LITERARY NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2895, 8 September 1909, Page 80

LITERARY NOTES.

— Notes and Queries contains the first half of a bibliography of two Scottish publishers, George Miller, of Dunbar, and his eon, James Miller, .of Haddington, from whom Mi Fisher Unwin is descended. Tthey were pioneers in popular literature, publishing in 1813, at fourpence, The Cheap Magazine, which had a circulatior averaging from 12,000 to 20,000 copies a month. — A new periodical is announced, called the Tramp, described as '"a new open-air magazine," the object of which is to bring kefore the public the best and most.eponr taneous work of men who love the open-air, , whether professional writers or poets, sports- : men, caravanncrs, or Nature students. Among the contributors to the first number will be Mr Chories Marriott, Mr W» H. Davies (author of "The Autobiography of the Super-Tramp," "Nature Poems," etc.), Mr Edward Thomas, Mr Arthur Ransome, and Mr H. H. Bashford. In each number there will be an illustrated article on some little-known place or district in England or abroad, and also a description of a walking tour for the month. These articles will be of a practical character, suggesting to the holiday-maker where to go, and helping him to enjoy himself when he gets there. — The death is announced, at the age of 64, of Alexander Anderson, whose verse, under the name " Surfaceman," made him widely known throughout Scotland. A native of Galloway, he started life as a quarryman, and was then for 17 years a surfaceman on the Glasgow and South-Western Railway. He published his first book, " Songs of Labour and Other Poems," in 1873; and two years later he issued "The Two Angels and Other Poems" and "Songs of the Rail," all of which met with well-deserved praise. In 1880 he was apointed assistant librarian in the Edinburgh University Library, and in 1883 secretary to the Edinburgh Philosophical Institution. Three years afterwards he returned to the University as librarian, and held the position until his death. — One of the most interesting features in the new volume of '"The Dictionary of National Biography";— that is to say, Volume XVII, running from "Robinson" to "Sheaves"— is its treatment of the Scotts, of whom there are 84 represented in the dictionary. There are 42 columns devoted to the apeat Sir Waltei, from the pen of Sir Leslie Stephen. Perhaps the most interesting of the other Scotts are John Scott, the regicide; a,nd Thomas Scott, the commentator, a friend of Cowper, who drew a tribute from quite an opposite pole of religious thought, for Newman has recorded that while an undergraduate he thought of visiting Aston Sandford in Buckinghamshire, where Scoft had a humble church, "to sea a man to whom, humanly speaking, I almost owe my s«ul." — Though the incomes of authors (says Mr W. P. James, in the Evening Standard) are not strictly a literary iopic, few topics are commoner in literary columns. Naturally, it is the incomes of the novelists that are most 'keenly disc-usscd. There is a mighty dispute on the point. I observe, between Mr Edgar Jepson and Mr Arnold Bennett. Mr Bennett is convinced that the novelists who make a thousand a year or over run into three figures cr thereabouts. Mr Jepson does not believe there arc o score; Mr Jepson is~ready to bet He will give M.r Bennatt two sovereigns for overy novelist in Messrs Methuen's, Heinemann's, and Hutchinson'6 lists who is earning over a thousand a year, if Mr Benneit will give him one sovereign for every point Ihc ihou-sand-a-year earners in those lists fail short of thirty. This sounds a sporting offer. "Therefore let a jury come," etc. —Dr Salecby, ip his new book on "Parenthood and Race Culture,"' after flatly describing modern education as "the destruction of mind," naturall; carries out thi6 view to its logical consequence, and suggests that perhaps the best way out of our difficulties wouk' be the suspension of the process of educuation for a generation. For he attributes the abundant but largely factitious and artifical stupidity of the products of the Anglo-Saxon germplasm to the system of education to whioh we are eubjected. This stupidity will last until the examination emetic ceases to be part of its routine The present type of education " is a curse to modern childhood and a menace to the future." To Dt Saleeby the most significant outcome of the system indicated is that the victim believes in politicians! — Westminster Gazette. — Marion Crawfoid'* life at Sorrento is the subject of an interesting article -n Munsey's. The writer maintains that no author "has ever l'iv<?<J who knew his Italy so well, from the lowliest peasant to th& King himself, at whose table Mr Crawford was often a welcome guest, while at the c=ame time he was no leas welcome at the Vatican. . . He understood the contadini better than their o\vr> educated courtrymen." The late novelist wao ar admirable linguist and besides being a classical scholar was profioient in Frer,eh, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, and Hindustani During his numerous voyages he used to engage an officer's cabin, and would work as many hours on sea as on land. He wa, very fond of yachting ir the Mediterranean, and it is sakJ that when he. landed the fishermen up into the water to pull his yawl a c hore, and would wait eagerly upor his slightest wish. — ''The Voict of the Orient" Is the title of a memoir, by Mrs Walter Tibbets, of the late wife of Generai Malcolm Nicholson, known to the literal y woild as the poetess Laure-nee Hope. Mrs Nicholson was the daughter of a newspaper editor at Kurachi. whese other daughter is Victoria Gto«, the novelist. At the age of 23, write-, Mrs Tibbets, the poet was bmall, wirl light brown hair and blue eye*;, and wore "baby" fiocks, and hair tied uj like a child's. She wa^ lnarriei* very younif to General Nicholson, a man of about 60, so thai she was usually mi&taker for his daughter. '" Nevertheless h was <ti i<leal union ■?£ the mind and spirit, for Gc-ncial

Nicholson had the same tastes as his wife, and in their private lives they both lived more like Easterns than Westerns, wearing Indiap dress, eating" Indian food, sitting upon the floor or reclining upon divans covered with beautiful embroideries — there was scarcely a chair in the house — to study Pushtu romances an<? poetry from the border, taught them by a Pathan orderly, who lived with them. They lived at a small station named Dhisa, in the Scinde Desert, wh^re iH-ey were almost i:-eclvise^, only driving out together after dusk. When the General went to Paranpur on inspection duty his wif< would go on foot to meer him, and sit under the roadside trees until he came. But at Mhow, a much larger station, they entertained a great deal, and were very popular, " but the girl-wife was always noted for her devotion to iier husband, full of thought for him, his health, and his comfort, and her chef d'oeuvre as a painter, as well as hei apotheosis as a poet, was a portrait of him.' " She was considered a brilliant conversationalist. "Indian friends," remarks the author, "say that Laurence Hope's poetry expresses a profound knowledge of. "^as well as an intense love for, the life oj. £he East." — A wri*er in BlaekwoodV takes Lord Morley to task for some df the 'flattering tilings he said about modern journalism in his wW*ess to the Imperial Press Conference, maintaining that the statesman "was particularly astray in the praise which he bestowed upon literary criticism. He tilts at modern criticism asMolknvs: — "The modern orifcic cheerfully praises everything. There ' is no slab of illiteracy whioh he mil not take for a masterpiece. With one or two eminent exceptions, the critics of the press suppress their judgment at the mere sigdifc of a new book. With an amiable 6mile he proclaims his ' generosity,' and he follows Lord Morley in denouncing invective for a crime. Thus he takes a smug pride in shortcomings, and hails as virtue what i?* a plain dereliotion of duty. The competent critic should be a judge; and of what authority is a judge who may acquit and 1 may not condemn? . . This habit o£ indiscriminate praise not merely creates a sea of false reputations — it is a* serious injustice to those who treat their profession! and the English tongue with some measure* of respect. When the generosity of critics ha* been lavishl 3 spent upon books that ana no books, there remains not a word of appro val that can fairly bs thrown at a real experiment. Thus it is that a foolish amiability has lowered the standard of literature and debased the currency of style." — A good deal of gnibubing lias been done in the way of tracing the par?;t!age of George Meredith. His father, Augustus Urmston Meredith, was a nava' outfitter (the actual name appears, to have been used by Marryat, when he makes Peter Simple talk about "calling at Meredith's, the tailor, to be fitted complete"). Mr J. A. Hanmerton in his book, "George Meredith in Anecdote and Criticism" (Grant. Richards) writes : —''Some time in the middJe of last century Augustus Urmston Meredith, the father, emigrated to Capetown, whore he set ut> in 'business as a tailor at. the earner of St. George's and Hout streets. Since George Meredith's death several lct'e -s have appeared in the Cape Times from old residents who remembered the elder Meredith's shop and personality, and wer* aware of his relationship to the poet and 1 novelist. . The most vivid reminiscences are from Mr T. B. Lawton, who ©peaks of the elder Meredith's fine presence, of his dignified reserve, and of a conversation they had in. 1860 on the subject of ' Evan Harrington,' then appearing serially in Once a Woek. Ho also mentions his love of walking, inherited by the son. He once toJd Mr Lawton that in England he walked, many miles every day on his waj to bußincss, and even at the age of 66 he was ready to accompany Mr Lawton in an ascent of Table Mountain. Anothe correspondent mentions that the elder Meredith lent him his son's book, 'Farina,' of which he was very proud. He did not remain at Capetown, but returned co England, where he died at an advanced age." —Mr J. E. G. de Montmorency, writing in the Contemporary Review, says : — "The working man to-day, -if h< could only bt taught to iealte« it, has advantages that many a man with a substantial income longed for in vain thirty years ago. Alt the best literature is at his door, and all the best ephemeral writings lie on his public library table. For these things he pays nothing, and his hours in the case of thousands give more opportunities of wfiat one might call learned leisure than belong to myriads of those who don the black coat of servitude. One of the great London boroughs has started the plan of placing in every school a little branch of the *reo library. That is a step towards orcating the literary tradition in the minds of the great labouring class. If on« the tradition begins, if once the necessitj of literature forces itself into the sub-consciousness of the people, the New Agje will have begun. Mean streets will vanish, for the people will no longer tolerate them, and — a more -important fact — mean souls will gvo\» into something higher. Literature for fchs. people, literature that reveals new worlds of Nature, of beauty, of humanity, should be the central point of modern education. No monoy should l>e spared in securing 1 the best teachers, the best methods of teaching. Today we have to start the litera.ry traddtion, and must not count the cost. The reward " will bo beyond all pries, foi it will be nothing less than a national renaissance."