STRAY LEAVES

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 200, 13 May 1918, Page 6

STRAY LEAVES

(From "Liber's Note Book) Asj an example of Aiunbuoyancy in advertisement commend me to the publishers' {.American, of course) puff preliminary of Dr. H. J. Desmond's book, "Why God Loves.the Irish." Here is a sample slab: "No politics! No abuse! No bitterness! Just God's own men and women at their lovable best. If Irish, it will make you a better American. If not Irish, you'll wish you hud at 'east one Celtic corpuscle, that you might: flaunt it as a silkless emerald— the- rarest cf precious brilliants," etc., etc., etc.

Sir Frederick Bridge recently delivered two lectures, under the Gresham founila--1 tion, on what is a literary and musical curiosity, uamely.a burletta—as the term went in early Victorian days—the libretto of which was by Charles Dickens, and the music by Dr. John IJulliih, tho inventor of tho tonic sol fa system. The picco wae onlitled, "The Village Coqiiottes," and was produced at tho St. James's Theatre, London, in lfioG, a year before "Boz" had commenced writing "Pickwick." The whole of the music was deRtroyod in i< lire at an Edinburgh theatre, but the libretto, printed separately, still exists, all hough copies ot the first and only edition are nnongst the rarest of Dickensiaiiii.

Several now biographies, autobiographies, and books of reminiscences won , announced parly in March fn ,, curly publatinn. .Amongst I hive ore the two concluding volumes of tin , "Life of Lord Beaconsdeld," the "Correspuiuknce of Sir Arthur Helps," "The Paget Brothers," n, record of a specially gifted family, covering tho period 1790 to IHlfi; "Mcmqrica of Midland Politics," by Lord Channim;; "The Life and letters of Sir Joseph Hooker," and the autobiography of nil Irish parish priest, Canon Sheohan of Donorailo, tho author of several witty Irieh novels.