LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 80

LITERARY NOTES.

—In modern hands — those of Rossetti, for example, or of Mr Swinburne— the ballad has assumed modern form ; that is to say, its dignity of language is not allowed to lapse, and the soul of the artist that shapes it becomes instinctively more wakeful in proportion as the hard-and-fast fetters of rhyme and metre are rela-2c-e<l : there ar-e, in fact, no intervals of baldness. — Athenaeum. — Many a book hailed on its first appearance as "the book of the year" has a few days' reign of popularity, and then dies an unmourned old age at the end of a month. The- only true "books of the year" are the annual referencebooks, new issues of which appear with regularity each December, their arrival on the 6cene being the signal for tho immediate official dem'se of the brethern whom they supersede, they, in their turn, to be superseded as the year whose date is emblazoned on them draws to a close. — The Bystander. — A "definitive edition" of Henry James's novels and tales, edited by the author himself, will be published Tjy Charles Scribner's Sons, of New York, and will comprise 23 volumes. The first volume contains "Roderick Hudson," a novel written 32 years ago. The succeeding novels will be published in chronological order, and will occupy 15 volumes of tbe edition. The remaining eight volumes will be devoted to the tales. All of Mr James's earlier works have been revised by tho author, so that they conform more closely in style and manner to his recent writings. This announcement will not please all his admirers. — Tennyson practised Captain Cuttle's maxim, "When found, make a note of." He was a very practical and business-like poet, who amassed images as Mr Rocke'eller amasses millions. In this respect hie temperament was the opposite of Mr Swinburne's. I fancy that Mr Swmßurne remembers his emotions, but Tennyson jotted them down on the spot, leaving is little as possible to inspiration. The result is that in Tennyson you get minute realiem, whereas in Swinburne you get diffused melody. The one is a photograph, the other is a song. — James Douglas, in the Star. — Trustees of Shakespeare's birthplace have just succeeded in adding to their collections two rare editions of Shakespeare s work, to take their place beside the two equally rare volumes which wpre acquired last year. The trustees have now purchased perfect copies in admirable condition of the original edition (in quarto) of Shakespeare's "A M ; dsummer Night's Dream," 1600, and of the second edition (in quarto) of "The Merry Wives o* Windsor," 1619. — Mr Hany Furni^s pives. in the Strand, some recollections of the author of "AWe in Wonderland." for whom he did many drawings. "Delightful and interesting as Carroll the author was (says Mr Furru*«), he, un'ortunatf-iv, proved less acceptable when in the form of Doclg<on the critic. He subjected e\ery illustration, when flni&hp*) to a minute examination under •

magnifying-glass. He would fake a square inch of the drawing, count the lines i had made in that space, and compare tnnir number with those on a square inch of illustration made for 'Alice' by Tenniel f And in due couise I would receive a long essay on the subject from Dodgson the mathematician. Naturally, this led to disagreements, particularly when it came 10 foreshortening a figure suoh as 'Sylvia and the Dead Hare,' which ie a question for the eye, not for the foot-rule and) compass. In fact, over the criticism of one drawing I pretended that I could stand Dodgson the Don no longer, and wrote to Carroll the author declining to complete the work." Carroll replied pathetically: "It is a severe blow to me to find that, on account of a single square inoh of picture as to which we disagree, you decline to cariy out your engagement." — The total number of books .published during 1907. according to the useful summary issued by the Publishers' Circular amounted to 9914-, or 1311 more than in 1906. Of these, new editions and reprlnta account for 2213, leavng a total of 1201 entirely new issues. There je a. slight decrease in ficton. Only 1862 new novels were published, an average of five for every day, including Sundays. Religion and philosophy increased by 213, law by 145, history and biography by 232, and poetry by 69, and there was also a large increase under the heading arts and sciences. Those who are appalled by the sight of these figures may console themselves with the thought that a large oercentage come under Charles Lambs classification of "books which are no books — biblia-a-biblia." and that from the point of viewi of statistics every pamphlet, no matter, how small, is given the d'gnity of a book. — Miss Nora Vynne writes to the Westminster Gazette: — "The old cedara at Gad's Hill have fallen under the saw ab last. Visitors, instead of the gnarled giant timber, find only two immense stumps, like rocks in the midst of wreckage." The trees were interesting for Dickens's &ake — it was the cedars that first attracted his attention to Gad's Hill — and were, a yean or two back, superb specimens of a tree not too common in England. The musical critic H. F. Chorley had two slips from the trees buried with him in his coffin. Some years ago some seeds from one of the trees were sent to Johannesburg, where there is now a flourishing tree as the resuit of planting them. — Although Kuskin was pleased to define Rossetti as "an Italian tormented in the inferno of London," he was in many, ways, as his personal friends were wont to remark, almost typically English. One would not have expected, at any rate, the poeC who wrote the magnificent sonnet on the cutting down of the mulberry tree planted by Shakespeare, where he apostrophised the perpetrator (who had been dead a hundred years) as "the supreme unhung," to make this comment on tfrg poetic piety of Ailingham — "Fancy carrying about grasses fon hours and days from the fields where Burns ploughed up the daisy ! Good God ! If B found the daisy itself there, I would sooneS swallow it than be troubled to carry i« twenty yards." — Manchester Guardian. — The Times is about to publish another very large work — nothing less ambitious than the "Historians' History of the World," in" twenty-five volumes, containing WO.OOO words apiece. This vast book will give a coherent and readable narrative of worldhistory from the earliest times to the yea«" now ended. It has taken & large staff ofi workers ten years to prepare the book, which is based on the writings of all the great historians. The editors have endeavoured to give the best account available of each episode, personality, or epoch in the history of the world, Hcrodotus's account of Thermopylae and Carlyle's estimate ofi Cromwell are instanced as typical passages. These are supplemented and brought up to-date where necessary, and worked into the continuous narrative, which is intended! for all classes of readers. The work is pro-■vide-d "with very fvill l>iblio{^ra.pHies, ckronologies. and indices on the most elaborate scale, and conta'ns over 3000 illustrations and many mans. It is to be sold in sets at 7s 6d a volume. — The leading novelists of 1907 (says the Glasgow Weekly Citizen of January 4) were Mr Joseph Conrad, Mr Maurice Hewlett*. Mr A. E. W. Mason, Mr John Galsworthy, Sir Gilbert Parker, M-r Rider Haggard, Mr Neil Munro, Mr Marriott Watson, Mr Quiller Couch, Mr Charles Marriott, am? Mrs Grace Afherton. However, none of the group — not Mr Mason with his Indianstory "The Broken Road," not Mr Hewlett' with "The Stooping Lady," not Mr Conrad with "The Secret Agent" — was equal to himself: his book of 1907 was surpassed ia one way or another, by some book or books that had proceeded from h : s pen in previous yearns. In the opinion of many, indeed, the most brilliant story of. 1907 came from art outsider, from one who has other subjects in life than- literary objects. This was the "Jock of the Bushve'.d" of Sir Percy F'tzpatrick. Sir Percy is a mine-owner en the Rand ; he is a leader of the Progressive party in the Transvaal Assembly. While one or two books relating to the Transvaal bear his name, up till three or four months ago he had never adventured jnto the realm of story-telling. "Jock of the Bushveld is ostensibly a boy's book, but it is a book that no one, let hw age be what it may, who has once taken it up will willingly lav. down until the last page has been reached.