New-York tribune., 1907-01-20
LITERARY NOTES.

In II N3hf NOI EO.
1t is reported that Mr. w. W. Jacobs is wri
ing a long novel, and the many admirers of his
amusing sketches are waiting for it with lively
curiosity. VIII he have the staying power for
a long story? The work he has done hitherto
has hardly given him the right practice.
A volume of historical and other studies il
the only work within covers which has been
given TO the world by NJ. Francis Charmcs the
successor of Ferdinand BTUuetiere editOr-in-
chief of the Revue des DeuX Mondes" He is
more politician and journalist than literary
critic
Mr.. Andrew Lang has just finished his
haustive history of Scotland. The fourth and
final volume Will be brought from the press in
the spring.
There was a time-for a year or so after
the publication of The Heavenly Twins-when
the prospect of a new novel from the pen of
| Mime. Sarah Grand would have reused an in
nOuncement that she has two novels mapped
out and means to write one of them at once is
not particularly exciting. for her later work did
not fulfil the promise of her earlier Productions.
| AS for her methods she declares that it takes
her eighteen months at least to write a novel,
and she should like it better if she could take
two years to 1t.
A small literary controversy is going on in
| Great Britain concerning Lady Marines touch
| ing song THE Land o the LeaL" An attempt
| is being made to attribute it to uBrns, though
| IL was never included in any collection %
Burnss poems by any responsible edto- \
! correspondent of The London Tribune" TO
wives an old story that THE Land % the Lear
! was written by Burns his deathbed and adj
dressed 10 Jean instead OF to John" He
adds:
The l true % Jean & copy 9 had 2PReared at f il work
he'd by John Smith. Nontrose in Sl9 (four years
fore I+1dy Marines version was seen or heard
thcr' The John. disguise. winch had eyid,ntIy
been made to prevent Identification and consequent
+ 7, explained ld room
was left for the opinion that the address had been
Iurns's partng address To lis vifs KnoWine th.s
ana also the fact that l+.dy Marine could be said
signed tie origin To her. supporting her claim by
othePs u like nature An thes so,caed ed proofs
controycrted by the song itself which contains
words spelled BY no other writer except Burns him
our English namcsakc points out in reply
hat in her last years Lady Marine herself ex-
plained how it happened that her finest song
Rad been attributed to Burns without her
troubling To reclaim it. She preferred TO write
anonymously for reasons which were stronger
in that period than they would appear in these
days of feminine authorship. Concerning The
Land % the Lear she said to friend:
I wrote it merely because I liked the air
much. and I put these to it. fearing
Would Know, and took it down aud had not S.r
Waters art Of d.TyinE & was present when it
deathbed, and that he had il Jean" instead Of
neV'T, IIpeared IN ms %"IhS, , rs ms last S,iE %
should have done ! nc neEyr I ansWgTed "a, l hay. hi[r
prrScn except AT your bidding
For novel to sell well in these days it IS
/ ,sseutidl that il should be badly written This
is the decidedly sweeping statement of Mr. =
K Shorter. He goes to say that lit mIy
be taken axiom that all the novels OF
our day that secure the largest sales are those
in which the language is sOVenly the grammar
faulty, and all feeling for the niceties of style
/ entirely absent. Yet within the memory of many
I of us things quite different. They were
otherwise not only with the generation that well
4 tIa u-orl Of md
with those among who recall the first ap
pcaIancc of many Of the books of Robert Louis
Stevenson and Thomas Hardy"
There is TO he biography Of Chesterfield
the Chesterfield Of the "I4ettcrs'-hIr w. H.
Craig being the author. Much water has run
under the bridges of literature since Johnson
said of this So-caIled fine gentleman, Il thought
he had been lord among witS-i found he was
only wit among lords The Letters" it ap-
pears. are neglected by modern readers-a state
I of things which may be repaired by the pro-
ducti0u OF an interesting new biography.
The thirty-ninc volumes OF R2nCroft'S work
on Western American Origins are held in Eng
land at 800