The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1897-09-10

and not laugh and be entertained is
to be sympathized with.
We called attention to the essay of
Mr.. James on Du Maurier. The poet
critic Mr.. r. H Stoddard, in New
York Mail and Express, does not ap-
prove of his omissions and o~bscurities.
He does not deny the excellence Of the
workmanship and so on, but COM
plains OF many important things omit
ted and also the lack OF lucidity to
which We pointed. What he says is
every way just and wisely critical as
well as excellently stated. We quote:
The admirers of Du Maurier will be
disappointed with the studied subtlety
Of its distinctions, its uncertainty of
intellectual sympathy, it's hesitancy of
hearty approval, n the almost entire
absence of the personal interest which
they are fain to associate with the
memory Of Du Maurier. They will not
find what they expect to find, which,
in the first place, is a clear, intelligent
statement Of the literary qualities
which differentiate the works Of Du
Maurier from those of his contempo-
raries Of equal talent or genius, and a
deliberate estimate of the faults and
beauties Of his novels, and their place
in the literature of the period"
He writes of it's being without ''di-
rectness of vision" "%ingeniously YER
bose" and "provokingly uncommuni-
cative." Well taken and aptly put.
These all struck us in reading an 9TH
erwise striking piece of work.
This fall lives of Tennyson and Hulk
ley will appear together with a person.
al life of Queen Victoria by the late
gifted Mrs. Oliphant.
The dead Brontes attract more crit
ical and biographical attention than
any dead authors Of the last twenty
years, not excepting George Eliot.
The late Lord Tennyson was not only
the greatest poet Of the last sixty
years, but the most learned of all Eng
lish poets since John Melton. He was
unlike some other great authors a man
Of fine taste in Notwithstanding,
healthful, masculine, acute. He had a
high opinion Of two foremost Scotsmen
Of this most teeming century-Carlyle
and Scott. He was really a disciple of
the great, strange, rugged Carlyle, as
! were other very eminent contemporary
Observation-Disclosures, Froude, Fitzger-
aid. OF Scott he held the right opinion
Of course. If he did not go so far in
| admiration as we have gone, p%ronounc-
| ing him the greatest creative genius
since Shakespeare, which We most
| steadfastly hold, he held him above
| all others. The Hon. Mr.. BalfOur, a
! distinguished and able living Scot, in
a recent address, said this:
For Sir Walter Scott was not only
| one of the greatest men of letters that
have ever lived in any country, but
he was also one Of the best n most
lOvable of men who ever adorned any
society; and as time goes on, so far
from his fame becoming dimmed or the
knowledge Of him becoming the prop
erty of only a few, it seems to me-, sc
far as I a judge, that he is more like
ly to defy the ravages of time than al
most any other of the writer's who have
adorned the present century,"
Blackwood's (Edinburgh) Magazine
has a paper on "Tennyson in Scotland
and from it we get this which will be
sure to interest some of our readers:
"Tennyson, in a conversation with
Professor William Knight, in 1890
characterized Sir Walter Scot as tn
greatest novelist Of all time. He said
What a gift it was that Scotland
gave to the world in him. And youl
Burns! He is supreme among youl
poets" He praised Lockhart's Life
Of Scott" as n of the finest of biog
raphies."
We read recently in a paper upor
victorian LITERATURE in The New
York Bookman for August, by Mr.
Shorter, that Lockhart's life was i'm.
mensely o~ver-rated. All faldal. Wher'
will you find it's equal except in Bos
wells Johnson, which is it's superior
Trevelyan's life of his illustrious uncl'
Lord Macaulay, n his most capita
life of the younger days of Charlie:
James Fox are indeed gems, and ar,
fit for companionship with Lockhart:
mastery work. We know of nothing
else so good.