LIBER'S NOTE-BOOK

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2729, 25 March 1916, Page 9

LIBER'S NOTE-BOOK

"Old Now Zealand." I understand that the Hon. Dr. M'Nab, M.P., though a busy man nowadays witih his Ministerial duties, still finds time to indulge his laudable hobby'of studying and writing, upon New Zealand's - early history. One of his recent acquisitions in the way of documents pour 6ervir is the log or journal of the whaling vessel Australia, written ;by the captain, William Barnard Rhodes, who arrived at Port Cooper, as Lyttelton was then called, in 1836, his. vessel remaining in New Zealand waters for a couple of'years or so. Mr. Rhodes returned to Port Cooper in 1839 and 1840, in the barque Eleanor, in,which, he brought the first stock to -Banks Peninsula. It is prob. ablo tihat the Rhodes journals will be reproduced in full, or largely drawn upon, in 'a ivork which Dr. M'Nab has in contemplation, and in which be will carry on the story of early New: Zealand of wiLich his_ "Old Whaling Days" was the last installment. ' ■■ Aeschylus and the War. . •'• Some correspondents of the ,"Times" Literary Supplement have been finding in Aeschylus quite a number of passages appropriate to the present war. The following lines, from.Blackie's verse translation of Agamemnon, are quoted as being singularly apposite to tho Dardanelles expedition:— Ah! Many an Argiye heart to-day _ Is pricked with wail and mourning, Knowing how ma'nyiwent to..Troy,. From Troy how few..returning! The mothers of each house shall wait ■ To greet their sons at every gute; But, alas! -Not men, hut dust of men, ■ Each sorrowing house r-cceiveth Tlie- mn' in. which thefleshly case Its cindered ruin leaveth. Another quotation is offered to the Kaiser as a birthday present', on behalf of Belgium, Poland, and Serbia: — 4 O hard to bear, when evil murmurs fly, Is a nation's hate; unblest on whoin doth Ho A people's curse! ,'-. For not .from heaven, the 'gods behold in . vain v ■ -V -Hands red with slaughter... The,, black-, mantled train,/ '' ; _Who watch, arid'wait, In their own hour 6hall>>turn to bane ■ The. bliss that grew..from.:godless ; gain. The mighty man - with heart elate Shall fall: even'as the. sighiless.'.shadea .The great man's glory .fades. .. v

Some of these' days' I shall' devote a spare hour to digging out; say, , from Dante or' Milton,"' some; passage, which -will - give a 'prophetic-; picture of the Kaiser's first appearance in the nether world. . , ■ Se'lcotions from Landor.

Few people, I am afraid, read Landor nowadays. Which is their misfortune, | for although there is much in Landor's prolific literary output which is distinctly and rightly negligible, there is much also that should serve as delightful entertainment if read in the right spirit. To tackle a complete edition of Landor in these busy times, times, too, of such a constant outpouring of new books, is out of the question. But Landor in small and well-chosen doses will always afford an escape from ennui—that is, of course, to readers who find pleasure in the wise and beautiful, rather than in studies of the trivial and -ugly side of life. Sir Sidney Colvin's "Selections" (published in the cheap and/ handy"Golden' Treasury" series) give 0110 a Very good idea of the scope and quality of Landor's work, and now. so I notice, a. yet cheaper selection, this time from the famous "Imaginary Conversations," has been made by Mr. Ernest do Selincourt, and published by. Mr.-Humphrey-Milford (for the Oxford University Press), at the modest price of a shilling. The littlo volume'should be worth buying,;especially by tlioso, and .there are many such., of the. present ginera-, tion, to whom Landor is but a name. ; The Author of "Lorna Doone," In his "Memories of a Publisher," Mr.G. H. Putnam gives_ an interesting account of a visit ho paid, in .the later 'eighties, to "William Blaclimoie, author. of "Lorna Doone." Blackmore's great hobby, a hobby he would fain, have made a business of, was market I gardening and fruit-growing. Putnam visited the novelist on the ThamSj near Tcddington Lock, where he was fruitfarming, and found him bu6y among his grapo vines. On coming down from Oxford, Blackmore had begun life as a solicitor, his first stories being produced in his intervals of law work. Then his health gave way, and his medical advisers ordered him life in tho open air. ' As he. had had early experience fruit-fanning, Blackmoro decided t-o go back to it. and it was on the farm that he found inspiration for his later books. Writing of his visit, Mr. Putnam says:— "The old gentleman gave me a very cordial welcome, and took'me to his piazza, where, with a pretty view of the Thames, we had afternoon coffeo, with tho additional luxury of exquisite nectarines. Realising that this beautiful fruit was being produced at a small comparative expenditure—that is, under the hands of tho actual ownor-—I assumed that the operation must bo quite remunerative, and I congratulated my host on being within easy reach of Covent Garden, the most extravagant fruit market of tho world. His reply came with a groan, 'Yes.' he said, 'the fruit is good, and. the London buyers certainly pay for it a high pricc. but I must admit that when at tho end of the year I make up niyfarrri books I find that the net result is a deficiency instead of a profit. I then have to turn to and write a new story with which to meet the losses on the growing of fruit.'"

Stray Leaves. Reviews of Arnold Bennett's "These Twain," being the final volume of the Claghanger trilogy, and of other novels, are held over. Tho barbarism of the German soldiers •is 110 new thing. Dipping, last Sunday, into' "Tho Letters of tho Late Edward Dowden"—Dowden, the famous Dublin professor, and writer 011 Shelloy and tihakespoare—l camo across the following, in a letter dated March 7, 1871 "1 don't think you have felt sufficiently what such a unity of Germany as this means for us all, and what such a prostration of France. Did you seo the report of the lewd and fierce dances, witnessed by tho 'Daily News' correspondent. of the Prussian soldiers round the statue of Strasburg, under tho eyes of officers, ; and the bands playing all day long in the Place do la Concorde, selected as being the most central part of Paris in this holding ? Thoso wanton insults show a brutal crossness of head and heart." But- there will be no such "lewd and fierce dances" at the close of this war, not in Paris at least. What may happen w'henles poilus march up the Friederichstraisse or Unter Den Linden, in the Kaiser's capital, remains to bo seen.

I am always interested in new books of quotations, of which a busy literary man can never possess too many on his shelves. An ontirely new work of this kind, "Forty Thousand Quotations," classified according to subject—an excellent 'idea—is, I see, announced by Messrs. Harrap and Co., the editorcompiler being a _ Mr. Charles Noel Douglas. The dictionary will, it is said, run to upwards of 2000 pages. In bulk at least it will far surpass ray old friend. Bartlett; and others which have preceded it. - Messrs. Macmillans are publishing .a .shilling volume, "Democracy and National Service," being the concluding part of Fredorick Scott Oliver's remarkoble book (now in its tenth English edition), "Ordeal by Battle." The volume will also contain an abridgment of the earlier chapters. No one has written. more vigorously and sensibly on tho war than Mr. Oliver, and what he cays as to the duties of tho democracy with regard to national defence might well be'read with advantage, by Now Zealand democrats as well by those of tho Motherland.

That much-quoted phrase, "My Country Eight or Wrong,'.' is often erroneously put down to Abe Lincoln.' Just recently, however, it was stated tliat the Germans have been attributing it to some Englishman. Palmerston .was mentioned in this connection by one German paper. As a matter of fact, it was neither an English nor an American statesman irho made use of the phrase, hut an American naval officer, Stephen Decatur (1779-18201. The exact quotation runs as follows:—"Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always ha in the right! But our country, right or wrong!" (Toast given at Norfolk. April, 1816.)