Literature.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2218, 25 September 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

Literature.

— "Adamßede" has just been translated into French for Messrs Hachette. — Ouida has written a new romance, entitled " The Story of a House Party." M. Reuan has been re-elected "administrates" of the College de France for a further term of three years. Mr R. N. Cust, the secretary to the Royal Asiatic Society, is engaged on a work on the languages of the tribes of Polynesia, including those of Australia. Mr Zola's next novel is to be entitled "La Terre" and it will treat of the life of the French peasantry, trith special refrence to their earth hunger, — Mr Besant has withdrawn hiscandidature for the vacint post of Secretary of University College, London. Mr Lang has also abandoned the idea of being a candidate. — An English translation of M. de Laveleye's " Peninsule dcs Balkans " ia about to be made, under the author's personal supervision. —Mr Alfred Austin has, it is said, nearly finished a long dramatic poem, called " Prince Lucifer." The scene in placed in the neighbourhood of the Matterhorn, and the story is intended t& reflect, in a fanciful garb, the religioui conflicts and ethical uncertainties of the age. —Mr Goldwiu Smith is writing an article for one of the reviews on George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends. Mr Goldwin Smith's object is not so much to delineate the character or to sketch the career of the remarkable Quaker, as to present a picture of the Puritan society in which he was so notable a figure. — The inscription on the tablet which the poet Laureate and the Hon. Hallam Tennyson are erecting in Freshwater Church to the memory of the late Hon. Lionel Tennyson is as follows :—: — In metnori.im L. T. Filii, mnriti, fratris carissimi, Forma, mente, morum siniplicitate^ Laudem inter sequales mature adepti, Famam quoque in republics, si vita suffecisset, Sine dubio adepturi. Obdormivit in Christo Die Apr. XX anno Christi mdccclxxxvt.,. Et in niari apud Peri in Indorum Sepultus e&t. —Miss Alma Murray, who took the part of Beatrice at the Shelley Society's recent performance of The Coici, has been presented by Lady Shelley with a locket; containing 1 part of her lock of Shelley's, hair. This lock, the only one she possessed, was given by the poet's wife before her death to her dangnter-in-law, and has been treasured with religious reverence by the latter till the present time. On witnessing Miss Murray's creation of Beatrice, however, Lady Shelley felt that she must share her choicest possession with the actress who had so worthily embodied Shelley's heroine. The hair is dark brown, with a slight mixture of grey. — The writer of an article on "Tha Arabian Nights" in the Edinburgh Review severely condemns Captain Burton* recent translation of that work. He characterises the different English* versions as follows : " Galland for the nursery. Lane for the library, Payne forth c study, and Burton for the sewers.'* The last, " while professing that he has not ' exaggerated the indecencies,' has/ » says thi3 writer, " multiplied them for r _ fold in text and notes, and has p^odw j " work which no decent gentlenxar ytf\\ long permit to stand upon his $* lelves " The question of the origin. 0 £ "The Arabian Nights" is discuw'a at some length in tins article, and ft opinion ifl arrived at that " most oj ft c Btories werQ probably brought down tar generations of public : reciters from th#<J ays of the earf lvhahfate, and, as th»y We * re ora n y pre ; served, they were doubtless swollen bv continual accrotiones ; but they probably did not take the yjoUected form of thi thousand and One Nights" till the thirteenth century, or even later.' 1