LITERARY NOTES FROM HOME.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 177, 2 January 1875, Page 4

LITERARY NOTES FROM HOME.

An occasional correspondent of the Argus, writing under date, London, October 80th. say* ;—After an exceptionally dull interregnum, the'autumnal literary season has begun, and henceforth there will be no ground for the complaints which have been so frequent of late, that there has been " nothing to read." During the dead season there has certainly been no lack of novels ; on the contiary, a large number of more or less worthless books have been published, but in all the other and more important branches of literature a dreary dearth had prevailed. One cannot make out a satisfactory list for Mudie's from the publishers' advertisements, and it is sometimes quite amusing to dive into the hebdomadal book-box, and glance at the dreadful things which the distracted librarians put up in one week's allowance on chance. Small volumes of verse, generally published at the author's own expense, and by special desire of his relatives and friends, in shiny bindings of green and gold, speculative treatises on religious topics, reousits reprinted from the magazines, and biographical memoirs of persons of whom the generality of mankind have never heard. Such and such like, is the pabulum distributed " all about" by the neat carts and the dapper drivers, who, somehow, have also an out-of-season look about them; One glances at the backs ot the volumes, and puts them away until next week, when one either returns them in despair of getting anything better, or exchanges them for something which, at all events, cannot be worse. One woik only which appeared during the really dull season—those with which the month of October opens belong to quite another category—has made or deserves to make an impression—it is Mrs Oliphant's " A Rose in June," reprinted from the Comhill Magazine, where it forms one of a series of short novels—or novelettes as it is the fashion to call them—under the general title of " The Dinglefield Stories." For some time Mrs Oliphant has produced on all her admirers the impression that she is working too hard, writing too much, almost writing against time, and so diffusing, thinning, and generally injuring her very considerable powers. Her works follow each other in an almost confusingly rapid sequence, and in the later ones, among them notably " The Three Brothers, Hagar, May, and Innocent," there is a sensible decline of the peculiar features and the characteristic merits of the earlier. Her versatility is Extraordinary. She has sometimes three stories going on at one time. Nobody knows where she may find shelter under a slight disguise of style. At first "A Rose in June" puzzled even practised readers; it was, and yet it was not, like Mrs Oliphant. It is the best thing she has done for a long time, and it would be satisfactory to believe that we might look for further work fromher.up to its level. But it is doubtful whether even Mrs Oliphant's genius can stand the strain of such constant production. Were it not for a certain nondescript cynicism which yet manages to consist with English common sense, and sometimes with English prejudice, she would often be very commonplace. She is to write a serial for " Good Words " next year. If she had but thetaculty of patient revision and compression—that faculty of which Thackeray was a master—she might have been the greatest novelist of modern days, but this in her seems defect of nature.

Rumor bids us expect a novel from "George Eliot" next spring. The great novelist who writes under that name is as slow and deliberate as Mrs Oliohant is the opposite, and she always makes the people wait a long time even after a book by her is announced. Her revisions are very numerous, and her proofsheets curiosities of literature. Like other great writers from whose judgment of themselves the public dissented, Mrs G. H. Lewes prefers her poems to her prose productions. The popularity of poetry is, properly speaking, no fair test of its worth, for it may be too grand for the general comprehension and admiration, which in combination signify popularity; but there can be little doubt that in all cases except the very highest—such as Shakespeare, Dante, and the other peerless monarchs of poetry— the voice of public opinion is correct. This voice has pronounced against Mrs Lewes* s supremacy as a poet, while it pronounces her unrivalled as a novelist; and it is much to be desired that she should yield to its dictates. We do want another novel by the author of " Middlemarch " very much indeed; but we could console ourselves if the author of " Armgart " and " .Tubal" never wrote any more poems. The Poet Laureate has given us a very small instalment, a mere whet to the appetite, long expectant, of his long-promised work,'in his poem on " Swainston Park " and " The Peak." It is remarkable that anything written by Tennyson should have called forth so little enthusiasm as these have elicited. Persons who have enjoyed the privilege of seeing certain portions of his forthcoming poem, " Boadicea," in manuscript, speak of it with rapturous admiration—a sentiment, it is true, which such a privilege is not unlikely to develope, but which will probably be justified by the complete 1 result. The theme is a noble and a hazardous one, Mr Tennyson is so fastidious that it may be some time yet, even after all these delays, before the poem reaches the public. His method of work is very laborious. However differently we may judge from the ease and flow of the finished verse, he is perhaps more severe in his revision and retrenchments than any other writer. Some of the '•' Idylls of the King" were reduced by one-third, and the " Northern Farmers" were written and re-written again, after their Heing first set up. If his many imitators would copy him in this particular, their attempts would be much more successful than they generally are. A remarkably cheap edition of the plays of Shakspeare, uniform with their edition of the Aldine poets, is about to be published by Messrs George Bell and Co. The issue is to be in ten volumes, published monthly, at 2s 6d each. Each volume contains 500 pages, and is a most convenient and elegant book. The sale is expected to be very large indeed : the orders have already far exceeded the publishers' expectations. Although revivals of Shakspeare on the stage can hardly be said to be successful, there is undoubtedly an increased appreciation and extended study of the immortal plays. Shakspeare is to be found now on the bookshelves of houses where formerly one would never have thought of looking for him, and the proceedings of the Shakspeare Society, the correspondence between Mr Furnivall and his opponents, the questions and dissertations on various points, in which the works of Shakspeare are concerned, attract an extraordinary amount of public interest, Once

more an actor who has risen to eminence in minor characters is about to submit himself to that great test which has made so few and marred so many stage reputations. Mr Henry Irving, who has identified himself with the parts of Mathias, in " The Belli?," a translation of " Le Juif Polonais," Charles the First, Eugene Aram, and Richelieu, is announced to play " Hamlet'" at Hie Lyceum Theatre almost immediately. The interest which this prospect excites is so great that one is reminded of Paris, where the premieres are more important than any other human affair or social topic, and the air is thick with rumors, while bets are eagerly offered or taken on the question—" Is Irving's Hamlet to be or not to be a success? " Whether he means to adopt the traditional attire of the Prince of Denmark, and whether his Laertes is to be dark or fair—whether he will wear his own hair or a wig—these are the points in debate in society and the clubs. The Rev H. B. Haweis, who has written some clever books, and who in his last volume certainly said some very bold things, has in the press a startling volume, which he calls a " Cremation Prelude.', It is really a touchiug love story, though in the course of it he makes his hero tell a great deal about the Btate of English churchyards, concerning overcrowding (we had really thought that was confined to those living in the east end slums), " management," and much else. Now and then there is a touch of horror, such as we might expect only from Edgar Poe. If what I am given to understand respecting Mr Haweis's book be true, it is a revelation that will do more to discredit " burial" than all £ir Henry Thompson's arguments. Mr George Sala, whose state of health has hindered him from writing much of late, and who is one of the very few litterateurs of the present day who cannot abstain from reminding us of him without being missed, has resumed a former occupation in the " Echoes of the Week " columns in the Illustrated London News. Several years ago Mr Sala originated that department of the first illustrated weekly of importance which London boasted, and when he relinquished it Mr Shirley Brooks followed with his "Nothing in the Papers." The originator resumes his former place, under the old title, and no doubt the seriis will have all its original popularity. Among rising essayists of the light and social order Mr Ashby Sterry is taking a good place. His second volume, "Twig Travels," is very clever ; not, perhaps, quite so good as " The Shuttlecock Papers," but full of quick perception, lively humour, and quaintness.

The third volume of the " Life and Selected Correspondence of Lord Palmerston," by Lord Dalling (who died when half-way through his task), is edited by the Hon. Evelyn Ashley, Lord Shaftesbury's son, who is Lady Palmerston's grandson. He hardly seems to have been the man for the occasion, but no doubt it was not thought expedient to permit the materials, especially the correspondence, to go out of the family, even into better qualified hands in point of literary and editorial ability. It is said that the succeeding volumes have been submitted to the Queen, and that her Majesty has prescribed certain important omissions, which, while saving the susceptibilities of the German Imperial family, with which she has become of late years so strictly allied, will materially decrease the amount of information and " behind-the-scenes " knowledge which the public would have gained had those volumes been left intact. In the third, or present, volume there is a highly interesting correspondence addressed by Lord Palmerston, when he was at the Foreign Office, to his brother, Sir William Temple, in which politics, diplomacy, social topics, personal matters, sport, and general gossip are so mixed up as to afford us a very vivid and interesting insight into the mind and the life of the jaunty statesman whose death closed a cycle in English politics. No great man, I think, was ever so rapidly and so completely forgotten as Lord Palmerston, and this "life" has an inexplicable flavour of ancient history about it. It is difficult to realise that he died only nine years aco, and that in 1864 people were thronging to the Saturday evenings at Cam-bridge-house, and affairs of state were being discussed on that terraced verandah, looking into a garden with an Italian fountain in the centre, where the youngsters of the Royal Artillery, and the "arms" generally do now congregate, to talk " pipeclay " and smoke cigars. The third volume brings the story of Lord Palmerston's career down only to 1847, so that the most interesting portions to us of the present day are yet to come. Apropos of this book, it is seasonable to remember the unjustified bitterness with which Mr Disraeli attacked the Foreign Secretary to the Melbourne Administration in his famous " Letters from Runnymede." Several years ago a series of geographical publications was contemplated, which was to have taken the form of an annual volume of collected essays. Mr Francis Galton was the editor, and one volume—a highly interesting—one—was issued under his auspices. But the scheme was not successful, and it was abandoned, much to the regret of readers who were pleased with the prospect of agreeably-conveyed information on topics of much importance and novelty, divested of the dreariness of mere ordinary records of travel and exploration. Something of the same kind is now in contemplation, to be limited, at first, to records of Arctic exploration, but no doubt with a view to general "xtension afterwards. We shall probably have a translation, issued pari passu, of the history of the travels of the late Austrian expedition to the North Pole. The conductors of that expedition have agreed among themselves to publish the gallant story under two aspects, and in two sections. The first is to contain the scientific results, the second a narrative of the adventures of the explorers. All the principal members of the expedition will be contributors to these works. Austiia is not going to rest satisfied with the honor and fame of the late expedition. Not only does she propose to push her Arctic explorations further, but she is organising an expedition to Africa, which is to be fitted out on a splendid scale, and which several distinguished travellers and savans have volunteered to join. The expedition will leave Vienna in the spring of 1875, and will make for the limits ofSchoenfiirth's travels as its starting point. Mr Wilkie Collins's new serial story has commenced in the Graphic, and is fairly, though not remarkably, interesting. As the freshness of the inventive powers which were so conspicuous in "The Woman in White "declines,the mechanism of the author becomes almost obtrusive. Long ago a critic dubbed Mr Wilkie Collins's an architectural ordir of fiction; and each successive production of his pen justifies still more completely the cpthet. We have a few good novels to chronicle amid a mass of rubbish, Mr

Justin M'Oarthy's " Liuley Rochford" comes first among ttierr.. It is rare indeed for a man to achieve so perfect a study of a female character, so true and. profound an analysis of a woman's heart, as Mr M'Oarthy has produced in this work, which is also a specimen of finished literary style and graceful ease, never for a line suffered to drop into carelessness, " True to her Trust, or Womanly Past Question," is the title of a story by an unknown writer, which is much read and liked by those who are weary of the criminal, women types which have long been in vogue in novels and on the stage. It is crnde in some respects, but its merits are such as to lead us to believe that there is a new writer among the crowd who has it in her to become, if not great, considerable.