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Typo: A Monthly Newspaper and Literary Review, Volume 3

Literature

page 133

Literature.

From Mr A. D. Willis, Wanganui, we have a copy of a handsome oblong folio volume, entitled New Zealand Illustrated, with sixteen lithographic views, chiefly representing the cities and ports of the colony. Most of the plates are familiar, having been published separately from time to time as a uniform series. The descriptive text is by Mr Edward Wakefield, well known as one of the ablest literary men in the colony. Mr Willis's lithographic views have received high commendation, both in the colonies and at home; and the letter-press of the present volume is quite in keeping. The pages are bordered with a rule in red, with light corners and centres of German design, and an ornament in red appears in place of a column rule. The press-work is sharp and clean, and the text, in an old-style pica (new type) is particularly clear and readable. We would have preferred a more subdued style in the headings and in the display of the title-page. Among the views are two plates representing the beautiful terraces of Rotomahana, blown into the air in the eruption of Tarawera in 1886. The most interesting plate in the book is a copy of three photographs representing parts of the interior of the lately discovered Waitomo cave, a wondrous cavern rivalling the Mammoth cave of Kentucky, in the variety of its curiosities. Two of these represent the « blanket » stalactite—a unique formation, so exactly simulating folds of drapery, even to a colored striped border following the contour of the edges, as to deceive the eye at a distance of twenty feet. Some of the galleries of this cave have as yet been imperfectly explored, so that more objects of interest may yet come to light. Mr Willis's book should have a large sale, and will be a very intersting [sic: interesting] souvenir of the colony for tourists, and a most acceptable gift for friends at home.

The Picturesque Atlas of Australasia is now completed, and the second volume is in the hands of subscribers. This volume is of special interest to New Zealand readers as it contains the portion relating to this colony, with upwards of 150 engravings of New Zealand subjects. The writer of the North Island section is evidently more at home in dealing with Auckland than with the southern portion of the island. In his account of the Rimutaka he makes the mistake of placing the Fell locomotives and the central rail on the Hutt side of the mountain. The same blunder was made in a book of travels published by a clerical gentleman two or three years ago. We have not the book at hand to ascertain if the whole description is « cribbed, » but there can be little doubt that the compiler has been led astray through neglecting to refer to proper authorities. In his account of the New Zealand Company he does but scanty justice to Wakefield and the early pioneers, and actually quotes Rusden (!!) for some of his information. The literary merits of this part of the work are not very high; but this is of minor consequence, as the volume will be chiefly valued on account of its artistic merit; and—as regards New Zealand at all events—no one is likely to refer to it as an authority. Of the artistic merits of the book it is scarcely possible to speak too highly. But we have again to complain of inattention to small matters which seriously mar the work as a whole. The division of the volumes is the first ground of complaint. The work, we may remark, is paged cousecutively throughout, that subscribers may have it bound either in two or three volumes as they please. Our own copy is (unfortunately) bound when it comes to hand, and both volumes are disfigured by double-sheet maps inserted (according to printed directions) right in the midst of the text. In the middle of a sentence in the double-leaded english in which the book is printed, one suddenly comes upon a nonpareil reference-index to a map, and has to turn two leaves to finish the sentence! The maps should have been all together as an appendix, or better still have formed a separate volume, which could have been provided with a pocket for the large folding maps. Then the volumes are divided right in the middle of the « Topography of Queensland." It is only 44 pages altogether, 22 in vol. i, 22 in vol. ii. Had either volume been just twenty-two pages more or less, the second, instead of the contents being followed abruptly by text with a small-cap heading would have begun with a departmental title and handsome headpiece. The engraved title to the first volume, bearing the words « Australia, vol. i » implies a similar one for the second volume, which does not appear. « Vol. i » should not have been inserted at all, as though, for convenience, the work is divided into two or three volumes at the option of purchasers, it is paged throughout as one. There is a full table of contents, but no index, a great deficiency in so large a work. Some of the padding at the end of the second volume might have been dispensed with; but the omission of an index is a grave defect. The appendix of « stamp duties » and similar information is ephemeral and out of place in an art-work, and is moreover not so complete as one can get for sixpence in an ordi nary almanac. The fine colored diagram of the solar system is also curiously out of place in a work of this kind. But the gravest objection of all is the invidious prominence accorded to the portrait of a clergyman whose association with Australia is of a very recent date, and purely accidental. In the case of Marsden, the missionary pioneer, Selwyn, Dunmore Lang, and other men who have permanently influenced the history of these colonies, a carte de visite wood-cut in the text is considered sufficient; while a new-comer, whose name only appears in the most incidental fashion in the historical portion of the text, and would never have been missed if entirely omitted, is accorded the prominence of a fine steel-plate portrait—a distinction shared only by Captain Cook in the first volume! This plate, which probably did not cost less than a hundred pounds, is little else than an insult to the subscribers.

So far, in this colony, literary talent has found its only profitable field in the daily and weekly press. This is doubtless one reason, though not the only one, why the latest attempt to establish a literary magazine is not a success. Any number of a leading daily, taken at random, would give outsiders a higher opinion of the abilities of New Zealand writers than a file of Zealandia to date. The best of its essays do not rise above the average standard of a leading article in a city paper; while of its stories, the less said the better. No. 5 is redeemed from utter flatness by the instalment of the leading serial, « The Mark of Cain, » which is however made ridiculous this time by the « illustration » (a plagiarism from the cover of a recent English shocker); and by a sensible article by Miss Fraser advocating the instruction of girls in cooking. The short story is a production worthy of a Bedlamite. In his brief notes, the editor makes the extraordinary statement. « Even in this fair and favored colony, the lot of the mass of people is grinding poverty—a heart-breaking unrelieved monotonous toiling to avoid the stigma of eating the bread of charity. » He repeats the same idea almost in the same words in the « Answers to Correspondents. » It is monstrously absurd. In no part of the world are the conditions of life easier to the great body of the people whom it is the custom of some to insult by the title of « masses. » The politics of the magazine appear to consist, of a nebulous kind of socialism.

« Tributes to Tennyson » are as plentiful as the autumnal leaves that strew the brooks; in Vallombrosa. Alfred Austin, taking as his text, « Whom the gods love, die young, says:

—Thus I interpret it
The favorites of the gods die young, for they,
They grow not old with grief and deadening time,
But still keep April's moisture in their heart,
May's music in their ears. Their voice revives,
Revives, rejuvenates, the wintry world,
Flushes the veins of gnarled and knotted age,
And crowns the majesty of life with leaves
As green as are a sapling's.

Mr Austin's verse is somewhat marred by the trick of repeating the last word of a line at the beginning of the next—a fault which occurs twice in the few lines above quoted. The little poem closes with some very beautiful lines:

Long may your green maturity remain
Its universal season; and your voice,
A household sound, be heard about our hearths
Now as a Chris&mas carol, now as the glee
Of vernal Maypole, now as harvest song.
And when, like light withdrawn from earth to heaven,
Your glorious gloaming fades into the sky,
We, looking upward, shall behold you there,
Shining amid the young unageing stars.

—Theodore Watts contributes to the Athenæum the following sonnet:

Another birthday breaks: he is with us still.
Then thro' the branches of the glittering trees
The birthday-sun gilds grass and flower: the breeze
Sends forth methinks a thrill—a conscious thrill
That tells yon meadows by the steaming rill—
Where, o'er the clover waiting for the bees,
The mist shines round the cattle to their knees—
« Another birthday breaks: he is with us still! ti »
For Nature loves him—loves our Tennyson:
I think of heathery Aldworth rich and rife
With greetings of a world his song hath won:
I see him there with loving son and wife,
His fourscore years a golden orb of life:
My proud heart swells to think what he hath done.

This is described by a contemporary as « the best tribute yet paid. » To be in a position to judge, one would need to read them all—which is more than even the grand old poet himself could reasonably be expected to do.

Supernatural Religion, an anonymous book which made some stir in its day, has long been dead, and would probably have been quite forgotten but for the scholarly reply it evoked from Dr Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham. The Bishop's book has just been republished, and in his preface, he says: « The author of Supernatural Religion is, apart from his work, a mere blank to me. I do not even know his name, nor have I attempted to discover it. Whether he is living or dead, I know not. » This has elicited the information that the author is still living, that his name is Walter Richard Cassells, and that he is a nephew of the late Dr. Pusey.