The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1898-07-08

them, which he has caught and
brought out beyond all Others"
Mr.. Gladstone had great admiration
and fondness for Scott. He wrote
many profound things Of great writer's
and literature. He appreciated and
understood the great writer's. From
"A Roll of Thoughts from Mr.. Glad
stone" lately published we take this:
cit is by the creative powers that
the poet projects his work from him
self; stands, as it were, completely de-
tached from it, and becomes in his own
! personality invisible. Thus did HON.
er and Shakespeare, perhaps beyond
all other men-thus did Goethe = .
, thus did Dante when he pleased"
Again he wrote:
For words of the mind really great
there is no old age, no decrepitude. 1t
is inconceivable that a time should
come when Homer, Dante, Shakes
| peare shall not ring in the ears of civ
! ilized man."
Canon DoyIe's last book, "a Desert
Dramer' is of it's kind clever, so crit
les tell us. 1t is healthy in tone and
free from garbage and immoral faint,
, and that is no little now, when the at
mosphere wreaks with impurities.
We gave a few eccentricities of taste
and opinion in Sundays issue. Words
worth was a great poet, and yet he
wrote a deal of very dull stuff. He
, had queer taste in letters. He could
not relish SCOTS and Byron's poetry,
and once said to Walter Savage Ian
dor that all of SCOTS poetry together
was not worth s~ixpence." This is said
of the most animated, Fomeric poet
of modern times.
Coleridge has for seventy-five years
or more taken rank with the foremost
poets of England in the last two hun
dred and fifty years. But for opium
he would have no doubt enriched the
world with many other poems of
splendid inspiration and beauty and
marvellous phrasing. That fascina-
ting and penetrating critic of poets,
Edmund Gosse, who rarely misses the
mark in his classifying, describing and
interpreting finest and noblest poetry,
says of the almost unique Samuel Tay-
lor Coieridge and the solemn and
sometimes wonderfully inspired
Wordsworth:
wordsworth was not a great me-
trist; he essayed comparatively few
and easy forms, and succeeded best
when he was at his simplest. Cole
ridge, on the other hand, was an in
novator; his 'Christabel' revolution
lied English prOsody and opened to a
thousand experiments; in 'Kuble
Khan and in some OF the lyrics Cole
ridge attained a splendor of verbal
melody which places him near the
summit of the English Parnassus."
1t was pleasant to us to see London
Literature" retaining the old familiar
spelling of the greatest of Roman
poets-Virgil, instead Of adopting the
modern "VergiI." A new edition Of
"The Works of Virgil" with a COM
mentary by ProfessorsC onington and
Nettleship, retain the old form and
"discredits the pedantic affectation of
Vergil."
Among recent novels we'll spoken Of
are In Kings Houses by Julia c.. R.
Dorr, "Senorita Montenar," by A. P.
Cronch, Two Stories by Ellen o. Kirk,
"Helbeck Of Hannisdale," by Mrs.
Humphrey Ward, and "The Chevalier
D Auriac" by S. l.. Yeats.
The brightest, most delightful Amer
lean story we have read in years is
"Penelope's Progress" by Mrs. Kate
Douglas Wiggin. 1t is full of fun and
| wit, of descriptions and historical re-
ference, of charm and sketches Of
Scotch character, that altogether
make it of rarest interest and vivid
ness of impression.
Mr.. George Gissing has uncommon
| gifts. His novels are we'll lauded by
many scholarly critics, but we have
no knowledge of them from our own
reading. He has achieved a decided
success in his Charles Dickens. A
Critical Study" 1t has met with 20
adverse criticism so far as we have
noticed. All appear to agree hat it is
a very clever, enjoyable, fair estimate
of the great novelist, whose produc-
.tiouS have hann IN ZIG a delight for
more than half a century. Mr.. Giss-
ing may not have written a great
book, but he has been discriminating,
dispassionate, sympathetic and still
appreciative. We still cling to the old
opinion that with limitations and pc
culiarities and Objectionable features
both as to style and character linn
ming, that Dickens remains still charm