothes policeman. The result is a book, "Things as They are m Panama," the English edition of which is published by Unwins. . It will bo interesting to compare Franck s account of the canal, engineers, and workers with that given by Foster Fraser. * * * Rex Beach has wisely returned to tho field of'his first successes, Alaska. His latest novel. "The Iron Trail, to be published by Hodders, is said to be as exciting and as replete with ..picaresque local colour as "Tho Barrier, Ike Silver Horde." and "Tho Spoilers, by the same Mrs. Mary Gaunt, who wrote some : powerful studies of Australian bush life, . and afterwards made some good copy out of her experiences on the West Coast of Africa, has gone to China to visit her brother-in-law, that clever and pushful Australian (a Geelongboy) Dr. Morrison, who so long acted as Peking correspondent for the iiondon "Times," and is now, I so it is understood, Political Adviser-m----i Chief to the new Republican Govern- , ment in the Flowery Land. # # 9 Some additions to that capital series, • "The. Cambridge Manuals," will shortly ■ be published by the Cambridgo Univers- : ity Press. Tho following seem promising I titles:—"Wireless Telegraphy," by Pro- ; fesor C. L. Fortescue; "Beyond tho ; Atom," by Professor John Cox; "Coi partnership in Industry," by C. R. Fay; i "Tho Theory of Money," by D. A. Bari ker; anil "Mysticism in English Litera- . ture," by Mis* Spurgeon. The Cam- , bridge Manuals" include exceptionally . useful volumes, and tho series is not i nearly so well known as it might bo and r deserves to be. , » ■» » . • . The late John Addington Symonds's > famous work on "The Renaissance" is to 5 have a rival in a work by a Count G.obe- ■ neau oa the samo subject. The work r has already gone into several Millions both. in. I'ranw. and .Germany,,

It contains five historical scenes, grouped around the persons of Savanarola, Caesar Borgia, Julius 11, Loo X, and Michael Angelo, • * » » Pator'a noble work, "Marius, the Epicurean," is to bo honoured by reproduction in one of the beautifully-printed Riccardi Press editions. All very well for wealthy book-lovers, but when are Macmillans going to givo us a cheap uniform edition of Pater? It would bell well enough. I'* * • A long, new serial story by Mrs. Humphrey Ward was to commence publication ill the May issuo of "Harper's Magazine." » * * Eleanor Mordaunt, for some time a resident in Melbourne, has a new novel out with Hoinemann's entitled "Lu of the Ranges." Colonial colour, presumably, by tho title. * • • John Lane has published an English translation, "The Gods are Athirst," of Anatole France's latest and very notable glory of tho French Revolution, entitled "Les Dieux ont Soif." As I have said before, it is best, if you can, to read Anatole Franco in the original, but it is better to read him in a translation than not at all. English papers speak very well of a new translation, by R. Ellis Roberts, of Ibsen's masterpiece, "Peer Gynt" (Luther, 55.). There i 9 a previous English translation, by William Archer and his brother, but -Mr. Roberts is credited, with having caught more of "the fantastic and tragic huniour of the play" than did the Archers. The translation is in rhyme, the metre of the original, however, boing preserved. » « # ' A new book, of interest-'to art lovers, and especially to those who prefer the humorous side of art, is Mi*. T. Martin Wood's "George Du Maurier, Satirist of the Victorians." Du Maurier will always be remembered. by his inimitable series in "Punch," entitled Society at Home." The creator of Mrs. Ponsonby deTompkyns, of Sir Gorgius Midas, and the sarcastic Mr. Grigsby, was never a "comic" artist as was Charles Kcene. - And ICeene was the better draughtsman of the two. But in his own genre, as society satirist, Du Maurier was unapproachable, and a book about him and his work ought to be worth reading. Chatto and Winders are the publishers (7s. 6d.). By tho way, talking about Du Maurier, you can buy his three novels nowadays at half-a-crown each. There; is a strong autobiographical element, I believe, in both "Peter Ibbetson" and ' The Martian," and the artist's Parisian student days were, of course, reflected in "Trilby." For their illustrations alone, a s'et'of Du Maurier'g books is well worth buying.