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Literature

Last Year we mentioned that Mr J. Collier, the General Assembly Librarian, had in hand a comprehensive Bibliography of New Zealand. We have now to acknowledge receipt of a copy of this valuable work, which we prize the more highly as the edition is limited, and it is not for sale. The book, which is printed at the Government office, is a large octavo, of 240 pages, and is compiled with the greatest care and industry. The first and most important section is the chronological catalogue, beginning with Tasman's journals published in 1764; and brought down to 1889, including more than one work « in the press » at the time of publication. Wherever necessary notes are given, always brief, and very much to the point. For example, Mr Sutter's « Per Mare, per Terras, » so far as the six chapters relating to the colony are concerned, is noted as « valueless. » The list is not confined to complete books and pamphlets, but old review and magazine articles on the colony—some of much interest—are duly noted. In the case of important works, references are also given to the chief notices and criticisms in the press. The first section occupies 175 pages; the remainder of the work is occupied with a classified catalogue of subjects, and an alphabetical list of authors. Every page of the hook bears evidence of the most painstaking research, and its preparation must have been a labor of love to Mr Collier. No such work has heretofore been attempted, and it will be indispensable to all future students of the literature and history of the colony. One more book is needed—a bibliography of newspaper and other periodical literature lying outside the plan of the present work. In ephemeral literature of this class in years past was embedded some of the best work of the ablest writers that the colony has produced.

Miss Emily Faithfull writes in the Lady's Pictorial, referring to the generous tribute paid by the Manchester Quarterly to her old friend Miss Christina Rossetti:—It is very acceptable to light upon a thoroughly well-deserved recognition of a woman poet in this carping, critical age. Most cordially do I endorse the writer's opinion that no living authoress has a better right to the white chaplet of modesty than this gifted lady. She has never obtruded her personality on the world; year after year she writes in a dreary London square, where the years, as they go by, snatch her loved ones, only leaving her with fresh cares and duties which she fulfils with « sweet evidence of unextinguished hope and trust in Him who ordereth all things wisely and for our good. » Never shall I for-forget the pride I felt in early youth in being selected by Miss Rossetti to read one of her poems at the monthly gathering of the club called « The Portfolio, » to which I had been introduced by Adelaide Proctor. More than thirty years have passed away since that ever-to-be-remembered evening, and many of her poems have since been published—and « the softly subdued pathos » which characterises them imparts to them a strong individuality.—The following is an example of Miss Rossetti's charming verse:—

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree;
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain;
And, dreaming throughout the twilight
That does not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

The Taranaki Herald, writing of Tupper, recalls the fact that he was associated fifty years ago with the promoters of the Canterbury settlement, and that he wrote the following poem on the departure of the vessels for Lyttelton:

Queen of the South! which the mighty Pacific,
Claims for its Britain in ages to be,
Bright with fair visions and hopes beatific,
Glorious and happy thy future I see!
Thither the children of England are thronging,
There for true riches securely to search;
Not for thy gold, California, longing,
But for sweet Home, with enough, and a Church!
There, a soft clime, and a soil ever teeming,
Summer's December, and winter's July, [ing,
With the bright Southern Cross in the firmament gleam-
The Dove, and the Crown, and the Altar on high.
There, the broad prairies with forest and river,
There the safe harbors are bidding men search,
For Thy best blessings, O Heavenly Giver!
Home, with enough, and an Englishman's Church.
Yes, for Britannia, the mother of Nations,
Sends out her children as teeming old Greece,
Good men and great men to stand in their station,
Merchants of plenty and heralds of Peace,
Stout Anglo-Saxons! Port Victory calls you;
Take the glad omen, and speedily search,
Where you shall gather, whatever befalls you,
Truest of treasures, a Home and a Church!
Fifty years hence—look forward and see it,
Realm of New Zealand, what then shall thou be?
If the world lives, at the Father's « so be it. »
All shall be greatness and glory with thee!
Even should Britain's decay be down-written
In the dread doom-book that no man may search,
Still, shall an Oxford, a London, a Britain,
Gladden the South with a Home and a Church.

The fifty years have sped, and Tupper's vision may now be compared with the reality. It is a happy circumstance that his dream of a state church was not realized. The Church of England has done nobler and more lasting work in the colony than any official department could ever have accomplished.

The Woman's World for November contains two little poems and a story from the pen of Miss Amy Levy, which seem now to have a special significance. We quote one of the poems— « The Promise of Sleep »:—

All day I could not work for woe,
I could not work nor rest;
The trouble drove me to and fro,
Like a leaf on the storm's breast.
Night came, and saw my sorrow cease:
Sleep to the chamber stole;
Peace crept about my limbs, and peace
Fell on my stormy soul.
And now I think of only this—
How I again may woo
The gentle Sleep, who promises
That Death is gentle too.

Mr Andrew Lang has been giving a very humorous lecture on « How to fail in literature. » Mr Lang's hints are worthy of study by those who would succeed. His sketch of the stock characters in the average novel was exceedingly good; but his types of poetic failure (composed for the occasion) are better still. This is his sample of the « consumptive manner »:—

Only.

Only a spark of the ember,
Only a leaf on the tree,
Only the days we remember,
Only the days without thee.
Only the flowers that thou worest,
Only the book that we read, Only that night in the forest,
Only a dream of the dead.
Only the troth that was broken,
Only the heart that was lonely,
Only the sign and the token,
That sighing on the saying of only.

The next little poem which Mr Lang read was a combination of several manners, and was so composite that he found it difficult to place it in any particular category. Therefore he entitled it

No Name.

In the slumber of the winter in the secret of the snow
What is the voice that is crying out of the long ago?
When the accents of the children are hushed upon the stairs,
When the poor forgets his troubles and the rich forgets his cares.

Or if you wish to be satirical you may say:

—and the rich forgets his shares
What is the silent whisper that echoes in the room
When the days are full of darkness and the night is hushed in gloom?
'Tis the voice of the departed who will never come again,
Who have left the weary tumult and the struggle and the pain.

Or you may say:

—and the agony of men.
And my heart makes heavy answer to the voice that conies no more,
To the whisper that is welling from a far-off golden shore.

Two other sorts of verse—verse which counts failure—were instanced by Mr Lang: the Grosvenor Gallery style:

When the summer night is dim, hushed the loud chrysanthemum—
Sister sleep.
&c., &c, ad lib.,

and the sonnet. The man who wished to fail might also imitate popular poets such as Tennyson, Swinburne, Rossetti, and Dobson.

George Meredith has completed his novel The Journalist; but is holding it over till he has completed another story on which he is engaged. This is entitled One of the Conquerors, and will, he says, be his masterpiece.

The extent of the British reading public may be partly inferred from the marvellous demand for the beautifully-printed sixpenny edition of « Westward Ho! » issued by Mac-millan. The hundred thousand copies at first arranged for were sold before issue, and two more issues of the same number had to produced before the demand could be overtaken. Some delay was caused by the printing machines breaking down under the pressure. One bookseller alone had orders for over ten thousand copies!

The 'Pilgrim's Progress' has just been translated into the language of Abyssinia by a young man of Florence. This is the eighty-fourth language in which the immortal work is now read.