The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1902-11-09
Leads all North Carolina Daes i'm News and Circulation

SNA90 w. 00&AAAN w.
Some fire of thine might be within US
still
All, would but one might lay his lance in
rest
And charge in earnest-were it but
mill"
There have been some highly note
worthy biographies-the most enjoyable
of all literary works, save the best novels
of the masters and the greatest poetry,
| take leave to say-published within the
last decade. / name but a few of the
best: Tennyson's life by his son; Scud-
der's life of Lowell; Balfour's life OF
Stevenson. Woodberry's life of Nathaniel
Hawthorne: Morley's Life of Cromwell {;
Harrisons life of Ruskin; Higginson' S
life of Longfellow. A great biography, /
take it, is in course of preparatiOn-John
Morley's life of the great Gladstone.
Several other enjoyable and we'll executed
biographies of recent years might be
added. OF course the greatest biogra-
plies are back of these. The following
specially merit attention, for the first
three are the best of all biographies in
English: Boswell's life of DR.. Johnson;
Lockhart's life of Sir Walter Scott;
Trevelyan's life of Lord Macaulay; Stan
ley's life of DR.. Arnold, of Rugby, and
Quendi's mastery work on Julius Caesar.
A better informed writer would add 9TH
ers. commend to readers who seek the
good in literature to read the average
series of lives in English Men of Let
ters" series.
There is talk in England of a post
humous novel by the greatest of all
English poets, after Shakespeare-Johu
Milton. 1t is called ''Nova Solyma,"
romance in prose and verse. 1t was re-
ported to have been found last winter by
Walter Begley. 1t is book printed in
Latin. bearing date 164S, and with the
imprint of John Legat. If a genuine
find it will be interesting to bookmen. II
is to be issued both in England and the
c1ited States. The New York Saturday
Review gives the following startling and
arresting news:
Mr.. Begley thinks it is not a second
edition, but an attempt 10 give the re.
mainder new life by a fresh title page.
for on this there is a subtitle, 'Sive
Institutio Christiani-"or the Education
of a Christian" Mr.. Begley prefaces his
translation with an elaborate argument.
showing for many reasons that Milton
must have been the author. One of his
strongest proofs is in the comparison be-
tween the forthcoming work and Millions
posthumous work de Doctrina Chris
tiana," discovered in 1928. The latter
proved to the world that Milton. besides
being an undoubted hereto on one of the
fundamental teachings of Christianity,
had also most singular and heterodoX
views on many other points of Christian
morality" The treatise absolutely
swarmed with curious and heterodoX
speculations" Mr.. Begley quotes these
views from Mason"
The production of novels now is more
than five every day in the year or more
than 1900 each year. The estimate of
books now in all the libraries of the
United States is put at 7000G0,0O0. OF
that vast number it is estimated that
APO ,000, 900 arc in the homes of the people.
The total for the world is placed al s.,
200 900 900. Europe has 1900, 600 of
these. What about the annual output for
the world? 1t is given at $4,000 our own
country producing 5000, and Germany
% 900. Our country is new, and the
greater part of the books in libraries
have been collected in a half century or
so. Here IS a list of the number of vol
umes in European libraries, which / take
from the Now York Saturday Review:
Library No. of Volumes.
Bibliotheque National. Paris. ..... s 600, 600
British Museum, London. .........2 COO, 900
Imperial Library, st. Petersburg 1,500, 900
Royal Library, Berlin. .......,...1 900 ,0O0
Strasburg University. Strasburg.. 100000
Imperial Library. Vienna. 600, 900
ROYAL Library, Munich .......... $50, 600
Bodleian Library, Oxford ANN. $50, 900
Leipsic University, Leipsic ...... 500 900
Royal Library, Copenhagen. 49,. 1000
Stuttgart University, Stuttgart. 900
There are at least ten other libraries
in Europe with over 600 volumes and
ten more with over 100000. In the United
States there are only three libraries with
over 500, 000-the Library of Congress at
Washington, with $780, 900; the Boston
Public Library, with GOO 900, and Harvard
University Library, with $4,000. There
are twenty other libraries with over 500,
00O"
The production Of fiction is overwhelm-
ing The most of the books are trashy
and valueless. The greater part that
lave a brief record of prosperity pass
away in few weeks or months, and are
forgotten. There is very little that is
original, and book OF any genius is very
uncommon. The flood of production is
very high, and the time spent over the
n ost of the supposed best is time
wasted. No mind can become better
disciplined and informed by reading
transitory publications and ephemeral
stuff Writing of the current fiction the
editor of the Saturday Review lately said:
LAS soon as it gives willfully distorted
views of life it becomes second rate, in
many cases frankly dishonest. There
has probably never been period in the
history of our fiction when there was so
much insincere writing as there is now
writing based not on living models. but
on other successful books, and written
merely to appeal to popular tastes and
prejudices.
This IS said of those that are mostly
read and not of the thousands that feed
the paper mills. 1t is declared in Lon
don that the historical novel-so- called
mi Ia. TIC