Literature.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2242, 20 November 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

Literature.

— TitK Lad/s World is tlio title of a new shilling n.ag<>zine for ladies, which Messrs Cassell and Co. will publish. — Serpent skin, is coming into fashion as a covering for books, and on account of the high decree of finish it will take is likely to bo popular amongst connoisseurs. —By the will of the late Sir Charles Trevelyan, all Lord Maennliy's MSS. are left to his daughter, Lady Holland ; but they are not to he published without the consent of Sir George Trevelyan. — Mrs Henrietta Stanuard, who writes as " John Stiange Winter," has finished another story of army life, in which Miss Mignon, intiodueed in "Booties' Baby, 1 ' will reappear. The title will be " Mignou's Secret, ' and the novellete will appear in America as a serial in Harper's Ba/.ar. --The first edition of "The Highland Bugado, ' by Mr James Cromb, Dundee, detailing the services of the Highland regiments from fcho Crimea to the SouHan, published by Simpkin, Marshall and Co. on the Nt. inst., ia already sold out. Anothct edition of the volume, which is dedicated to Sir Archibald Alison, is in the press. — Mr (f old win Smith's Toronto paper, "The Week," thus refers, in a recent number, to Mr Gladstone's pamphlet on the Irish question : "The bare announcement ot this extraordinary publication has cteated the greatest sensation in London, where its political effect will bo momentous, and its interest and importance will be hardly le*s marked in this country. ' On the contrary, Mr Gladstone-} pamp'ilet has decidedly fallen flat. —The International Oriental Congress, which was opened at Vienna on Monday, had a varied and interesting programme before it. The ?übjeets upon which p.ip rs were promised included " Egypt," by Miss Amelia B. Edwards; "The Oceania Languages," by Dr. R. Cust ; "The Hindu Poets," by Mr Grierson, of the Bengal Civil Service; "The Languages of China, 1 ' by M. Terrien de Lacouperie ; and many others. The number of | members who had announced their intention to attend was 400. Considering the magnitude of English interests in° the Eistit is strange that only 40 English visitors had inscribed their names as members on the day previous to the opening of the Congress. — Mr Tver, in the introduction to his i new book, " Follies and Fashions of our Grandfathers," the dedication of which, by the way, has been accepted by the Queen, thus explains his reasons for printing but three copies of the best edition of the work: "It seems," he says, *' that the British Museum has the legal right— a right always rigorously enforced — of demanding one of the most expensive copies of any book published. The writer has suffered before, and he takes this opportunity of getting even. He had intended to print only one copy on brown paper ; but before going to press elected to have an edition of three — the iirst copy for the British Museum, the second for himself to take home and chuckle over whon out of sorts, and the third for any one who likes to pay for it." — There is something pathetic in the appeal of Miss Emma S. Brock, Hon. Secretary of the Literature Distribution Branch of the Kryle Society, to would-be donors of books not to "end " theological" works. "All books of all sorts," writes the hon. secretary, "are welcome, except theological controversies."' This is a cruel blow, indeed. Persons, ye who found your hopes of fame on publishing a weighty tome or two on some neglected point in exegesis, go ponder these words, and let them give you pause before you publish. Turn your undoubted talents to that lighter literature which scintillates in Christmas or Midsummer numbers, and meets us in the two-shilling yellow black or single shilling shocker ; disguise your sermons to tiles of love-making or of vengeance, and then you may hope to get a hearing from the prott-ge-. of the Kyrle Society. But don'l hand over your theological rubbish — it isn't worth, the carriage, and has no selling value. — A hitherto unpublished letter of Longfellow's has appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette. It was written to the mistress of a girls' school in Chicago a year or two before his death, and rnns as follows :— " To those who ask how I can write 'so many things that sound as if I were as h ippy as a boy," please say that there is in this neighbourhood or neighbouring town a pear tree planted by Endicott 'JOG years ago, and that this tree still bears fruit whi^h it is impossible to distinguish from the young tree in flavour. I suppose that the tree makes new wood every year, so that some part of it is always young. Perhaps that is the way with some men when they grow old. I hope it is so with me lam glad to hear tint your boys and girls continue to take so great an interct m poetry. That is a very good sign, for poetry may be said to be the flower and perfume of thought, and a perpetual delight, clothing all the mere commonplaces of life 'with golden exhalations of the d\wn."