ART LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 2041, 8 September 1880, Page 4

ART LITERARY, AND DRAMATIC GOSSIP.

JTFrom English and other Files.]

Of George Lawrence, Ouida Bays, in the «Whitehall Review,” that she remembers once hearing him reply to some one who ohjeoted to him that hid atory of “ Sword and Gown” was improbable. “ Well, yes, I dareoay it may be bo very improbable ; all I know is, it is true.” Ouida adds : “It was always denied bv his critics that Lawenoe’s description of Guy Livingstone crushing the silver tankard could by any means have ever decribed an actual feat of strength; yet Lawrence told me (sadly enough, when he related this to me, for those days of his strength had departed from him) that on the morning when ho road the “ Saturday Review’s” scoff at his feat as impossible, he took up a goblet of the size described in the novel and bent it ia one hand down on to the leaves of the sapient “Saturday.” Similar must bo the experience of many a novelist in matters less capable of positive and practical proof than the crushing of a silver goblet.” Somebody, says a contemporary, whose remarks we have much pleasure in quoting, has taken the trouble to investigate and report that the notorious “ Bob” Ingersoll is a plagiarist—that ho has not even the poor credit of originality in much of his blasphemous ribaldry. A Chicago journalist asserts that Ingersoll’s saying that he would go to hell with his reason, rather than to heaven without it, was stolen bodily from the writing of Baron Holbsch, a famous French freethinker of the last century. “ The_ System of Nature” appeared to be a favourite hunting ground for the successor of Thomas Paine, and from that book he has cribbed two-thirds of his lecture on “ Ghosts.” In preparing his lecture on the “Gods”—which he stated was the best one in the course—the Chicago Tmar, referred to avers that the blatant lecturer had searched the slums of infidel writings for material. His famous aphorism, “An honest God is the noblest work of man,” was cribbed from a work published in London by Charles Blount in 1663, and some of his most pungent and foul allusions to Christianity and the clergy were taken from a work so foul that its publication and circulation had been suppressed in its own country—namely, “The Life of the Gods,” by Eugene Baptiste Parney, a Frenchman. Prof. Maskelyne must look to his laurels. I have just heard the particulars of a decapitation exhibition in Yokohama, which far surpasses anything of the kind at the Egyptian Hall. The performances take place in a small room, about 20 feet long by 12 feet wide, half being allotted to the spectators, who are admitted on the payment of two cents. _ The “properties” are of the simplest description—a deal table and a sword, &c. After the usnal soul-stirring flourish on a drum and samisen, a man and woman appear from behind^ a screen. The man binds the woman’s head in a cloth, and she then kneels down close to the table, and sideways to the spectators. A violent blow with the sword is delivered at the woman’s nock, and she falls forward, arms extended and limbs twitching. After wiping the sword on a gory-looking rag, tho man apparently takes up the woman’s head and places it on the table. To all appearances it is a human head ; the eyelids and features have a convulsive motion. Presently tho eyelids open in a dreamy sort of way, and to the accompaniment of the everlasting samisen the head sings a mournful song. A curtain is here interposed for a few moments between the audience and the performers, and when drawn back tho woman is discovered uninjured. This would, undoubtedly make a new sensation in this country for our horrorloving people. A London letter referring to George Eliot says ; —Lewes's death was a terrible bereavement to her, one from which she will hardly recover. He was a great stay and support to her; he encouraged her to write; was her best and moat stimulating critic, and it is no doubt on account of her loss, so severe and irreparable, that she has determined to lay aside her wondrous pen. She ia now 59, and childless, and though it may not be called so, hers is a most melancholy widowhood, She was always referred to, wnile he lived, as the wife of Lewes. She never was his wife ; she could not be, for Mrs Lewes proper still survives. Sin frequently contributes to longevity. George Eliot’s writings have been very profitable. Their value in the market has rapidly increased. For “ Scenes of Clerical Life” she received but £300; for “ Adam Bede” she got, all told, £3000; but something less, I fear, for “ Mill on the Floss.” “ Romola,” perhaps her most artistic and one of the most interesting of her novels, to cultured people, has never been fully appreciated. Its earnings to date, I am told, have not been over £2OOO. She has cleared from “ Middlemaroh,” issued by the Blackwoods, in eight divisions, the enormous sum of £8000; and for “ Daniel Deronda” about the same, “ Silas Marner,” one of the strongest stories, was not very profitable ; while “ Felix Holt,” not at all equal to it, gave her eix times as much money. Her poetry—she has issued six volumes —has not been liked, nor does it deserve to be liked in any measure with her novels. Still she prefers her poetry, and would rather be ranked as a poet than a flotiomst. Her entire earnings have been about £50,000, and she could make a contract any day fora new story for which she could be guaranteed £BOOO. Her money-making power is not excelled by that of any writer in Great Britain. In her ease genius has been rewarded. George Eliot ia one of the most learned authors of her time. The amount of her acquirements is wonderful. She is mistress of French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, has a tolerable acquaintance with Romanic and Russian, ia up in all the sciences, is a critical Latin and Greek scholar, an admirable historian, an arob ecologist, understands music, painting and statuary, and ia a brilliant conversationalist. Beauty she has not, and nothing like it. Some persons count her very plain, even homely; others that she has a very interesting face. To mo ehe is in no wise remarkable in appearance ; she does not loot a bit like a genius—geniuses seldom do. She has gray eyes, rather largo features, abundant hair streaked with white, a medium figure, neither stout nor slender, and a pleasant well-modu-lated voice. She has been extremely industrious in her profession. She composes rapidly often, but corrects with great care, and irequontly injures her health, not robust by any moans, by her oxoaseive application. She is a pronounced rationalist in belief ; in most respects a wonderful woman, and surely a prodigious intellects