LITERARY NOTES

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 82

LITERARY NOTES

— Sir Henry M. Stanley left an au(obiography in which he gives a full and intimate account of his life and adventures. It

is to be published this month by Messrs 1 Sampson Low, ~ — The author of "Elisabeth and Her German Garden" is giving the turn of the German in England in "The Caravanera," to be published in October in Messrs Bell's Indian and Colonal Library. A baron and hie wife undertake, under exquisitely humorous circumstances, an excursion by caravan with some English connexions. It leads to an entire upheaval of their customary points of view. 1 — Messrs Heffer hope ; to publish shortly an edition of the "Symposium of Plato," by Mr R. G. Bury. As the first annotated edition of this brilliant dialogue prodoiced in England this work should' prove of special interest to classical students. It will contain a revised text in which, "for the first time, account will be taken of the recently-discovered papyrus fragment; the commentary will deal more especially with the literary and philosophical aspects of the dialogue. — Occasionally, under the existing law, the profits of authorship ore received for a longer period than 42 years. An American professor who died aged 92 is believed to have received upwards of £50,000 in royalties on -school text-books written, by him. He was originally a barrister, but ■ had to. give up.the. the business of an advocate, i through a chronic -affection of ,the throat. His success as -a writer oi school books is the more remarkable, as he took drawing, political economy, and history as hk .chief subjects. —Mr Arthur Machea. Tvrites -in T.P.s Weekly: — "Mr Douglas Ainslie, the" author of the 'Song of the, -Stewarts,' informs m» that he has finished his translation of Benedetto Croce's '^Esthetic,' and that the version will be published in the autumn. The book, first published in Italy in 1901, has become a classic in ' its own country ; it deals, to use Mr Ainslie's phrase, with the 'art-fact,' witih the phenomenon of art "as manifested in literature, music, sculpture, and painting. We have, some brilliant aesthetic generalisations in English, such as Pater'e phrase about all the arts aspiring to the condition of music, but our literature is weak in the systematic study of aesthetic principles." — Madame Gabrielle Sand, granddaughter of George Sand, has bequeathed to the French Academy the Chateau de Nohant (where the novelist lived and d"ied), with a sum of 100,000 francs for its upkeep. Madame Sand has also left the Academy of Sciences a property, the income from which is to go to the foundation of an annual George Sand prize, to be awarded to the author of the best scientific discovery. The municipality of Paris has inaugurated a white marble plaque at 46, Rue Meslay, inscribed: — "Ici eat nee le ler , juillet, 1 180*, Aurore Dupin, dite Geoi'ge Sand, litterateur et auteur dramatique." — A new novel by Mr W. H. William-. I son, author of "The' Traitor's Wife," is appearing in Unwin's Colonial Library. It tells of a struggle of .talents and character -.against family position .and influence. The two chief persons involved in this struggle arc the eldest son *of a baronet and the 6on of a country chemist, who has won scholar- I ships, passed brilliantly through Oxfojnd, and been called to the Bar. They fall in love with the same girl, and upon this love-story the interest of the novel, apart from the clash' of the two ideals of birth and brains, mainly turns. The book,- which is entitled "A Family of Influence/ is a clever study of modern English society. l — Mr~Alphonse Courlander, the author of "The Sacrifice" and '*Phe Taskmaster," has ! a reputation for writing powerful stories with tragic endings. In his new book, however, which is about to be published in Unwin'e Colonial Library, he is making a Bid to live down his reputation for grimnese. "Henry in Search of a Wife" is a complete change from his earlier work. Light, bright, humorous, and fantastic, it ia the kind of book to be read in a hammock on a sunny day. It will be interesting to see whether readers will accept such a deviation from Mr Courlander's recognised path. He is youn.g, in any case — only 28, — and the fertility of his imagination is 6hown by the fact that he has already five novels re his credit. —In a new and thrilling story in the columns of a ladies' paper (says the Westminster Gazette) the author is prodigal with hk sensations in the very firet chap t-er. Within 20 lines the heroine "' lives through an eternity in a second of time " ; conveys a piece of toast to her "dry, throbbing lips " ; feels the blood leave her face ; hears words ring insistently in her heart and beat in her brain ; finds something singing dizzily in her head ; and theveins in her neck swell so that sftie fears they will burst. After all that, quite naturally, she has to grip the table to prevent herself from falling. Really, in 20 lines this i<s an ''embarras de richesse," and we congratulate the author on hi 9 noble effort in the name of literature. — The rendering of the New Testament into the broad Scottish tongue has bsen reverently done by the Rev. William Wye Smith, a clergyman of St. Catharine's, Ontario. In the preface to his work Mr Smith tells of the demand for the Scottish text from the many who are no familiar with the Scots tongue, yet love it, besides those "w.ha like to gang back to the tongue o' their bairnhood, i' the mirk and shadows o' aukl age." He 6ays: "Lafc nae man think it is a vulgar longue — a mere gibberish to be dune wi' as sune as an-e is bye the schule-time. It is an ancient and honorable tongue; wi' rutes deep i' the yird; aulder than mucklo o' the English. It came doon to us fihrowe oor (iothic and Pictish forebears ; it was iheai-cl on tha battlefield wi' Bruoe; it waf-tit the triumphant prayers and sang-s o' the Martyrs intil Heeven ; it dirl't or the tongue o' John Knox, denouncin' wrang ; it ew< etened tho hrexenh-? letters o' Samu'l Rutherford ; and an-eath the- theek o' many a muirland cottage it c'en noo carries thanks to Hee\en, and brings the bles?ins doon." Mr Smith's most elorjuent argument for the translation is : "Whiles thar has been a chance o' makin' the meaning plainer; whiles a Scots, phrase o' unco tenderne -s or wondrous pith could come in. And at a' times ahint the pen that was niovin' was a puir but leal Soots heart, £v' o' prayer tliat thi6 sma' effort micht be acooptit o' the <lear Maister — and, survivin' a' the niisca'in o' the pernickity and the fashionable, micht bring *he memory o' a, worthy tongue, and the better knowledge o' a Blessed Saviour, to this ane and that ane, as they micht chance to read it." —Mr Vacbell, in his new no\el, "The Paladin," draws a picture of a splendid illusion at length diepelled by sincerity. Tdie

' hero of this story felt that he could alwiyt, be relied on to "do the right thing," for was he not a Paladin in his own eyes, well born, and a cricketer, and hailed by the illustrated papers as "one of our best"? But the girl he deigns to love, in spite of her father's fraud and her own failure to wir independence and to pursue at the costeventually of his own honour, perceives the shallowness under hie poae, and after many vicissitudes*, ranging from comedy to tragedy, escapes into a clearer world, while for one orushing hour the true revelation of himself comes to the Paladin. The | book will be published in October in- Messrs Bell's well-known Indian an Colonial Library in paper and cloth covers. --The oldest political daily paper published in- London is the Morning Post, concerning which there is an article by Me M. T. Ferguson, in the N*tionat Review, that throws some interesting light on the ', conditions of journalism over a. century ago* One of the earliest "editors was the Rev. Henry Bate (afterwards Sir Henry Bate Dudley), sometimes called "the fighting: parson." Having inserted a paragraph in the paper and refused to disclose the author's name, he gave "the- satisfaction of a gentleman" to the aggrieved party, Cap-. tain Stoney. They retired to the Adelphi Tavern, where they were furnished, "with; pistols, which, however, failed to injure either combatant. Swords were ithen procured, but before any serious' mischief [ -was done tiie ~ doors of the room were .burst open, and the duellists 'separated. At 'the beginning of jfche nineteenth century some of the most distinguished writers of the day — Coleridge, Wordsworth, Southey, Lamb, and Mackintosh — became contributors to the Post. ' The proprietor was Daniel Stuart, who had purchased the. paper in 1792 lor a nominal sum- from Richard Tattersall, the famous sporting man and founder of "Tattersall's," who had-failed to make the paper pay. Coleridge was not at first a regular member of the staff, bit* he tells us that soon after his return from Germany he was solicited to undertake the literary and political departments of the journal. Articles by Coleridge appeared in • 1802 contrasting the stale of France under Napoleon with that of Rome under the first Caesar. Fox declared in the House of Commons that Coleridge's essays in the Morning Post had led to the rupture of the peace of Amiens, and hinted 'that the author was then in Rome, in the power of Napoleon, who had ordered his arrest Coleridge heard of this, and hastened to leave Italy. During the _x>et's -connection with the paper it became the leading and most prosperous daily in London. . Lamb was the chief jester, at a remuneration of sixpence a joke; no paragraph to exceed seven lines. One of Stuart's successors as proprietor was Nicholas Byirne, who .^roto strongly in favour of Pitt, acd was mortally stabbed in his office one night by an assassin. Those were stirring times, for journalists. Among subsequent contributors fo the Morning Post were Tom Moore and Praed. George Meredith -was its war <x>rregpondenit in the Aust'-ro-Italian war of -1866. The papei became more flourishing than even under the Borthwicks, especially Algernon, who was created Lord Glenesk, and died last year," leaving it to his Countess Bathurst, and her family.