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Literature.

Printers, all the world over, will be interested to know that Mr Colenso's « Jubilee » paper on the introduction of the Press into this country, of which we gave a short abstract last November, has now been published in pamphlet form. Not only has this book a technical interest of no common order, but it contains particulars, unrecorded elsewhere, relative to the fixing of the orthography of the native language, and, in the form of an appendix, numerous striking and characteristic anecdotes of life among the Maori tribes in what the late Judge Maning called « the good old times, before governors and laws and taxes were invented. » Most of the pioneer settlers have passed away; few have left any valuable record of their early experiences; but our first printer is with us still, and has perhaps as rich and varied an experience to draw upon as any man living. A close and accurate observer, and possessing the valuable habit of making and preserving precise notes of all matters of interest from day to day, his reminiscences are beyond comparison more valuable than the average tales of the early colonists, with the inevitable inaccuracies arising from defective recollection and unconscious embellishment. Mr Colenso is as ready with pencil as with pen, and possesses a fine collection of sketches of the New Zealand of half-a-century ago—a land known to us now only by tradition! Three of these, representing localities in the Bay of Islands specially referred to in the book—including the pretty little mission station of Paihia, where the Maori New Testament was printed — are reproduced in the pamphlet, greatly adding to its interest and value. They have been transferred to stone by Mr D. Blair, of Napier, and reflect much credit upon him both as artist and lithographer.

From the Religious Tract Society we have received a copy of A Crown of Flowers, a beautiful quarto gift-book of 160 pages, containing a choice collection of verses and engravings. Every page is illustrated — the text and decorations being in many cases interwoven with admirable effect. The work is a reprint of the choicest illustrations and poems from the early volumes of the Girls' Own Paper, many of which are now out of print. A prettier or more appropriate gift for a young girl, it would be difficult to find.

In the latest issue of the Schoolmaster, Messrs Whitcombe & Tombs write regarding their « Southern Cross » series of reading-books: « The whole of the books as they are issued are being kept in type, and only small editions worked off, with a view of obtaining such advice from experienced teachers as will enable us to rectify any defects in the first editions. » This is an excellent plan on the part of the publishers. In a first issue, slight blemishes are unavoidable—(we have already noted two or three in the first book of the series—the only one we have seen)— and had the pages been stereotyped, they would probably remain.

The Lamplighter, published thirty years ago, though a somewhat old-fashioned story, is still popular. In the United States, more than two hundred editions of a thousand copies each have been sold; and the work has been many times reprinted in England.

Strange how hard a myth is to kill! The hackneyed Beautiful Snow was written many years ago by a son of Mrs Sigourney, and first saw the light in a well-known « penny dreadful. » The lines attracted no attention —their artificiality and sham sentiment are repellant to anyone who can appreciate verse which is the outcome of genuine feeling—and they lay forgotten for about fifteen years. Somewhere in the 'sixties, a smart Yankee resuscitated the « poem, » and turned it loose upon society with a wooden-nutmeg story to the effect that it had been composed by a poor outcast, found dead in the snow, with the MS. in her pocket! Then the lines (and their « touching story ») made the grand tour of the press. Women pasted them in scrap-books; parsons thundered them from pulpits. But before a year had passed, somebody lighted upon the rhyme in the old London Journal. Then arose a fierce dispute about the authorship, which was ultimately traced to Major Sigourney.—A week or two since, a North Island weekly republished the verses, with the long-exploded fiction as to their authorship! However, the editor is to be excused—it is such a very old scrap-book he is reprinting. He has dropped Fanny's old Fern-Leaves since we chaffed him about them, but he lately came out with (a fragment of) Charles Harpur's Autumnal Leaves, and Kendall's memorial tribute to Harpur, which poems we had the pleasure of reprinting in a Napier weekly when they were fresh—more than twenty years ago.

The Major appears to have regarded his Snow with some complacency, for he followed it up with another atrocity on the same model, entitled Beautiful Child, in which he again assumed the feminine character—this time as a mother. This piece, which (having no bogus story connected with it) is not so well known as its predecessor, is an equally wild tangle of mixed metaphor, turgid bombast, and bottomless bathos:

In the mystic future, what wilt thou be—
A demon of sin, or an angel sublime;
A poison upas, or innocent thyme;
A spirit of evil flashing down
With the lurid light of a fiery crown,
Or gliding up with a shining track,
Like the morning star that ne'er looks back?

This is more ludicrous than The Walrus and the Carpenter, in its unconscious absurdity. The comical vegetable contrast—the upas and the thyme, thrust in between the supernaturals, is bad enough; but the erratic gyrations of the « spirit of evil, flashing down » and « gliding up, » and the peculiar quality attributed (also for rhyme's sake) to « the morning star, » reduce it to a burlesque. The incoherency is maintained throughout:—

A fallen star, thou may'st leave my side,
And of sorrow and shame become the bride.

And in the last stanza:—

—May'st thou soar above,
A warbling cherub of joy and love,
A drop on eternity's mighty sea,
A blossom on life's immortal tree.

So far as we know, these twin « beauties » were the sole offspring of the gallant Major's muse. Let us hope so!

The Wanganui Herald says that « every competent authority in the English press has pronounced the Cryptogram a transparent imposture. » We are not aware of a single authority which has expressed such an opinion except those who had hastily condemned it in advance. The question is far too intricate for off-hand decision, even with the aid of Mr Donnelly's two large volumes. Few « authorities » have the ability and fewer still the patience, to test the problem, though any literary blockhead might write stuff like the « Shacon » and « Bakespeare » articles in the Saturday Review. Speaking from a technical standpoint, the extraordinary errors (?) in the folio of 1623 are inexplicable on any ordinary theory.

The Dublin correspondent of the Rock writes: « A well-known Roman Catholic publisher is advertising a large-type New Testament, at a cost of one shilling and sixpence. This is a sign of the times! I have never seen one so advertised heretofore. It is, indeed, as remarkable as the sale of Father McGlynn's rebellious speech against the Pope. » This publication of the New Testament is not quite without precedent. One result of the publication of the Maori New Testament, fifty years ago, was the issue by the Church of Rome of the Gospel according to Matthew and other portions of the Scriptures (of course with annotations) in the native tongue.

A supplement to Hymns Ancient and Modern, containing about 150 hymns, is to be issued.

The original MS. of W. H. Ireland's forged plays, that deceived all the learned Shakespeareans ninety years ago, is offered for sale in London for a hundred guineas.