Literary Gossip.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 226, 8 January 1876, Page 8

Literary Gossip.

A. new work on “ Mohamadanism, by the Rev. T. P. Hughes, is nearly ready. Mr. Swinburne has nearly completed a new dramatic poem of about the same length as “Atalanta in Calydon,” and, like it, founded upon a subject from Greek mythology. It will be published by Messrs. Chatto and Windus, about Christmas.

The death is announced on the 10 th ult. of Mr. Robert A. Carleton. He was a connection of Carleton, the novelist, and had spent many years at Constantinople as a journalist in connection with the Levant Herald and other papers. „ The Rev. Edward White, of St. Paul s Chapel, Hawley-road, Kentish-town, London, author of “ The Mystery of Growth,” &c., lias in the press a volume to be entitled “ Life in Christ,” in which he will expound and enforce his special views on eternal punishment. The late M. Athanase Coquerel, pasteur of the Socinian Church in Paris, has been engaged for upwards of four years on a “ History of Comparative Religion,” with a rationalistic aim in view. The work, though not complete, will be published by his admirers and friends. News has reached this country of the death of Dr. Bleck, the eminent philologist. Probably no man had such an acquaintance with the languages of South Africa as he. He was a German by birth, but spent most of his life and died in South Africa. There he prepared his “ Comparative Grammar of the South African Languages,” and other kindred books. He translated and edited, also, many of the materials collected by Sir Gerge Grey on the Malayo-Polynesian group of languages. The following noblemen and gentlemen have been appointed Royal Commissioners to inquire into the operation of the laws of copyright— Lord Stanhope, Lord Rosebery, Hon. R. Bourke, M.P.; Sir H. Holland, Bart., M.P.; Sir J. Rose, Bart.; Sir C. Young, Bart.; Sir Julius Benedict, Sir Louis Mallet, C. 8.; Sir Drummond Wolff, M.P.; Mr. Daldy, Mr. T. H. Farrer, Mr. F. Herschell, M.P.; Mr. Jenkins, M.P.; Mr. Fitzjames Stephen, Q.C.; and Dr. William Smith. They will probably meet to take evidence in January next: One of the points that will be strongly urged, upon the commissioners will be the necessity of protecting novels from unauthorised dramatisation.

The admirers of Landor will be glad to hear that Messrs. Chapman and Hall intend to bring out a new edition of his writings, to which will be prefixed, in a revised shape, the life of the poet by Mr. John Forster. The same firm promise “Diderot,” by Mr. John Morley; “ Forty Years’ Recollections,” by Dr. Charles Maclcay; “A History of Great Britain during the Reign of Queen Anne,” by Mr. F. W. Wyon; and a “Life of Prince Charles Edward,” by Mr. A. C. Ewald. Messrs. Smith, Elder, and Co. are preparing for publication “ The Orphan of Pimlico and other Sketches, Fragments, and Drawings,” by William Makepieee Thackeray. Some of the drawings are hasty sketches, and were made in travelling notebooks; others were afterwards used for the purposes of illustration; some were done for the amusement of children, others for that of his friends.

The death is announced, within a few days of his eightieth birthday, of Mr. James Augustus St. John, formerly editor of tlje Oriental Herald. He was the author of many works on history, politics, and theology, his last being “ The Life of Sir Walter Raleigh.” In the Plymouth (Massachusetts) Museum there is a piece of Pilgrim needlework, embroidered with colored silk, now sadly faded, in 1655, by a daughter of Captain Standish, and bearing this devout prayer “ Lorea Standish is my name Lord, guide my heart that I may doe thy will; Also fill my heart with such convenient skill, As may conduce to virtue, void of shame— And I will give the glory to thy name." The son of Hugh Miller is treading in his father’s steps both as a geologist and a writer. He has written a biography of his father’s lifelong friend, Sir Roderick Murchison, and he is engaged on the geological survey of England. By a curious coincidence, he made his debut as a writer in the Inverness Courier, the same paper as that in which his father did, and under the same editor, Dr. Carruthers. Probably the most successful literary man now living, in so far as pecuniary profit is a test of success, is Mr. William Cullen Bryant, the American poet. But his wealth is due. not so much to his poetry as to his journalism. For fifty years (next year) he has been connected with the New Yorlc Evening Post, and still writes in it, though he will enter his eighty-second year six weeks hence. He has done good work in that journal, and he has been abundantly rewarded. A new work on the subject of “Future Punishment,” by the Rev. Edward White, is to be issued in a few days, entitled “Life in Christ it extends to some 600 pages,, in which all the modern theories on this subject are carefully considered from the author’s standpoint. The Free Literary Committee of Wolverhampton has awarded a prize for the best essay on “ How may trade unions be employed to the greatest advantage of masters and men?” to Robert Stokes, a journeyman bricklayer of that town. HISTORICAL NEGATIONS. “ Do not read history to me,” said Robert Walpole to his son, “ for I know that to be false” —at least so runs the story, although it has been suggested that his remark was called forth by a pretentious history of his own time, and was by no means intended to be of universal application. There is, however, much shrewdness in the reported saying of the old statesman. The more extensive our historical reading may be, the less ready we are

to accept unquestioned what may be offered to us as historical narrative. In this present age of the world the critical faculty, which judges and weighs every fact, and carefully scrutinises every authority, no matter how seemingly conclusive, is constantly exercised, and has caused the reversal of many longestablished historical verdicts. It is sufficient to allude to the cases of Mary Stuart, Oliver Cromwell, and the first Napoleon as instances in point. Beginning with the classics, it may now be regarded as settled that Cecrops never came from Egypt, nor Cadmus from Phcenica, if, indeed, there ever were such individuals ; while it is asserted with equal confidence, that the poetess Sappho never committed suicide, but died quietly in her bed. The celebrated 300 at Thermopylae have grown to 7000, and. their gallant resistance has been severely criticised. It was well enough, say military men, for them to fight to the last gasp so long as they met their foes face to face, but the moment their flank was turned, a sane and genuine love of country (as distinguished from a love of their own future fame) required them at once to retreat and take up another strong position (of which there were several) further in the rear. There is often a great similarity to be detected in these anecdotes, and in those epigrammatical sentences which the French call mots, and of which that nation, it may be remarked, is a great manufacturer ; precisely the same adventures or speeches are attributed to personages widely separated both in place and time? But the subject of plagiarism, and the argument to be drawn therefrom, is voluminous enough to demand an article for itself. Another and an excellent test of the falsity of a story is the silence of contemporary writers. Where this is the case it may be generally concluded to be the invention of a later age. . Thus the story of Diogenes, the cynic, with his lantern, looking for an honest man, is not mentioned in Diogenes Laertius, nor do we find any trace of it till long afterwards. The combat of the Horatii and Curiatii, the story of Mucius Sccevola, of Appius Claudius and Virginia, belong to the same category. One doubting Thomas, a German (cited in Ampere, “L’Histori Romaine a Rome”) claims that Lucretia was really “ led astray,” and killed herself to avoid the punishment of her crime. Coming down to later times, the story of Regulus voluntarily returning to Carthage in fulfilment of his parole, although he knew the horrible death that there awaited him—he is said to have been rolled down hill in a barrel full of spikes—has been known to be a fable, invented to excuse the cruelties perpetrated by the Romans themselves on the Carthaginian prisoners—“ Beaufort : Dissertation on the Uncertainty of the First Five Centuries of Rome,” p. 436.

Julius Caesar may be said to have died in silence, and the manner of Cleopatra’s death has been put in question, M. de Chateau - Renaud claiming to have proved that she died of poison taken in a glass of wine. Archimedes, it is confidently asserted, never said, “Give me a fulcrum (pou sto) and I’ll move the world ;” in fact, as Bulwer says, “He was too good a mathematician to make any such speech.” —“ Ferguson’s Astronomy Explained,” chapter vii, p. 83. With regard to the story of blind Belisarius begging his bread in the streets of Constantinople, Procopious, who was contemporary historian, and who accompanied Belisarius to his eastern wars in Africa and in Italy, says nothing, in his account of the life and misfortunes of Justinian’s famous general, of his blindness or beggary, no other contemporary writer mentions I;hem, and the first hint of them occurs in some Greek verses written by John Tzetes, a grammarian, about 600 years after the death of Belisarius. It may be remarked, by the way, that this argument ex silentio, though generally conclusive, must not be blindly followed. Macaulay has stated, in one of his essays, that he had seen contemporary histories of the reign of George 11., which contained no account of the rise of Methodism, and several similar examples might be cited. Continuing the list of counterfeits, we find the “ ferocious Omar ” charged with burning the library at Alexandria, and Gibbon has wasted much good paper in apologising for this act of vandalism —an apology, however, quite unnecessary. Omar was not himself the conqueror of the Nile Valley, never was at Alexandria, and had he come there would have foixnd no library to burn ; it had ceased to exist for two and a half centuries. Julius Cffisar burned half the books, and the patriarchs of Alexandria superintended the destruction of the residue. (Heyne—“ Opuscula Academica,” vi., page 438.) In the last paragraph there occurs a word—“vandalism” —which owes its place there to force of habit. The ideas which it recalls by force of association are themselves historic lies. Rome suffered very little from the Vandals ; after their passage it was still magnificent, and full of statues, palaces, and monuments. They only destroyed the Roman Empire, though, to be sure, that ruin brought about the ruin of the city. (Ampere : Revue des Deux Mondes, November, 1857.) The accounts of the prosecution to which Galileo was subjected are said to be grossly exaggerated ; he was not cast into a dungeon, and°°the confinement he endured was quite similar to that of an officer who is “under arrest.” Not a single one of the best-informed contemporary writers makes any mention of his celebrated saying “e pur si muove,” and it seems to be a later invention. -

Applying this argument of contemporary silence to English history, we find that the legend of Canute commanding the waves to advance no further first appears in Henry of Huntingdon, who wrote a century after the death of the Danish king ; while the popular story of the origin of the Order of the Garter is first told by Polydore Virgil, who wrote 200 years after the event. A careful examination of their chronology will often upset some of these well-arranged and seemingly authentic stories. There is a wellknown andromantic incident in tlielifeof Marie Antoinette, which is a case in point. It is gene-

rally believed that she was one of the children whom Marie Theresa led by the hand when she appealed for aid to her Hungarian subjects. Lamartine and other historians have swallowed the story with blind faith, and have made it the text of homilies on loyalty, chivalry, &c. Had they remembered that “history” comes from a Greek word meaning “ investigation,” or “ research,” and acted accordingly, they would have found the story to be an idle fable. Maria Theresa held her celebrated interview with the Hungarian Diet in 1741 : Marie Antoinette was born in 1755.

Another instance of a like error is given by Mr. Forsythe in a recent lecture on historical evidence. On the Monte Cavallo, .the old Quirinal Hill of Rome, stand two colossal horses, called “I Collossi di Monte Cavallo.” Under the one is inscribed, “ Opus Phidiae,” under the other, “ Opus Praxiteles.” Formerly there were two more elaborate inscriptions—one to the effect that Phidias had here sculptured Bucephalus, and this story still passes current with tourists in the Imperial city. Now, Phidias died somewhere about 432 8.c., Praxiteles flourished 364 8.c., and Alexander the Great was not born until 356 B.c.

The well-known story of the death of Francis I. of France must also be relegated to the limbo of romance. Less than a year before his death he was in the enjoyment of as perfect health as any man in the kingdom ; and it is well settled that the canse of his death was a fistula. Did Louis XIV. ever say, “ L'etat e'est moi?” No, say recent critics. The most authentic contemporary documents represent him as imposing silence on the Parliament od the occasion in question (April, 1669), but without any affectation of hauteur. An identical mot has been claimed for Queen Elizabeth. (British Quarterly, May, 1851.) The painter’s license, like the poet’s, is highly elastic, and greatly assists in the preservation and dissemination of these mock pearls. The well-known picture of Leonardi da Vinci expiring at Fontainebleau in the arms of Francis I. is a case in point ; an alibi has been proved for the great painter. Paul Delaroche (usually very accurate) has represented Richelieu in his State barge gliding down the Rhone, while Cinq Mars and De Thou, on their way to execution, are towed behind him. This is an error. The great Cardinal was not maladroit enough to let them travel together. Cinq Mars, in a close carriage, well guarded, followed the shores of the Rhone, while De Thou alone remained in the boat. (London Athenaeum, 1854, p. 758.) So, too, the English painter, Calcott, has represented Milton in his blindness dictating Lost ” to his daughters. This scene is impossible if Samuel Johnson is to be believed, for he states in his “Life of Milton” that the great poet would not suffer his daughters to learn to write. Snorting still with rage and fear, He flies upoxi his mad career. So says Byron, but Mazeppa’s horse did not uro'e his mad career very far. In the memoir of'Chevalier Pasck, an intimate friend of the famous Cossack, it is stated that his forced ride was only for a few hundred paces, through underbrush and brambles, from the house of the husband he had outraged to his own. “Aporcs nous le Deluge .” This sentence of nonclialent cynicism is almost invariably credited to Louis XV. It is so truthful an epitome of his reign that it seems as if the bein-aime alone could have uttered it. Not so, however; to Mme. de Pompadour belongs the honor of the prophecy. Many of these false jewels owe their origin to some mistake or oversight' in copying, and are propagated without suspicion, until someone, going back to first sources, detects their spurious origin. So with the story of the drowning of the Duke of Clarence in a butt of Malmsey. The error arose from a mistake on the part of Commines in transcribing the English contemporary account. The passage should read as follows :—“ The Duke of Clarence was secretly killed, and his body, enclosed in a cask which had contained Malmsey, was thrown into the Thames.”—Bayley : “ History and Antiquities of the Tower of London.” It is generally stated in histories of the French' revolution, that when a division was called for on the question of the king’s death, the deputies nearly all qualified their votes with some sentence excusatory or otherwise ; but Sieyes, when it came to his turn, voted la mort sans phrase, in ironicle allusion to the explanations of his colleagues. He always denied indignantly the use of any such expression, and it now turns out to be an error of the stenographer. Sieyes was one of the very few who voted simply la mort. To mark this exceptional terseness, the stenographer added in his notes the words sans phrase, and in transcribing his minutes inadvertently included them in the language of Sieyes himself. It was a stenographer, too, who turned the last words of Burke’s famous apostrophe, “ Virtue depends not on climates and degrees,” into climaxes and trees.

Another revolutionary fable, which has imposed even on that usually hypercritical writer, Mr. Carlyle, is the horrible story of Mdlle. de Sombreuil. Rumor has it that during the “massacres of September” her father was dragged from prison, and was about to be murdered by the mob, when she flung herself before him, begging for his life, and crying out that she was a friend of the people. “ If that be so,” said one of the furious crowd, “ let us see you drink the blood of an aristocrat,” and tearing a heart from one of the corpses, he squeezed it into a cup and presented it to her. The heroic girl, so runs the story, drank it off, and thus saved her father’s life. This romantic fable, however, is only one more paste jewel to add to our collection. As matter of fact, the courage, beauty, and devotion of Mdlle. de Sombreuil, as she pleaded for her father, completely disarmed the murderous gang, and when, overcome by her emotion, she fainted, one of them offered her a glass of water, a drop from his bloody hand fell into the cup, and hence the horrible story which is repeated

by every historian of the French Revolution. Louis Blanc first published the true accounts. He heard it from a lady to whom Mdlle. Sombreuil had herself related it; in fact, the latter always told the story to show that, although cruel, the men of September were accessible to pity.

With such examples as these before us, we may well pause before accepting every historical statement as a matter of fact.