The record-union., 1899-07-23
Literature and
Literary Workers.

Literary Workers.
Notes and Queries: 1t may be ques-
uoned whether the name of Sweet
Auourn was wholly an invention OF
1oiosmlth's fancy, or whether it was
taken from that of any village actually
ueserted.' But there is in England
q deserted village actually called Au-
purn, Which lies on the Yorkshire coast,
near Brldlington. The desertion has,
however, been caused not by the rea'
son assigned by Goldsmith, but by the
inroads of the sea, which has now
washed away the church and the whole
village, with the exception of one farm
mouse, itself soon to disappear, as 1t
stands on the very edge of the ciiif.
Ihls destruction has been subsequent
TO the date of Domesday, where the
name appear as Eleburn, and after
ward as Album, the "eel-burn," less
poetical name than Auburn, just as
Osborne, in the Isle Of Wight, is cor
ruption of Oysterbourne, a name OF less
euphony and dignity than that which
1t now bears.
The secret of Kipling's strength lies in
the fact that he expresses the force OF
the deeper-lying human instincts as
they are stimulated by the demands or
modern life He bids us listen to them
as guiding voices which tell of the long
experience of our human ancestors, ana
of that line of living forms which the
first of human beings was descended.
He warns us that these instincts must
not be quenched by the artificiality OF
what we in our pride call our modern
civilization, that they must be modf-
fed to harmonize with the complex en-
vironment of these later times, rather
than bridled into subsection by a con-
1ident rationalism which forgets the
failures of reason in the past.-Henry
Rutgers Marshall in the Century.
London Correspondence Birmingham
Post: Another of the visible links that
keep alive the association of DR.. john
son with Fleet street. is being broken
by the demolition of No. Z, Johnson S
Court, which is now in the hands of the
housebreakers, with a view to the
dwelling of the great photographer be-
ing replaced by the office of journals
dealing with fashions and domestic af-
fairs. The fact that the court bears
the name of the sage of Fleet street
is merely a coincidence. for the place
appears to have been known by the
same designation before he took up his
residence there in 1865. Maitland de-
scribed Johnson's and Bolt Courts in
1879 as having good houses, we'll in'
habited," and the adjacent Cough
square (where is the house, bearing the
commemorative tablet of the Society of
Artists, in which Johnson began the
publication of 1.-The Rambler" COM
pleted the dictionary, and suffered be-
reavement by the death of his wife) is
styled by the same writer fashion,
able" These localities have long sincd
lost the characteristics which Maitland
imputed to them. and to the present
generation are known as narrow pas,
sages, surrounded by offices and work,
shops of the pupblishing and allied
trades. Even in Johnson'S day the
neighborhood of the house now in
course of destruction would seem to
have been losing the standing it had
once enjoyed, for Boswell, who states
that on returning to London in 1866 he
found DR.. Johnson in good house i'll
Johnson's Court" speaks seven years
later of the surprise with which he re-
ceived an invitation to dine with his
hero on Easter Day. and of his "curios-
ity to dine with DR.. Samuel Johnson
in the dusty recess of a court in Fleet
street" He considered a dinner there
"a singular phenomenon" and credit
ing his readers with a desire to know
the bill of fare, has left upon record
that it included very good soup, a
boiled leg of lamb and spinach, a veal
pie and rice pudding''-a satisfying
rather than an epicurean menu.
Mr.. Kipling now has twenty three
suits in progress against American pub
fishers and booksellers. His latest is
brought against Ebert Hubbard of the
Roycroft Shop. East Aurora, N. Y. Mr..
Hubbard is the editor of the "Philis-
tine
The London Academy gives the fol-
lowing as the six books now enjoying
the most sales in England: Miss Fow-
ler's "a Double Thread Miss Harra-
denis 1.-The Fowler" the Golden Treas
ury'' edition of the Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam, S. r. Crockett's 1.-The Black
II IllQSt I1dSSdlN 0"cAAiO"
and the half guinea edition of 1.-The
Life of Tennyson."
Frank T. Bullen tells in Book News
how he began 1.-The Cruise of the
Cachalot" in the sorest need, as a last
resort and in despair of being able to
accomplish anything that would be
profitable, how he wrote it in three
months in such odds and ends of spare
time as remained after ten hours daily
Office work as junior clerk.
It is announced that German trans
lation of David Harum," for publica-
ton. in Germany, is to be made very
soon. 1t is beyond the power of the
imagination to conjure UP what sort OF
thing the attempt to put David's dia-
1ect, home made philosophy and racy
personality into German will result in.
Beside it, the famous French transla-
tion of Mark Twains Jumping Frog
will be plain and simple.
Professor Lombroso. the famous Ital-
ian specialist on the mental and moral
significance of nerve disease, and on
criminology and insanity. has written
an article for the August Pail MALI
dealing with Lieutenant Hobson's tri-
umphal progress across this continent
when all girls kissed him who could
get near enough. 1t is entitled "Ar
Epidemic of Kissing"