ENGLISH THEATRICAL AND LITERARY NOTES. (From Our London Correspondent.)

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 362, 24 April 1889, Page 6

ENGLISH THEATRICAL AND LITERARY NOTES. (From Our London Correspondent.)

London', March 4. Alfred CjeTjLTKr's new opera, " Dorcas," is in full rehearsal at the Lyric Theatre, and will be produced at Easter, " Dorothy being withdrawn on the 930 th night. There is no part in "Dorcas" for Mi^s Marie Tempest, who will'ba&k in domestic bliss and the seclusion of Gloucester Road ior the present. Mr Leslie paid the £5,000 damages and £1,200 costs to Mr Izaid & solicitors within a week of the trial. Humour has it that when the decree annul ling Mr Izard's marriage is made absolute he moans to try and set himself right with the public by wedding her. The clever linos on the '' Gaiety Girls " which commenced Gone at lastaro the Gaiety girls With their powdered noses and tiicked-up curls, and ending with Time flies fast with Tottie and Flo. The month before last was their Ion?? ago, And when ihe story orieckless crime Shall reach their ears in that rli&tant clime, Lily and Flo quite a tiouble will find In calling the laces find iorms to mind Of the boys whose neul.s their arms entwined. With -whom they danued. and drank, and dined, Who bought them jewels, and were so kind, So fresh, so green, so sol'L, so blind— The boys they " loved " und lelc behind, which appeared originally in your Sydney " Bulletin are being quoted all over the country. A copy of the rare first edition of Milton's " Paradise Lo.^t " was sold at Sotheby's last week for £1,669 13s lOd. This week, tho late Lord Hopetoun's library (collected by a long line of ancestors) will be scattered to the four winds. It contains one of the richest collections of manuscripts and early printed books in England, and will attract buycis from all parts of the \rorld. Lord Hopetoun himself had no notion how valuable the library was till Sotheby's men went to catalogue it. Then the" latter found a literary treasure of the first magnitude in a Gutenbtug or Mazarin (as some call it) Bible. This is the earliest book printed with moveable type, and ia dated 1450. There are known, I believe, to be four or five only in existence. The Queen has one at Windsor, and according to report, turned the lioyal librarian's hair nearly grey not long ago by proposing to give it to the Pops as a " jubilee " present. Fortunately, Lord Salisbury intervened, and pointed out that the book was the nation's. Private collectors' copies come into the market occasionally. Sir J. Thoi old's sold for £5,900, and the late Lord Crawfords for £2,650. This one realised 2,000 guinea--. Another very interesting sale is fixed for the 12lh prox., when the extensive dramatic and general library of Mr Man&field Mackenzie, ot Edinburgh, will be dispersed. Mr Mackenzie has for more than twenty years been diligently collecting rare dramatic literature and fine first editions of Dicken&, Thackeray, Ainsvvorth, Lever, (Jruickshank, &c. His Dicken&esand "Dickensiana " make the collector's mouth water. One of the gems of this collection is a complete set ot first editions of Lever, with Phiz's original drawings inserted. This should fetch a very large sum. Theic are also a number of excessively rare eaily Keatses and Tennvsons. Bawley Smart's new novel, " Long Odds," is the usual mixture of racing, lighting and love-making. There is a scene at Ascot and a scene at Epsom ; a gambling row in a Cairo " hell " ; a battle in the desert, a capture, an escape and a return to old England in time to witness a favourite celt win the Derby. The book is just like " Hard Lines," " Bound to Win," and half a dozen ethers by the same author, but readable enough.