LITERARY AND SOCIAL CHIT CHAT.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 112, 26 March 1862, Page 6

LITERARY AND SOCIAL CHIT CHAT.

(Front the Illustrated London News.)

Critics are fond of counselling young authors to adopt a terse, and laconic mode of diction in preference to involved phrases and words of many syllables, which, like Milton's dragon, " swindge the scalyhorrors of their folded tail." We have often thought that it would be an excellent thing, in summing up literary events and prospects to follow the style of the illustrious unknown who compiles the commercial intelligence brcught by the Indian mail, and who records the position of "grey shirtings," " mule twist/ "madapolams," "domestics," &c.

Thus, looking at the world of letters, we might say, " Works "of fiction much in demand, but leading novelists very quiet, and holders firm. Travels eagerly looked for, especially travels that tell about monkeys and cannibals. We strolled into the British Museum on Monday, and there was a greater crowd than ever round ' the King of the Gorillas.' Science dull; poenis plentiful, but few of prime quality—the 'Lady of La G.iraye' excepted—in the market; comic literature very flat; Christmas books abundant, but somewhat a glut of the article. Another book by Mr. Samuel Smiles; the end of Mr. Buckle's Prolegomena on Civilisatio7i; and the beginning of Mr. Kinglake's 'History of the-Crimean War,' anxiously expected." Would not such a brief resume be better than all the "We are. led to believe that," or "Rumours are current in literary circles that," or " The latest literary announcements by Messrs. Bibliopole and Co, contain intelligence," et dc suite ?

The candid and naive inquirer into the marvels of modern science may continue asking, " What next, what next ?" until he finds himself in the middle of the week after next. What is to he the next step in the giant's staircase of photography ? Cartes dc visite of criminals are now kept at the" police-offices, and are in every detective's pocketbook. Lately some ingenious American photographed the retina of the eye of a murdered man —an idea worked out on not quit j scientific principles in ." the Octoroon." They have taken to photographing " Domesday Book,'"' and Sir Henry James, at the Ordnance' Survey Office at Southampton, is busy with reproducing tliosc "' Latterday Pamphlets." What next ? Anything else ? Yes; within these eight days application wns made in a court of law for permission to photograph a libel. One of the parties in the suit wanted facsimiles of certain letters and envelopes inculpated,, and his request was granted. A manipulator will henceforth, we presume, be a recognised legal functionary ; while, as to this photographic libel case, it is* one, says Bulgrummer, that should properly be heard in camera.

In the good old Anglo-Saxon times when figs were called figs, and spades spades, the utter condemnation oi a dramatic piece used to be expressed by a very vigorous, but exceedingly migenteel, adjective. Ears polite are no longer offended with this terrible word. When a theatrical first-night catastrophe occurs, our* critics, say, that "the applause at the conclusion was not unmingled with disapprobation," or that it met with supefe d'estime; and the next day, when the manager takes the obnoxious thing oiit of the bills, we learn that it has been "withdrawn." Actors, however, \ise another term, not quite so forcible as the old one, but still very significant. They say the condemned piece has been " goosed." " Goosing" of the most flagrant kind appears to have been the fate of lively M. Edmond About's last new play of "Gaetana;" the Parisian students being mainly instrumental in 'bringing down the fatal bird on the dramatist's head, and Gaetana's to boot. Political hatreds are said to be at the bottom of the crusade: against the pleasant author of " Tolla," and- the " Hoi dps Mont«a;ncs" —which last, by-the-way, was lustily hissed for totally different reasons, when produced in an English verson at the Lyceum—but to our mind the anti-About demonstration was due to a desire on the part of the students to relieve the general dullness of the Odeon, which is about the most deadly-lively theatre in Europe. Once did we sit out four hours of the " Malade Imaginaire" at the Odeon—a play which, at the Erancais, always convulses the house—and from beginning to end the dreary performance was only enl vened by one ghastly laugh when Orgon threatened his little daughter with a birch rod. The Odeon is

the Cave of Despair, and the Government would do well to make it a branch office for the Porupus Funebres. <

Tin's is the age of eo-rfHenccs, discreet and indiscreet. The departed are made to unbosom themselves, and dead men do tell tales. Mrs. Piozzi, Mrs. Delaney, Mise Scwnrd, Miss Knight, nu'L'e c tie, have given us their epi.stok.ry loquacity from across the gulf of Time. Soon may we expect fresh selections from the letters of Mrs. Montagu, Mrs. Macau lay, Mrs. Hannah More, Mrs, Chapone, and, for aught we know, of Mrs. Trimmer, and that wonderful Miss Hawkins, who never said any good about anybody, not even about, herself. Meanwhile we are promised revelations which cannot fail to be piquant and interesting, 'touching one of the most gifted and admirable of Knglishwomen, Mrs. Siddons. The great actress's correspondence with Dr. "Whalley —a bygone friend of the literati, who gave very nice little dinners, and entertained the cleverest people of.his day—is about to be published by Ml\ Bentley. Majestic Siddons ! what an imposing creature she must have been. We all remember her blank verse allocution to the boy in buttons at dinner :—

I asked for water, boy; ye brought me beer. Not quite so well known, perhaps, is the anecdote of her entering a haberdasher's shop to purchase some printed muslin, taking up the fabric, poising it in her hand, and, after a dead silence, electrifying the assistant with this remarkable query, couched in tragedy .tones as deep as those of Lady Macbeth in the sleep-walking scene, " Will it Wash?"

From New Burlington-street, likewise, are we to have at a speedy date more of the Auckland correspondence, and yet another volume from the indefatigable Doctor Cumtning, " Millenn al IJest: or, the World as it will be.'"' Ah, Doctor ; if you could only tell us a little more about tiie World as it is, and as it ought to bo.

One of the greatest of social bores is the statistical bore ; the man who tells you how many thousand pounds such a lawsuit is to cost j how many guineas per hour the eminent counsel: for the plainiiff receives ; iiow many pounds sterling per note Mr Sims Uceves is paid ; how many: nightingales have lately cut their .throats in despair of being able to rival Miss Louisa Pyn<\ The statistical bore has been great recently as to the number of millions sterling expended by Great Britain in effecting the liberation of Messrs Slidell and Mason, forgetting that the money has not been paid to foreign nations, that it has but been transferred from one of John Bull's pockets to the other, and that we have something very tangible to show in Canada for the money we hare been lately disbursing.

:i Still, there can be no doubt that our millions, niore or less, might have been spared had we only possessed a sub-Atlantic telegraph. When will the desideratum be supplied ? Will it be by way of Greenland, or by " Jerusalem and Madagascar, and North and South Amerikee," as "Little Billee" has it ? The last telegraphic echo, we hear, is to the effect that the Russian Government- have instructed Colonel Romanoff, superintendent of the Siberian telegraph to prepare a plan for " wiring" Moscow and New York together. With the Russian Colonel is to be associated Mr. Collins, the representative of American interests on the Amoor River. The proposed Russo-American line is to start from Omsk, in Siberia, which is already in communication with Moscow, and consequently with St. Petershury, stretch onwards to the Amoor, and follow its course to its ocean outlet. Hero the two engineers differ somewhat. Mr. Collins wants to follow the Asiatic route, goiifg northwards to Behring's Straits, crossing Russian America, and descending to San Francisco, wnich is already " wired" to New York. ! The Russian, per conti a, proposes to make a galvanic descent on Pctropaulowski, the Aleontinian Isles, Vancouver's Island, and so to the American seaboard in California. A prodigious and perplexing enterprise !

In Professor Aytoun's ''..Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers" there is no lyric more exquisite than the one of " Charles Edward at Versailles." How graphically is the anniversary of Cullodcii brought before us, and its hapless'hero, exiled and forlorn, pacing the splendid corridors of the French King's palace, and recalling his brief time of glory and triumph. There is about to be opened near Paris another paluca intensely interesting to every Scottish cavilier, and whose antique halls will be visited, no doubt, by many a sentimental Jacobite pilgrim ; for is not Jaeobitism a sentiment, generous and chivalrous, and wholly compatible with loyalty for the Star of Bi uuswick ? The French Government bave formed ' a gallery ot GalloHoman antiquities which is to have a home in the old chateau of St. • Gonnain-en-Laye, the last sad asylum of the discrowned James 11. St. Germains has not been tenanted for many-years,.:'hut it is now to be thoroughly restored. What floods of memories will not the old pile suggest of the doomed Princes; of Mary of Modeua pathetically asking, " Why (ley not pay my fifty lousand pound ?" meaning the Parliament pin money which England would have been only too glad to allow the ex-Queen if James would only have made complete nbjuratiun of his legal rights ■—-of Melfort, and Bolingbroke, and Berwick, and all the faded dignitaries of that phantom Court ?",

•Dr. Basiliewsfei, formerly attached to the Russian Legation at Pekin, has just sold to the Imperial Library at Paris a sumptuous copy of the Chinese Pei-vajn-yun-fow Dictionary, in nirietyflve volnmcs folio, Mega biblion mega kakoii. If a great book be a great evil, what an enormous nuisance must tiiis ninety-five volumed dictionary be? It is said to comprise all the compound expressions in the Chinese language, accompanied .by an immense number of examples drawn from sacred and classical works, historic, philosophic, and poetical.

The mention of " Flowery Land " reminds us that the Times has again been breaking ground in its old and admirable facetious vein, in a couple of jocose Articles on the late coup d'etat at Pckin. These merry essays are said to be from the pen of' Mr. Wingrove Cookc, whose allnsions to the " removal of the heads of departments " by decapitating the members of the late Chinese Cabinet tire exquisitely droll. Mr. Cookc, however, has missed one little joke. The minister of Finance, Son-shun has been degraded. Might he not have hinted that the Chinese Treasury is at present like the ./Lmerican one, sans le sou?

The eloquent and learned Mr. Whiteside, lately lecturing iv Dublin, naturally met with a most enthusiastic reception. Oue of his admirers, moved to speechifying,' became poefjical, imd, in eulogising the distinguished lecturer, ojclaiined;-^ His name is James Whiteside, describe him who can, An abridgement of all that is pleasant'in man.

We are reminded of Pope's little bit of legal bathos about his friend, Lord Mansfield—

Graced as thou art with ail the power of words, ~■ Ho known, sq honour* d at the House of Lords. And, again, of Brown's crupl but clever parody of Pope— - . ■ '

Persuasion tips his tongue whene'er be talk?. And he has chambers in the King's Bench Walks.