| 247 | https://historysoa.com/items/show/247 | The Author, Vol. 01 Issue 09 (January 1891) | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=49&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=%3Cem%3EThe+Author%3C%2Fem%3E%2C+Vol.+01+Issue+09+%28January+1891%29"><em>The Author</em>, Vol. 01 Issue 09 (January 1891)</a> | | | <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927&view=1up&seq=20" target="_blank" rel="noopener">https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927</a> | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Publication">Publication</a> | 1891-01-15-The-Author-1-9 | | | | | 223–250 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=89&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1">1</a> | | | | | | | | | | | <a href="/items/browse?advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=76&advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=1891-01-15">1891-01-15</a> | | | | | | | 9 | | | 18910115 | Vol. I.–No. 9]<br />
-<br />
JANUARY 15, 1891.<br />
[Price, Sixpence.<br />
<br />
The Author.<br />
THE ORGAN OF THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS<br />
(INCORPORATED).<br />
CONDUCTED BY<br />
WALTER BESANT.<br />
Qublished for the Society by<br />
ALEXANDER P. WATT, 2, PATERNOSTER SQUARE,<br />
LONDON, E.C.<br />
1891.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 222 (#270) ############################################<br />
<br />
ii. ADVERTISEMENTS.<br />
Messrs. METHTJEN'S NEW BOOKS.<br />
By S. BARING GOULD.<br />
URITH : A Story of Dartmoor. By S. Baring Goui.d,<br />
Author of " Mchalah," "Arminell," &c. 3 vols. \Xearly Ready.<br />
By HANNAH LYNCH.<br />
PRINCE OF THE GLADES. By Hannah Lynch.<br />
2 vols. [Ifmrfy Ready.<br />
By W. CLARK RUSSELL.<br />
A MARRIAGE AT SEA. By W. Clark Russell,<br />
Author of **'l'hc Wreck of the Grosvenor," &c. 2 vols.<br />
[Nearly Ready.<br />
THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COLLINGWOOD.<br />
By W. Clark Russell, Author of "The Wreck of ihe Grosvenor."<br />
With Illustrations by K. Brangwyn. 8vo. [Nearly Heady.<br />
By W. H. POLLOCK.<br />
FERDINAND'S DEVICE. By Walticr Hkrriks<br />
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By R. PRYCE.<br />
THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING. By Richard Pryce.<br />
Crown 8v0. 3*. 6d. [February.<br />
By J. B. BURNE, M.A.<br />
PARSON AND PEASANT: Chapters of their Natural<br />
History. By J. B. Bl rne, M.A., Rector of Wasing. Crown 8vo.<br />
$s. [Ready,<br />
By E. LYNN LINTON.<br />
THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVIDSON,<br />
Christian and Communist. By E. Lynn Linton. Tenth and<br />
Cheaper Edition. Post Svo. is. [Ready.<br />
Works by S. BARING GOULD,<br />
Author of 11 Mchalah" &c.<br />
OLD COUNTRY LIFE. By S. Baring Gould. With<br />
Sixty—even Illustrations by W. Parkinson, F. D. Bkoi okd, and<br />
P. Masey. I-arge Crown 8vo, cloth super extra, top edge gilt,<br />
tcu. 6d. Second Edition.<br />
l* Old Country Life, as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy<br />
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hearty, and Englt*.h to the core."— World.<br />
HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS.<br />
By S. Baking Gould. First Series. Demy 8vo, 10s. 6</.<br />
Seeond Edition.<br />
"A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole<br />
volume is delightful reading."— Times.<br />
SECOND SERIES.<br />
HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS.<br />
Second Series. By S. Baking Gould, Author of " Mehalah."<br />
Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. [Ready.<br />
"A fascinating book."—Leeds Mercury.<br />
SONGS OF THE WEST: Traditional Ballads and Songs<br />
of the West of England, with their Traditional Melodies. Collected<br />
by S. Baring Gould, M.A., and H. Fleetwood Shki'i aru, M.A.<br />
Arranged for Voice and Piano. In 4 Parts (containing 25 Songs<br />
each), 3*. each nett. Part /., Third Edition. Part //., Second<br />
Edition. Part ///., ready. Pari IV., in preparation.<br />
"A rich and varied collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic<br />
fancy."—Saturday Review.<br />
YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS.<br />
By S. Baring Gould. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s.<br />
[Noio Ready.<br />
TWO BOOKS FOR BOYS. Cr. Svo. $s.<br />
MASTER ROCKAFELLAR'S VOYAGE. By W.<br />
Clark Russki.i., Author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," &c.<br />
Illustrated by Gordon Browne.<br />
SVD BELTON ; or, The Boy who would not go to Sea.<br />
fly G. Manville Fenn, Author of "In the King's Name," &c.<br />
Illustrated by Gordon Browne.<br />
TWO BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Cr. Svo. 3s. 6d.<br />
DUMPS. By Mrs. Tarr, Author of "Adam and Eve,"<br />
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of "Scamp and I," &c. Illustrated by R. Barnes.<br />
METHUEN'S NOYEL SERIES.<br />
Three Shillings and Sixpence.<br />
Messrs. METHUEN will issue from time to time a Series<br />
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ready) are:<br />
F. MABEL ROBINSON.<br />
1. THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.<br />
S. BARING GOULD. Author of " Mehalah;'<br />
2. JACQUETTA.<br />
Mrs. LEITH ADAMS (mrs. de courcy i.aifan).<br />
3. MY LAND OF BEULAH.<br />
G. MANVILLE FENN.<br />
4. ELI'S CHILDREN.<br />
S. BARING GOULD. Auihor of "Mchalah,"<br />
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EDNA LYALL. Author of " Donovan," &*c.<br />
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With portrait of Author.<br />
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THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By<br />
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VICTORIAN POETS. By A. Sharp. [Nearly RcaJv.<br />
PROBLEMS OF POVERTY: An Inquiry into the<br />
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<br />
<br />
## p. 223 (#271) ############################################<br />
<br />
(The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly?)<br />
CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT.<br />
Vol. I.—No. 9.]<br />
JANUARY 15, 1891.<br />
[Price Sixpence.<br />
CONTENT S;<br />
PAGE<br />
PACK<br />
Conditions of Membership<br />
223<br />
Balzac and his English Critics<br />
24><br />
Warnings<br />
223<br />
Tarstow, Denver & Co., Limited<br />
»43<br />
News and Notes<br />
224<br />
Ah English Academy<br />
244<br />
International Copyright<br />
■ »9<br />
The Exchange of Books<br />
• • 245<br />
The American Copyright Act<br />
333<br />
In Grub Street<br />
=45<br />
A Proprietor-Editor<br />
"35<br />
Cases<br />
*»7<br />
"The Kinds of Criticism"<br />
■• "38<br />
New Books and New Editions :..<br />
'48<br />
On some Parallel Passages<br />
240<br />
Advertisements ...<br />
250<br />
CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP.<br />
WARNINGS;<br />
The Subscription is One Guinea anriually, payable on the<br />
1st of January of each year. The sum of Ten Guineas for<br />
life membership entitles the subscriber to full membership of<br />
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Authors of published works alone are eligible for member-<br />
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Those who desire to assist the Society but are not authors<br />
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Cheques and Postal Oiders should be crossed "The Im-<br />
perial Bank, Limited, Westminster Branch."<br />
Those who Wish to be proposed as members may serlH<br />
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of their works. Subscriptions entered after the 1st of<br />
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The Secretary may be personally consulted between the<br />
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The Author, the Organ of the Society, can be procured<br />
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A copy will l)c sent free to any member of the Society fo.r<br />
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however, that most members will subscribe to the paper.<br />
The yearly subscription is 6s. 6it., including postage, which<br />
may be sent to the Secretory, 4, Portugal Street, W.C.<br />
With regard to the reading of MSS. for young writers,<br />
the fee for this service is one guinea. MSS. will be read<br />
and reported upon for others than members, but members<br />
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In all cases where an opinion is desired upon a manuscript,<br />
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It must be understood that such a reader's report, however<br />
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VOL. I.<br />
Readers of the Author are earnestly desired to make the<br />
following warnings as widely known as possible. They are<br />
based on the experience of six years' work upon the dangers<br />
to which literary property is exposed :—<br />
(1) Never to sign any agreement of which the alleged cost<br />
of production forms an integral part, unless an<br />
opportuniiy of proving the correctness of the figures<br />
is given them.<br />
(2) Never to enter into any correspondence with publishers,<br />
especially wiih advertising publishers, who are not<br />
recommended by experienced friends, or by this<br />
Society.<br />
(3) Never; on any account whatever, to bind themselves<br />
down for future work to any one firm of publishers.<br />
(4) Never to accept any proposal of royalty without con-<br />
sultation with the Socie'y, or, at least, ascertaining<br />
exactly what the agreement gives to the author and<br />
what to ihe publisher.<br />
(5) Never to accept any offer of money for MSS., with-<br />
out previously taking advice of the Society.<br />
(6) Never to accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility<br />
without advice.<br />
(7) Never, when a MS. has been refused by respectable<br />
houses, to pay others, whatever promises they may<br />
put forward, for the production of the work.<br />
(8) Never to sign away American or foreign rights.<br />
Keep them. Refuse to sign an agreement containing<br />
a clause which reserves them for the publisher. If<br />
the publisher insists, take away the MS. and offer it<br />
to another.<br />
(9) Never forget that publishing is a business, like any-<br />
other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy,<br />
charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do<br />
with business men.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 224 (#272) ############################################<br />
<br />
224<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
NEWS AND NOTES.<br />
THE New York Nation, speaking of the Copy-<br />
right Bill, remarks on the curious ideas<br />
which have been shown to prevail as to<br />
literary property. "They are ideas which one<br />
naturally expects to meet with among those who<br />
have never known anybody who possessed literary<br />
property, or made any money out of it. The notion<br />
that there can be property in the expression of<br />
ideas, has owed its acceptance in every country to<br />
familiarity with the spectacle of authors receiving<br />
money from publishers." Exactly the same ignor-<br />
ance has long prevailed in this country. People<br />
understand property in a book: but property in<br />
what makes a book, the soul of the book, they<br />
cannot understand. Nor, too often, can he who<br />
infused that soul into paper and press understand'<br />
it. There are many, very many, still who are<br />
willing to take whatever is offered, in absolute<br />
disregard of what the honest merchant who buys<br />
it is going to make out of it. The spectacle which<br />
we desire to present to the world is not that of<br />
authors " receiving money," like a dole, and greedily<br />
stipulating and sticking out for more, but that of<br />
authors negotiating, on business principles, for the<br />
transfer, or arranging for the management of<br />
property as real as a mine or an estate.<br />
The proposed memorial to the late Rev. Henry<br />
White has met with a ready response. The sum<br />
of £goo has been collected. A stained glass<br />
window is to be placed in the Savoy Chapel and<br />
a mosaic in the Chapel of King's College, London.<br />
The rest of the money will be expended in the en-<br />
dowment of cots in the children's ward of King's<br />
College Hospital. The memory of such a man as<br />
Henry White, who wrote but little, necessarily<br />
passes away when his friends are dead. It is<br />
well that something should survive to show that<br />
there once lived this man whom all men loved.<br />
I have received a good many letters concerning<br />
the suggested Authors' Club or Authors' House,<br />
but I want more, and I keep the question open for<br />
another month. Meantime will those who have<br />
as yet expressed no opinion be good enough to let<br />
me have their views? The case is now fairly<br />
before us. We understand what such an institution<br />
may do for the cause of literature, and what may<br />
be its dangers and difficulties. If either is resolved<br />
upon there will be wanted a volunteer Committee<br />
of management or, at least, s< me who are ready<br />
to do the work of starting the preliminary<br />
organization. Will those who are willing to help<br />
in this way send in their names?<br />
The Spectator offers certain facts of interest to<br />
some of our readers. They concern the produc-<br />
tion of Christmas gift-books. Twenty years ago,<br />
the writer states, that paper noticed eighty volumes<br />
of the kind, and devoted seven columns to the task.<br />
Ten years ago a hundred and eight were reviewed<br />
in thirteen columns. This year there are more<br />
than a hundred and fifty brought out by fifty pub-<br />
lishers. In twenty years, therefore, the output of<br />
gift-books at Christmas has been doubled. The<br />
population has increased by twenty per cent, in<br />
the same time, which accounts for some of the in-<br />
crease. Education, not only of the Board School<br />
kind, but of the more liberal kind, has been enor-<br />
mously extended, so that the sons of that class<br />
which formerly attended wretched private schools<br />
now go to great schools like St. Paul's or the City<br />
of London, where they get as good an education<br />
as if they were at Harrow or Rugby. And the<br />
education of girls has widened even more astonish-<br />
ingly. This accounts for another part of the in-<br />
crease. The Spectator thinks that the middle-class<br />
Englishman never buys books except to give away,<br />
and that the increase in the number of Christmas<br />
gift-books shows the increase of the custom of giving<br />
books which are cheap and pretty, and look costly.<br />
Well, there is something in the theory. But it is not<br />
completely true. The ordinary professional man<br />
does not buy books. That is true. Why? Be-<br />
cause he doesn't want to read. When he is not at<br />
work it is after dinner, when he talks or he takes<br />
his pipe. Very often he works every evening,<br />
and has no time at all for reading. A doctor<br />
in practice, for instance, has very little time in-<br />
deed for reading. But his household have; and<br />
his boys and girls buy as many books as they can<br />
afford. In fact, this common belief that books are not<br />
bought by English people is based on nothing more<br />
than the two facts that men in active work have<br />
very little time for reading, and that their means<br />
are too slender to admit of doing much more than<br />
subscribe to the library. But, by hook or by<br />
crook, the younger ones do get books. Look at a<br />
school-boy's shelves. And see the people buying<br />
books at the stalls. I will try to get some statistics,<br />
if I can, on the people who buy books as a contri-<br />
bution to social manners.<br />
The Spectator has likewise in purblind fashion<br />
begun to teach us what Christmas books ought to<br />
be. Now Christmas books mean books printed<br />
and published about Christmas time. Five and<br />
twenty years ago they meant books or stories con-<br />
nected, in some way or other, with the Festival of<br />
Joy and Good Tidings and Gargantuan Feeding.<br />
That time has gone by. He who writes a tale tq<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 225 (#273) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
225<br />
be published for Christmas no longer troubles<br />
himself the least about Yule Tide and the feasting.<br />
In fact, I think the feasting itself is decreasing<br />
every year. For my own part I have had a hand<br />
in about fifteen Christmas stories. They have been<br />
published in October, and they have no more to do<br />
with the Feast of Christmas than with the Feast of<br />
Lanterns. The better the story, the more highly<br />
finished as a work of art, the better Christmas<br />
book it makes.<br />
Mr. George Saintsbury's book, or rather the first<br />
chapter of it, has been considered in another place.<br />
Here is a remark somewhat after the comparative<br />
method which he advocates. He has treated not of<br />
the greatest men—Scott, Coleridge, Wordsworth,<br />
Byron, find no place in his book—but of those who<br />
standnextto the greatest. Among them, forinstance,<br />
are Crabbe, Hogg, Sydney Smith, Hazlitt, Moore,<br />
Leigh Hunt, Peacock, De Quincey, Praed, Lock-<br />
hart, and Borrow. These are all very respectable<br />
names; they stand very nearly in the first line;<br />
one doubts whether we could now find, taking<br />
England and America together, a living eleven<br />
capable of standing up to this dead eleven. Yet,<br />
though we seem to know so much about them,<br />
how little do we really know of their work and their<br />
personality? Who now regardeth Crabbe? who<br />
readeth Hogg? A few lines from the former,<br />
a few verses from the latter, are all we know.<br />
Moore is read no longer. Leigh Hunt is fading<br />
into oblivion surely and swiftly; De Quincey, for<br />
a few things that he did, still lives; Praed, for the<br />
same reason, still lives; Hazlitt no longer lives in<br />
the common mind; Peacock belongs to the library<br />
of the student; Borrow has a few lovers here and<br />
there; Lockhart, save for his Life of Scott—a large<br />
saving—is no more than a name. In fact, the list<br />
teaches that a very limited immortality is the in-<br />
evitable lot of all but one or two. He, however,<br />
who has succeeded in catching the ear of the<br />
world and pleasing or helping along his own genera-<br />
tion just for his own life, ought to be contented,<br />
because he has really achieved a great thing. He<br />
who, like Praed, succeeds in getting the world to<br />
put one single poem in that Treasury of Literature,<br />
which will last so long as the present speech is<br />
maintained, has accomplished a most wonderful<br />
feat. He is truly blessed of the gods. But for<br />
most writers, even of those who seem well to the<br />
front in their generation, a strictly limited immor-<br />
tality is their portion. And this we should do<br />
well to remember.<br />
The death of M. Octave Feuillet removes one<br />
of the foremost figures in French literature. I<br />
VOL. I.<br />
suppose that everybody has read the "Vicomte de<br />
Camors" and the "Roman d'un jeune homme<br />
pauvre." Not so many have read his "Honneur<br />
d'artiste," the "Histoire de Sibylle," or "La<br />
Morte." But there is hardly any artist in fiction<br />
of whom a young writer could learn more. A<br />
careful study of his methods should be a liberal<br />
education in the art. May we venture to recom-<br />
mend it to some of our young writers?<br />
—♦<br />
Another death, that of Kinglake, removes a<br />
veteran of letters. I suppose his " History of the<br />
Crimean War" is a great work, but I have never<br />
read it. The reason is that as a lad I suffered,<br />
. with all the other young men of the time, such<br />
agonies of impotent rage at the sufferings of our<br />
soldiers in that terrible Crimean winter, when they<br />
were mocked with green coffee berries, boots made<br />
of brown paper, putrid tins of beef, and all the rest<br />
of it, that I have never ventured to open the book<br />
or to read over again the dismal and maddening<br />
story. Kinglake to me was always Eothen King-<br />
lake.<br />
Mr. Louis Stevenson (see Author, November,<br />
1890, p. 166) furnished good and sufficient reasons<br />
why one must not too hastily bring charges of<br />
plagiarism against a novelist. Mr. Hall Caine, in<br />
a story given in the PallMall Gazette oi December<br />
22nd, 1890, gives another warning against hasty<br />
charges of this kind. He tells how, when a boy,<br />
he saw, sitting in a chamber of an Infirmary, a<br />
young woman with bandaged eyes waiting for some<br />
one. She had recently been operated upon for<br />
cataract; she was ordered to keep on her bandages<br />
for a fortnight under penalty of permanent blind-<br />
ness; she was waiting for her child, born before<br />
the operation, whom she had, therefore, not yet<br />
seen. Twenty years later, he wrote a novel with<br />
exactly that situation. But he made the mother<br />
brave the consequences. In order to see her child<br />
she tears off the bandage. Now exactly the same<br />
situation was used by the French novelist, Leon<br />
Lespes, in a novel written sometime in the thirties<br />
or the forties. At the first discovery every one<br />
holds up his hands. Plain plagiarism! Shame!<br />
Yet with what a plain tale is the resemblance<br />
proved to be no plagiarism at all!<br />
This was pure accident. Such a thing might<br />
happen to anyone who observes a fact and makes<br />
it into a dramatic situation. Another danger is<br />
that of using the same materials and authorities as<br />
another novelist. Suppose, for instance, that two<br />
s a<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 226 (#274) ############################################<br />
<br />
226<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
men were at the same time engaged upon separate<br />
works, turning on the manners and customs of the<br />
early sixteenth century. They would both go to<br />
Erasmus—they must. Once there were two<br />
novelists engaged jointly upon a romance of the<br />
middle of the last century. They agreed upon<br />
sending their heroine to Tunbridge Wells. It was<br />
not until they had paid a longish visit to the place,<br />
and after all the contemporary literature and gossip<br />
about Tunbridge had been studied, that they<br />
remembered that Thackeray had already made<br />
Tunbridge Wells his own. They therefore re-<br />
treated and found another place, and began' again.<br />
But suppose it had not beeri Thackeray, but<br />
another and sbme obscure and unsuccessfiil writer<br />
who had thus treated of the place—there would<br />
have beeri a fine opportunity for a cry of plagiar-<br />
ism. BecaiiSe, you see, there is only one "crib,"<br />
or set of cribs, for Tunbridge Wells in 1750, and<br />
whether it is Thdckeray or Ignotus who wants to<br />
use that place at that tinie, he must Use that set<br />
Of cribs and ndrie other.<br />
"AUTHORS.—Introductionstopublishersand<br />
editors, by journalist of standing; commis-<br />
sion only on MS. sold; exceptional chance;<br />
_H. D. F., Office."<br />
The above advertisement has appeared in an<br />
evening paper. A member of the Society answered<br />
it, stating that he was a writer of some success, but<br />
would be pleased to extend his connection among<br />
editors of magazines. He received no reply. It<br />
is difficult to understand what the advertiser means.<br />
As everyone knows perfectly well, an introduction<br />
to editors and publishers is never wanted and is of<br />
no use. They are almost the only people in the<br />
world who want no introduction: Any respectable<br />
solicitor requires one with a new client. The best<br />
editor in the world wants none. A perfect stranger<br />
may go to him and will be received with cordiality<br />
if he has anything good to offer. Hdw, then, can a<br />
writer be benefited by the "journalist of standing"?<br />
Considering this question and waiting for an answer<br />
from the advertiser, we advise readers to send their<br />
MSS. themselves to editors until they get a satis-<br />
factory reply<br />
Another advertisement inviting authors to send<br />
MSS. to the advertiser which appeared in a leading<br />
paper early in October, attracted many. The<br />
advertiser called once only, a few days after the<br />
insertion of his invitation. He took away a bundle<br />
of MSS. and returned no more. Meantime one of<br />
those who answered the advertisement, after writing<br />
again and again to the advertiser, and failing to get<br />
any reply, appealed to the Society. Other com-<br />
plaints reaching the Secretary of MSS. having been<br />
sent and kept without any reply, the case was laid<br />
before the manager of the paper, who delivered up<br />
to the office all the MSS. lying in his office. These<br />
have been returned to the authors. The others<br />
which had been carried away, have since been<br />
returned, and an explanation has been offered.<br />
From a correspondent:—"Talking of misprints<br />
the following occurred to me in my journalistic<br />
experience. I had written the familiar proverb,<br />
'Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take<br />
care of themselves.' The sporting compositor<br />
turned it out—' Take care of the fence, and the<br />
hounds will take care of themselves.' It is not only<br />
smart, but true."<br />
The Times arindunces that the Handbook to the<br />
Public Records, upon which Mr. Scargill Bird, the<br />
Superintendent to the Search Department at the<br />
Public Record Office; has been engaged for some<br />
years in compiling, is now finally revised and ready<br />
for press, and may be expected shortly. The work<br />
is an elaborate catalogue raisonnec of the Public<br />
Records:<br />
The "National Cyclopaedia of American Bio-<br />
graphy " is published by James T. White and Co.<br />
It contains the autobiographies of "prominent"<br />
citizens of the big Republic, such as mayors and<br />
other great men, authors included. Each notice<br />
contains a portrait and an autograph; and, in some<br />
cases, a picture of the great man's residence: The<br />
portraits are little things, costing two or three dollars<br />
a-piece. The following is an extract from a letter<br />
addressed by the enterprising publishers to an<br />
American author, who has forwarded it to us. It<br />
will, perhaps, furnish a hint to other enterprising<br />
gentlemen on this side the ocean. Every sug-<br />
gestion by which authors may be tricked is gladly<br />
welcomed by British, as well as by American,<br />
enterprise.<br />
"We are asked to embellish these biographies<br />
with vignette portraits, like those shown ; and they<br />
are in such request, we are obliged to restrict them<br />
to only the more prominent persons.<br />
"We feel that your position and work in the<br />
world entitles you to this portrait. There are 6,000<br />
representative persons living who should have<br />
portraits, which would require an outlay that no<br />
publisher would be justified in assuming. This<br />
expense, however, distributed pro rata is so small<br />
and we feel that its addition to the biography is so<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 227 (#275) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
227<br />
great, that no one can afford to have it omitted.<br />
They cost $70 each. A photo process plate, such<br />
as can only be printed on special coated paper,<br />
cannot be used. This is an etching drawn by a<br />
portrait artist of the highest ability, and engraved,<br />
so as to retain its vigour and delicacy through large<br />
editions. This is what gives the life to the portrait,<br />
&c."<br />
Such an appeal to vanity, patriotism, justice, and<br />
cheapness all combined must be irresistible. There<br />
are actually 6,000 "representative" Americans—<br />
happy country to possess 6,000great men!—one in<br />
every 10,000 souls, one in every 6,oco adults, one<br />
in every 3.000 men, one in every 1,000 educated<br />
men! If all these, except a remnant, pay up the<br />
S70 for what costs $2, there is a little trifle of<br />
$400,000 profit for the enterprising publisher.<br />
Well, we give it away. Millions in it. But the<br />
Author only lives to benefit his fellow creatures.<br />
A paper calling itself an agreement has just been<br />
placed in my hands by one of the parties concerned.<br />
It is a lady. She did not sign the document until<br />
she had asked the advice of her bankers, who jhem:<br />
selves, she states, also took advice. This is much<br />
as if she had asked the opinion of the grocer, who<br />
had diffidently taken counsel with his friend the<br />
butcher. The result is pleasing, and reflects the<br />
highest credit on fhe general intelligence of the<br />
bankers and their advisers.<br />
(1.) The author paid ^58 towards the production<br />
of a work which'would cost about £$0.<br />
(2.) She agreed to pay whatever the honest pub-<br />
lisher should please to charge for correc-<br />
tions.<br />
(3.) She agreed to give him a free hand to adver-<br />
tise anywhere—in his own lists at a pound<br />
a word if he chooses—up to £20.<br />
(4.) She agreed to give the man "half the<br />
profits."<br />
Half the profits! This is a beautiful example<br />
of trading on the ignorance of the author. Half<br />
the profits! For here is the account as it is pretty<br />
certain to be rendered. It must be remembered<br />
that, as stated above, the actual cost of prpducing<br />
the work will be about £$0. The extreme case<br />
of selling off the whole edition is taken.<br />
£ s. a.<br />
Cost of production, stated at 58 o o<br />
Corrections (say) ... <.. 717 6<br />
Advertising ... ... ... 20 o o<br />
500 copies—■<br />
400 sold, producing<br />
60 press<br />
20 author<br />
20 in stock<br />
500<br />
Loss<br />
£ s. d.<br />
70 o o<br />
J5 «?<br />
£85 17 6<br />
So that on the most favourable chance there can<br />
be no profits, and must be a loss.<br />
But the loss will very likely be a great deal<br />
more. Probably, an account more like the follow-<br />
ing will be submitted :—<br />
Cost of production<br />
Corrections (or any other fancy amount)<br />
Advertising (or any other fancy amount)<br />
£<br />
75<br />
11<br />
30<br />
s. d.<br />
o o<br />
IS 8<br />
6 o<br />
500 copies—<br />
20 sold, producing<br />
60 press<br />
420 in stock<br />
500<br />
Loss...<br />
£"6 15 8<br />
£ s- d.<br />
3 10 o<br />
... 113 5 8<br />
£"6 '5 8<br />
This, however, is how the transaction will figure<br />
up in the publisher's private book :—<br />
£ s. d.<br />
Actual cost of production ... ... 4c o o<br />
Corrections (say) ... ... ... 1104<br />
Advertising (say) ... ... ... 5 o o<br />
Profit to publisher ... ... ... 74 o o<br />
By payment of author<br />
Ditto for corrections ...<br />
Ditto for advertising ...<br />
By sale of (say 200 copies)<br />
,£120 10 o<br />
£ s. d.<br />
... 58 o o<br />
7 10 o<br />
20 o o<br />
•• 35 0 0<br />
£l20 IO O<br />
£»5 17 6<br />
This is what one gets by taking advice of people<br />
who know nothing whatever about the subject.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 228 (#276) ############################################<br />
<br />
228<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
We are constantly being asked what royalties<br />
mean when they are offered in agreements. Now,<br />
in the June number of the Author we gave a<br />
distinct statement of what is really meant by the<br />
various kinds of royalties offered; a six shilling<br />
novel of average length being taken as the basis of<br />
calculation. Let us repeat what was there proved.<br />
It was shown that a ten per cent, royalty gives the<br />
following proportions :—■<br />
For the first edition of 1,000 copies—■<br />
Publisher: Author : : 3:2;<br />
For the second edition of 3,000 copies—<br />
Publisher : Author : : 3:1;<br />
and so on, for which we refer the reader to that num-<br />
ber. A practical though rough and imperfect way<br />
of testing a royalty is this. For a first edition of a<br />
thousand the cost of production may be taken at<br />
one-sixth the published price, viz. :—at is. for a<br />
6s. book. The retail price may be taken at T7j, or,<br />
to be very liberal to the publisher, at ^.<br />
For a second edition of large numbers, the cost<br />
of production is about ith the published price: the<br />
retail price remains at -^j.<br />
These figures can be very easily applied by the<br />
reader when his next agreement is offered for<br />
signature.<br />
After two hundred and fifty years the countrymen<br />
of Drummond of Hawthornden are about to erect a<br />
tomb over the neglected grave of their poet. It<br />
will be the tomb which he himself asked his friend<br />
the Earl of Stirling, to place over him.<br />
Alexis, when thou shalt hear wandering Fame,<br />
Tell, Death hath triumphed o'er my mortal spoils,<br />
And that on earth I am but a sad name,<br />
If thou e'er held me dear, by all our love,<br />
By all that bliss, those joys, Heaven here us gave,<br />
I conjure thee, and by the Maids of Jove,<br />
To grave this short remembrance on my grave:<br />
"Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometimes<br />
grace<br />
The murmuring Esk. May Hoses shade the<br />
place I"<br />
I wonder how many living folk have read<br />
Drummond. A few of his verses are well known<br />
because they are preserved in that collection which<br />
is in most English houses, the "Golden Treasury."<br />
Readers who feel moved—may many be moved !—<br />
to contribute to this monument, may note that Mr.<br />
A. P. Purvis, Esk Town, Lasswade, is the Hon. Sec,<br />
to whom their tribute may be paid. The Com-<br />
mittee is entirely composed of Scottish gentlemen.<br />
Among them I see the name of Mr. Andrew Lang<br />
—but they will allow the Southron to assist.<br />
We have read with amazement certain remarks<br />
made in the English Court of Justice by a certain<br />
person learned in the law concerning a great<br />
French writer. The person learned in the law,<br />
going outside his case, which had nothing to do<br />
with the works of this great French writer, but<br />
only with certain pictures professing to illustrate<br />
these works, called the said great French writer a<br />
"filthy-minded old monk, who is only considered<br />
a classic because he has been dead three hundred<br />
years." It is not likely that among the readers of<br />
this paper there can be any who want a defence<br />
of Rabelais. If to speak words of wisdom for the<br />
instruction of humanity for all time is the work<br />
one expects of a filthy-minded monk, then is<br />
the said person learned in the law a critic who<br />
may be followed. If it is a decent thing for an<br />
advocate to go beyond his case in order to throw<br />
mud at an author whom he.does not understand,<br />
then is the above-named person learned in the<br />
law a* model for all advocates. To those who do<br />
understand this great master, it seems a de-<br />
plorable thing that such words should be uttered<br />
of such a man by a member of that profession<br />
which is generally believed to be not only learned<br />
in the law, but cultivated above and beyond all<br />
other professions. As regards the pictures, they<br />
seem to have been seized with all the zeal which<br />
might be expected. Eleven of those seized were<br />
ordered by the magistrate to be returned immedi-<br />
ately. No one, meantime, has so much as raised<br />
the question, how far they really illustrate the work.<br />
I have myself been twice to the Gallery, and I dare<br />
say I shall go again. Some of the drawings are<br />
extremely clever, and some, but not many, seem<br />
really to have caught the spirit of the writer.<br />
Some clothe his robust pages with pruriency.<br />
4<br />
This is the busiest time of the year as regards<br />
publications. It is therefore a favourable time for<br />
pursuing our researches into the extent of the<br />
alleged "risks" run by those whose business it is<br />
to produce new books. My allegation is that<br />
publishers very seldom run any risk at all—in the<br />
matter of belles lettres, of course. I know very little<br />
about the risks, if any, incurred in technical,<br />
scientific, legal, or medical works. These, how-<br />
ever, are not advertised in the Times.<br />
The sheet of the Times before me contains four<br />
columns of advertisements, two of which are<br />
restricted to books published during the last three<br />
months. Let us take these two.<br />
The following is the analysis :—<br />
(1.) Nine books. Of these five are novels by<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 229 (#277) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
229<br />
tried and proved writers; three are on<br />
special subjects which appeal to large classss<br />
and are by writers whose names command<br />
respect; one is a book of travels in a country<br />
of which people are never tired of hearing.<br />
Result: no risk.<br />
(2.) Five books: one a second edition. One a<br />
new volume of a successful series. Three<br />
on subjects and by writers about whom<br />
there can be no doubt. Result: no risk.<br />
(3.) Six books. All novels. All by proved<br />
writers. No risk.<br />
(4.) Eight books. Two books of travel certain<br />
to be greatly in demand. Two novels by<br />
well-known writers. A book of poems with<br />
a well-known name. A book of essays by<br />
a name of world-wide celebrity. A large<br />
and expensive historical book. Result:<br />
one book—the last—which may carry risk<br />
with it.<br />
(5.) Seven books. One of biography, certain to<br />
command an audience. One an addition<br />
to a greatly successful series. One of<br />
popular science. One a novel by a proved<br />
writer. Two books of verse, evidently paid<br />
for by the authors. One a translation which<br />
seems also paid for. If not, risky, but of<br />
little importance.<br />
(6.) Seven books. All religious. All by well-<br />
known men. No risk.<br />
(7.) One book. By a writer of surprising success.<br />
No risk.<br />
(8.) Eight books. Six books on Art. Two by<br />
very well-known writers. No risk.<br />
(9.) Five books. One, a novel by a new hand;<br />
might seem risky. But it is a reprint, and<br />
has already been proved in serial form. No<br />
risk.<br />
(10.) Fifteen books. A varied list. The sub-<br />
ject and writers prove that the books are<br />
certain to command success. No risk.<br />
(11.) Seven books. Four of tbem are technical,<br />
The remaining three are by authors whose<br />
names stand very high indeed. No risk.<br />
(12.) Five books. Four by very well-known and<br />
successful writers. The fifth a well-<br />
advised venture. Risk, unless the author<br />
takes it, in one case.<br />
Thus, out of eighty-three new books and among<br />
thirteen publishers we can discover two books<br />
only in which there is any risk. These are those who<br />
are considered first class publishers. The books<br />
are published on a half-profit system and a royalty<br />
system. A few, but very few, are bought. But it<br />
must be understood that the practice of buying<br />
books is rapidly going out.<br />
Let us understand, however, what is meant<br />
exactly by saying that there is no risk. This: that<br />
the publisher, being a sensible man of business,<br />
very seldom pays for producing a book unless he<br />
sees his way very clearly to at least such a sale as<br />
will give him back his money with some return for<br />
his own profit.<br />
The obituary of the year includes among those<br />
who attained literary distinction the names of<br />
Cardinal Newman, of whom 1 am inclined to<br />
believe that his hymns will give him an abiding<br />
place in the English memory long after his Apologia<br />
and other works have been forgotten. His great<br />
age, his scholarly reputation, his individual<br />
character and his position in the Church to which<br />
he seceded, all helped to exaggerate at his death<br />
his literary rank Dr. Dollinger, Professor Delitsch,<br />
the Archbishop of York, the Dean of St. Paul's,<br />
Dr. Littledale, Canon Liddon, Canon Molesworth,<br />
the Rev. Henry White, and Dr. Adler, are among<br />
the divines deceased; Sir Richard Burton, Pro-<br />
fessor Thorold Rogers, Professor Sellar, Dr. Schlie-<br />
mann, among the scholars and archaeologists;<br />
Lord Carnarvon, Lord Rosslyn, Sir Louis Malet,<br />
Dion Eoucicault, Alphonse Karr, Octave Feuillet,<br />
Chatrian, Adolphe Belot, Charles Gibbon,<br />
Gustave Revilliot of Geneva, George Hooper,<br />
represent the losses in general literature. There<br />
are also many names of scientific and medical<br />
writers. No great English writer has passed away<br />
during the last twelve months.<br />
The paper of the month is "The Light that<br />
Failed," in Lippincott.<br />
Walter Besant.<br />
*<br />
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.<br />
I.<br />
[The following account of the passage of the<br />
Copyright Bill by the House was written by the<br />
Secretary of the American Copyright League for<br />
the New York Critic.]<br />
The passage of the International Copyright Bill<br />
by the House of Representatives on the 3rd inst.<br />
was by no means wholly unexpected to the Com-<br />
mittee representing the Leagues, most of whom<br />
know what laborious work has been done in the<br />
"campaign of education " that has been carried on<br />
since the defeat of May 2nd. This campaign,<br />
which resulted in a change of 72 votes, began on<br />
the morning after that disaster, when the printed<br />
arguments of the friends of the bill were placed in<br />
the boxes of members on the theory that then if<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 230 (#278) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
ever they would be sure to receive attention.<br />
From that day to this, in the face of the hopeless-<br />
ness of some of the most prominent friends of the<br />
cause, there has been no intermission in the effort<br />
to reach the House with argument, and with<br />
evidences that the best sentiment of the country<br />
demands the bill. Time would fail to tell here the<br />
details of the summer campaign, and of the un-<br />
expected dangers which had to be guarded against.<br />
These must be reserved for the official report of<br />
the year's work. It is probably unnecessary after<br />
the vote of December 3rd to apologize to those<br />
who in August thought that the summons of the<br />
Secretary to another struggle was only another cry<br />
of wolf.<br />
The vote qf last week was to me unexpected<br />
only to the extent of a week's margin. It was<br />
easy to see upon my arrival ip Washington on<br />
Sunday night that the work of the Committee<br />
during the recess and especially since the election<br />
was bearing fruits. Interviews on Sunday night,<br />
on Monday and on Tuesday morning showed a<br />
determination on the part of leading friends of the<br />
bill to put it through promptly. To avoid con-<br />
sideration of a bill virtually at the head of Com-<br />
mittee business, would have indicated a hostility on<br />
the part of the leaders of the majority which did<br />
not exist. On the contrary, it was evident that<br />
while the measure was in no sense a partisan one,<br />
the LI. Congress could not afford to leave as part<br />
of its record the official license of literary piracy.<br />
This consideration assured the bill its chance, but<br />
not its success, which came from an accession of<br />
individual votes on each side of the Chamber. On<br />
Tuesday at 11.30, when it was known that the<br />
"morning hour" was to be restored that day,<br />
pimphlets and petitions of {he League were placed<br />
in the boxes of tho^e members whose attitude was<br />
not known to be fr.endly, all of whom had received<br />
at their homes since the election the arguments<br />
issued by the American Copyright League, and<br />
those of Mr Putnam, the indefatigable Secretary<br />
of the Publishers' League, together with letters<br />
supplementing personal appeals. The vote on the<br />
question of consideration, 132 to 74, though npt a<br />
test vote, was most encouraging, but, in view of the<br />
information of the Committee, not surprising. The<br />
unworthy tactics of the enemy in filibustering<br />
against the Eighth Commandment were maintained<br />
with more acerbity than skill or intelligence, and<br />
in some cases without sincere conviction. (It is<br />
reported that even Mr. Springer, who added to the<br />
di-grace of Illinois by leading the opposition, has<br />
acknowledged since the vote that the bill was a<br />
good one.) These tactics were, however, a gross<br />
parliamentary mistake, since they gave Mr. Simonds<br />
the best of reasons for moving the previous ques-<br />
tion, which was ordered late in the day in a thin<br />
house by 106 to 73. This was a test vote and was<br />
accepted as conclusive proof that the final vote<br />
would occur on the next day, and that it would be<br />
largely favourable. It was the opinion of our<br />
Congressional friends that the fight was won.<br />
On Wednesday morning Dr. Eggleston, Mr. W.<br />
W. Appleton and Mr. Scribner arrived, and the<br />
work of soliciting votes was renewed. Dr. Eggle-<br />
ston, whose laborious work in the cause at Washing-<br />
ton two years ago and last year will be remembered,<br />
and the state of whose health had deprived the<br />
Committee of his services during the summer<br />
campaign, though still suffering from illness, could<br />
not keep out of the fight. Wednesday's work on<br />
the floor was like nothing so much as a fine con-<br />
test at football. The copyright wedge was again<br />
formed with Captain Simonds in the angle with the<br />
ball (i.e., the bill), and with a strong rush line, an 1<br />
with Butterworth as right tackle, and Breckinridge<br />
as left tackle, the steady and persistent advance<br />
was continued until the goal was reached<br />
The great moral victory thus accomplished is<br />
belittled by attempting to assign personal credits<br />
for it. It is, first of all, a victory for honest public<br />
sentiment, and in this part of the contest the press<br />
of the country, with one notorious exception, has<br />
done an enormous service, in which the Washing-<br />
ton correspondents almost without an exception<br />
have joined. The laborious service in past years<br />
of a few energetic and devoted men must not be<br />
forgotten, foremost of whom, for the length and<br />
efficiency of his pioneer work, was George Parsons<br />
Lathrop. Secondly, it is a victory for a clean<br />
campaign of argument, and should inspirit advo-<br />
cates of other just causes to depend upon frank<br />
approach to Representatives on that plane rather<br />
than upon any other. Thirdly, with all the effort<br />
that has been put forth in various quarters by<br />
authors, by publishers, by the Typothetae, and'<br />
others, it would be idle to deny that the chief<br />
factor in the fight has been the organizations of the<br />
typographers, who, beginning by working for their<br />
own interest, have become warm advocates of<br />
copyright as a principle.<br />
But, as I write, the bill is not yet through the<br />
Senate, though it is difficult to entertain the idea<br />
of its defeat there for any reason. The remem-<br />
brance of Jonathan Chace's wise and gentle<br />
championship of it in that body is itself a tower of<br />
strength. The calamity it would be to civilization<br />
were the newspapers of March 4th, 1891, to<br />
announce that the reform had gone by default,<br />
ought to stir every reader of these lines to write at<br />
once to his two Senators to urge upon them right<br />
of way for the copyright bill.<br />
Robert Undekwoud Johnson.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 231 (#279) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
231<br />
n.<br />
The following is from an American correspon-<br />
dent, one of the inner ring in the cause of Copy-<br />
right :—<br />
"The fight has been short and sharp, and deci-<br />
sive; and on the lines laid out by the Copyright<br />
Committee. ... It was important to impress<br />
on the leaders of the Republican side, who were<br />
friendly to us, the fact that this was their last chance<br />
of having the Copyright Bill put to their credit.<br />
The late elections made them particularly impres-<br />
sionable on the side of public opinion, and since<br />
the vote of May 2nd we have poured in upon them<br />
evidences of the popular strength of the cause. I<br />
am not saying that their course was dictated wholly<br />
by policy. I believe the organization of our sup-<br />
port has been so thorough that had the elections<br />
been otherwise the Bill would have passed at this<br />
Session. But the Republicans' calamity was our<br />
opportunity. Lodge and McKinley have been<br />
especially helpful in getting a day. ... It<br />
was a pretty fight—much like a football fight under<br />
the Rugby Rules. Our men formed a wedge with<br />
Simonds with the ball (i.e., the Bill) inside the<br />
angle, and they moved steadily forward with each<br />
defeat of the evening's five dilatory votes, reaching<br />
the ordering of the question after three hours and<br />
a-half of filibustering, which gave Simonds the pre-<br />
text he wanted for that motion. The first day<br />
ended with the success of that vote, making it sure<br />
that the Bill would pass the next day. The intermis-<br />
sion was like the quarter-hour before the second half<br />
at football. After twenty minutes' debate on either<br />
side, our wedge again began its advance, un-<br />
checked by five dilatory motions, with the result,<br />
as you know, of the passage of the Bill by 139 to<br />
95."<br />
Ill<br />
The American Copyright Act is already producing<br />
a shower of letters and articles, which one watches,<br />
day by day, hoping for instruction and dreading<br />
mischief. Nothing more mischievous and dan-<br />
gerous could have been devised than this rushing<br />
into print of terrified printers, self-advertising pub-<br />
lishers and others, crying out before they are<br />
hurt. The only word of wisdom was from Professor<br />
Max Miiller. Said the Professor, "Sit down and<br />
hold your tongues." All the writers seemed agreed<br />
that a deadly blow is about be dealt at English<br />
printers. For my own part, I do not believe in<br />
the deadliness of the blow, nor, in fact, in any<br />
blow at all. At the same time, I think that there<br />
is some doubt as to the ultimate effect of the Bill,<br />
whether we are justified in clamouring for a clause<br />
granting copyright to books in the English lan-<br />
guage, only on the condition that a copy printed in<br />
this country is deposited—not in Stationers' Hall<br />
—but in a Government office created for this pur-<br />
pose, is a doubtful question. There are one or two<br />
points on the general question which I submit for<br />
consideration.<br />
1. We read everywhere that the pirates are<br />
smitten with confusion and dispersed. Are they?<br />
First of all, they have a stock of hundreds of<br />
volumes containing all the literature of Great<br />
Britain from the beginning. It will take a very-<br />
long time to get through this stock,, and, in fact,<br />
no living man will see the end of it, because the<br />
copyright is always expiring of modern literature,<br />
which then becomes everybody's property.<br />
2. Secondly, suppose, as will certainly happen,<br />
that the people hitherto called pirates want to pub-<br />
lish new works by British authors. They will not<br />
be able to get the best new books because they<br />
cannot afford to pay for them. But they will get<br />
the second and third-rate books because they will<br />
offer a five-pound note for the copyright. Now the<br />
author, if he can get nothing better, will generally<br />
take a five-pound note. If the history of many<br />
cheap editions was known, we should find that<br />
many very well known books had been bought up<br />
for cheap rights at absurd sums. I once saw a<br />
little document—some years ago—showing such a<br />
negotiation, between two publishers, over a quantity<br />
0/ copyrights. Among them the copyright of<br />
a certain work by a very popular novelist, now<br />
deceased, was actually disposed of for five pounds.<br />
Therefore, the cheap libraries will have little diffi-<br />
culty in keeping up, and the Americans will go on<br />
having their cheap literature.<br />
3. Will our own books be printed in the first<br />
place in America? I think not. When a book is<br />
going to be successful why trouble about the cost<br />
of composition? It is a trifle; so many sheets<br />
at three-and-twenty shillings—say—it is nothing<br />
compared with the manifest advantages of double<br />
printing.<br />
4. Then there is the spelling. Lives there a<br />
caitiff Briton so vile as to allow, if he can prevent<br />
it, his work to appear in his own country, in the<br />
vulgar and debased spelling which they have adopted<br />
in the States? Let us remember that this is a<br />
spelling which destroys the history of our language<br />
as told by the growth of our words; that it ruins<br />
the familiar appearance of our classics; and that<br />
it was only adopted in a spirit of spitefulness against<br />
Great Britain. In small things as well as in great,<br />
the magnanimous great Republic lias always, it<br />
seems to me, been spiteful against the Mother<br />
Country. Are we prepared to adopt traveler,<br />
theater, favor, and the 01 her abominations? Never.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 232 (#280) ############################################<br />
<br />
232<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
5. "But," it is argued, "we must not treat America<br />
as we treat France. This is not a question of free<br />
trade or protection. We must consider the<br />
absolute mischief which may be done to us by the<br />
free importation to our shores of printed sheets with<br />
their bad spelling and ugly type, and the loss ihey<br />
will cause to the printers. They are afraid of us.<br />
If they wish to preserve their trade and their<br />
spelling they are right, because we print and we<br />
spell better and more cheaply than they do.<br />
They cannot complain if we guard ourselves. It<br />
is not retaliation—it is simple self-defence if we<br />
grant copyright only to books in the English<br />
language, composed in this country, and registered<br />
at a Government office provided for the purpose."<br />
This is what is said: The danger is said to be two-<br />
fold (1) that American editions will be printed by<br />
American printers. Well, if so we are no worse off<br />
than before. (2) That American printed books<br />
will flood our market. They cannot, I believe, for<br />
the reasons above stated. Still, no one knows<br />
exactly what is going to happen, and we had better<br />
wait and look on awhile, and not suffer ourselves<br />
to be excited about possibilities.<br />
6. The letters all pretend to treat the question<br />
as an authors' question. This is very humorous.<br />
How long will it be before authors will be per-<br />
suaded into signing away their American rights as<br />
well as all their other rights? And even in cases<br />
when a royalty is the basis of agreement. How<br />
much more is it a publishers' than an authors'<br />
question? Yet Mr. Arnold Forster, who is<br />
Secretary, I believe, of Cassell's Company, talks<br />
without'a smile of authors foregoing some of their<br />
profits as if—poor wretches !—they had much to<br />
forego. The recent Farrar-Cassell case let a little<br />
daylight into many things. Let us, however, endea-<br />
vour to make this an authors' question by keeping<br />
American rights in our own hands. Let us do all we<br />
can in this direction; but in many cases—perhaps<br />
in most—it will become a publishers' question.<br />
W. B.<br />
IV.<br />
The following from a correspondent. "What<br />
effect will the American Bill produce? In other<br />
words what kinds of literature will be affected by<br />
the Bill, and to what extent? First let us con-<br />
sider what English books are produced in America<br />
at the present moment. According to the Nation<br />
of December nth, 1890, the number of books<br />
produced during the preceding week was seventy-<br />
two. Of these, twenty-eight seem—because one is<br />
not sure about two or three—to be written or<br />
compiled by Americans. The rest, forty-four in<br />
number, are of "foreign," i.e., chiefly English<br />
origin. Of these, twenty-one are works of fiction,<br />
but three are French or German, and four are<br />
reprints. Remain, out of seventy-two books, four-<br />
teen—or about one in five—novels written by<br />
living English writers. Twenty-three remain to be<br />
accounted for. Books of religion, travel, Greek<br />
and Roman literature, and general literature, fill<br />
up the list. Now, ten of the novels are published<br />
at 25 or 50 cents. This price will certainly<br />
become impossible unless the reign of the penny<br />
novelette is to begin in America. Therefore, out<br />
of the ten, only those authors who enjoy any<br />
popularity in America will profit by the Bill.<br />
In other words, it will only be worth while to<br />
produce those works for which there is certain to<br />
be some demand. It has to be proved what English<br />
authors are in demand. Next, for the first time the<br />
American author will be enabled to compete for<br />
popularity with the Englishman. If one may judge<br />
from certain indications, he will prove a very<br />
formidable competitor indeed, both in America<br />
and in the country. Therefore, while the success-<br />
ful novelist will—unless he allows his publishers<br />
to seize the whole increase—very largely im-<br />
prove his position, it will become doubly—trebly,<br />
nay, ten times as difficult to gain the ear of the<br />
two worlds. And some of those who believe that<br />
because they have been reprinted in a cheap<br />
series, they are therefore popular, will be dis-<br />
appointed.<br />
"Will better work in fiction be produced—work<br />
of better and truer art? I am convinced that this<br />
will be one effect of International Copyright. That<br />
is to say, those who now rely solely on the strength<br />
of situations and the interest of a plot will go on<br />
disregarding style and finish. As for construction<br />
and dramatic effect they have it already, or they<br />
could not succeed at all. But those who aim<br />
higher will meet with encouragement from both<br />
sides of the Atlantic, wherever there are people<br />
of culture able to value style and finish. The<br />
success of those writers—headed by George Mere-<br />
dith—who, an artist in the highest sense, shows<br />
that there are wide circles open to them wherever<br />
the common language is spoken."<br />
V.<br />
The probable passing of the Bill necessitates an-<br />
other warning which has been added to the list. No<br />
one must now sign any agreement which does not<br />
specially reserve American rights. No one as yet<br />
knows what these may be worth, but it is at least<br />
safe to suppose that a successful book on this side<br />
of the Atlantic will be also successful on the other<br />
side. Let us, at any rate, assume that it will be<br />
successful, and safeguard our chances accordingly.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 233 (#281) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
233<br />
THE AMERICAN COPYRIGHT ACT.<br />
51s/ Congress, 2nd Session.<br />
H. R. 10881.<br />
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED<br />
STATES.<br />
December 3, 1890.<br />
Head twice and ordered to lie on the table.<br />
AN ACT<br />
to amend title sixty, chapter three, of<br />
the Revised Statutes of the United<br />
States, relating to Copyrights.<br />
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of<br />
Representatives of the United Stales of America in<br />
Congress assembled, That section forty-nine<br />
hundred and fifty-two of the Revised Statutes be,<br />
and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as<br />
follows:—<br />
"Sec 4952. The author, inventor, designer,<br />
or proprietor of any book, map, chart, dramatic<br />
or musical composition, engraving, cut, print,<br />
or photograph or negative thereof, or of a<br />
painting, drawing, chromo, statue, statuary, and<br />
of models or designs intended to be per-<br />
fected as works of the fine arts, and the<br />
executors, administrators, or assigns of any<br />
such person shall, upon complying with the<br />
provisions of this chapter, have the sole<br />
liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, com-<br />
pleting, copying, executing, finishing, and<br />
vending the same; and, in the case of dramatic<br />
composition, of publicly performing or repre-<br />
senting it or causing it to be performed or<br />
represented by others; and authors or their<br />
assigns shall have exclusive right to dramatise<br />
and translate any of their works for which<br />
copyright shall have been obtained under the<br />
laws of the United States."<br />
Sec 2. That section forty-nine hundred and<br />
fifty-four of the Revised Statutes be, and the same<br />
is hereby, amended so as to read as follows:<br />
"Sec. 4954. The author, inventor, or<br />
designer, if he be still living, or his widow or<br />
children, if he be dead, shall have the same<br />
exclusive right continued for the further term<br />
of fourteen years, upon recording the title of<br />
the work or description of the article so<br />
secured a second time, and complying with<br />
all other regulations in regard to original<br />
copyrights, within six months before the ex-<br />
piration of the first term ; and such persons<br />
shall, within two months from the date of<br />
said renewal, cause a copy of the record thereof<br />
to be published in one or more newspapers<br />
printed in the United States for the space of<br />
four weeks."<br />
Sec. 3. That section forty-nine hundred and<br />
fifty-six of the Revised Statutes of the United<br />
States be, and the same is hereby, amended so<br />
that it shall read as follows:<br />
"Sec. 4956. No person shall be entitled<br />
to a copyright unless he shall, on or before<br />
the day of publication in this or any foreign<br />
country, deliver at the office of the Librarian<br />
of Congress, or deposit in the mail within<br />
the United States, addressed to the Librarian<br />
of Congress, at Washington, District of<br />
Columbia, a printed copy of the title of the<br />
book, map, chart, dramatic or musical com-<br />
position, engraving, cut, print, photograph, or<br />
chromo, or a description of the painting,<br />
drawing, statue, statuary, or a model or<br />
design for a work of the fine arts for which he<br />
desires a copyright, nor unless he shall also,<br />
not later than the day of publication thereof<br />
in this or any foreign country, deliver at the<br />
office of the Librarian of Congress, at<br />
Washington, District of Columbia, or deposit<br />
in the mail within the United States, addressed<br />
to the Librarian of Congress, at Washington,<br />
District of Columbia, two copies of such<br />
copyright book, map, chart, dramatic or<br />
musical composition, engraving, chromo, cut,<br />
print, or photograph, or in case of a painting,<br />
drawing, statue, statuary, model, or design<br />
for a work of the fine arts, a photograph of<br />
same: Provided, That in the case of a book<br />
the two copies of the same required to be<br />
delivered or deposited as above shall be<br />
printed from type set within the limits of the<br />
United States, or from plates made therefrom.<br />
During the existence of such copyright the<br />
importation into the United States of any book<br />
so copyrighted, or any edition or editions<br />
thereof, or any plates of the same not made<br />
from type set within the limits of the United<br />
States, shall be, and it is hereby, prohibited,<br />
except in the cases specified in section twenty-<br />
five hundred and five of the Revised Statutes of<br />
the United States, and except in the case of<br />
persons purchasing for use and not for sale,<br />
who import not more than two copies of such<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 234 (#282) ############################################<br />
<br />
234<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
book at any one time in each of which cases<br />
the written consent of the proprietor of the<br />
copyright, signed in the presence of two wit-<br />
nesses, shall be furnished with each impor-<br />
tation: And provided, That any publisher of<br />
a newspaper or magazine may, without such<br />
consent, import for his own use but not for<br />
sale not more than two copies of any news-<br />
paper or magazine published in a foreign<br />
country. Frovided, nevertheless, That in the<br />
case of books in foreign languages, of which<br />
only translations in English are copyrighted,<br />
the prohibition of importation shall apply<br />
only to the translations of the same, and the<br />
importation of the books in the original lan-<br />
guage shall be permitted."<br />
Sec. 4. That section forty-nine hundred and<br />
fifty-eight of the Revised Statutes be, and the same<br />
is hereby, amended so that it will read as follows:<br />
"Sec. 4958. The Librarian of Congress<br />
shall receive from the persons to whom the<br />
services designated are rendered the following<br />
fees:<br />
"First. For recording the title qr descrip-<br />
tion of any copyright book or pther article,<br />
fifty cents.<br />
"Second. For every copy under seal of such<br />
record actually given to the person claiming<br />
the copyright, or his assigns, fifty cents.<br />
"Third. For recording and certifying any<br />
instrument of writing for the assignment of a<br />
copyright, one dollar.<br />
"Fourth. For every copy of an assignment,<br />
one dollar.<br />
"All fees so received shall be paid into the<br />
Treasury of the United States: Provided,<br />
That the charge for recording the title of<br />
description of any article entered for copyright,<br />
the production of a person not a citizen or<br />
resident of the United States, shall be one<br />
dollar, to be paid as above into the Treasury<br />
of the United States, to defray the expenses<br />
of lists of copyrighted articles as hereinafter<br />
provided for.<br />
"And it is hereby made the duty of the<br />
Librarian of Congress to furnish to the<br />
Secretary of the Treasury copies of the entries<br />
of titles of all books and other articles wherein<br />
the copyright has been completed by the de-<br />
posit of two copies of such book printed from<br />
type set within the limits of the United States,<br />
in accordance with the provisions of this Act<br />
and by the deposit of two copies of such other<br />
article made or produced in the United States;<br />
and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby<br />
directed to prepare and print, at intervals of<br />
not more than a week, catalogues of such<br />
title-entries for distribution to the collectors<br />
of customs of the United States and to the<br />
postmasters of all post-offices receiving foreign<br />
mails, and such weekly lists, as they are issued,<br />
shall be furnished to all parties desiring them,<br />
at a sum not exceeding five dollars per annum;<br />
and the Secretary and the Postmaster-General<br />
are hereby empowered and required to make<br />
and enforce such rules and regulations as shall<br />
prevent the importation into the United States,<br />
except upon the conditions above specified,<br />
of all articles copyrighted under this Act<br />
during the term of the copyright."<br />
Sec. 5. That section forty-nine hundred and<br />
fifty-nine of the Revised Statutes be, and the same<br />
is hereby, amended so as to read as follows:<br />
•'Sec. 4959. The proprietor of every copy-<br />
right book or other article shall deliver at the<br />
offipe of thp Librarian of Congress, or deposit<br />
in the mail, addressed to the Librarian of Con<br />
gress, at Washington, District of Columbia,<br />
a copy of every subsequent edition wherein<br />
any substantial changes shall be made: Pro-<br />
vided, however, That the alterations, revisions,<br />
and additions made to books by foreign<br />
authors, heretofore published, of which new<br />
additions shall appear subsequently to the<br />
taking effect of this Act, shall be held and<br />
deemed capable of being popyrighted as above<br />
provided for in this Act, unless they form a<br />
part Qf the serjes in cqurse of publication at<br />
the time this Act shall take effect."<br />
Sec. 6. That section forty-nine hundred and<br />
sixty-three of the Revised Statutes be, and the<br />
same is hereby, amended so as to read as follows:<br />
"Sec. 49Q3. Every person who shall insert<br />
or impress such notice, or words of the same<br />
purport, in or upon any book, map, chart,<br />
dramatic or musical composition, print, cut,<br />
engraving, or photograph, or other article, for<br />
which he has not obtained a copyright, shall<br />
be liable to a penalty of one hundred dollars,<br />
recoverable one-half for the person who shall<br />
sue fpr such penalty, and one-half to the use<br />
of the United States."<br />
Sec. 7. That section forty-nine hundred and<br />
sixty-four of the Revised Statutes be, and the same<br />
is hereby, amended so as to read as follows:<br />
"Sec. 4964. Every person who, after the<br />
recording of the title of any book and the<br />
depositing of two copies of such book, as<br />
provided by this Act, shall, within the term<br />
limited, and without the consent of the pro<br />
prietor of the copyright first obtained in<br />
writing, signed in presence of two or more<br />
witnesses, print, publish, dramatise, translate,<br />
or import, or knowing the same to be so<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 235 (#283) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
235<br />
printed, published, dramatised, translated, or<br />
imported, shall sell or expose to sale any copy<br />
of such book, shall forfeit every copy thereof<br />
to such proprietor, and shall also forfeit and<br />
pay such damages as may be recoverad in a<br />
civil action by such proprietor in any coUrt 6f<br />
competent jurisdiction."<br />
Sec 8. That section' forty-nine hundred and<br />
sixty-five of the Revised Statutes be, and the same<br />
is hereby, so aniended as to read as follows:<br />
"Sec. 4965. If any person, after the record-<br />
ing of the title of any map, chart, dramatic or<br />
musical composition, print, cut, engraving, or<br />
photograph, or chronio, or of the description<br />
of any painting; drawing, statiie, statuary, or<br />
model or design intended to be perfected and<br />
executed as a work of the fine arts, as pro-<br />
vided by this Act, shall within the term limited,<br />
and without the consent of the proprietor of<br />
the copyright first obtained in writing, signed<br />
in presence of two or more witnesses, engrave,<br />
etch, work, copy, print, publish, dramatise,<br />
translate, or import, either in whole or in part,<br />
or by varying the main design with intent to<br />
evade the law, or, knowing the same to be so<br />
printed, published, dramatised, translated, or<br />
imported, shall sell or expose to sale any copy<br />
of such map or other article as aforesaid, he<br />
shall forfeit to the proprietor all the plates on<br />
which the same shall he copied and every<br />
sheet thereof, either copied or printed, arid<br />
shall further forfeit one dollar for every sheet<br />
of the same found in his possession, either<br />
printing, printed, copied, published, imported,<br />
or exposed for sale, and in case of a painting,<br />
statue, or statuary, he shall forfeit ten dollars<br />
for every copy of the same in his possession,<br />
or by him sold or exposed for sale; one-half<br />
thereof to the proprietor and the other half to<br />
the use of the United States."<br />
Sec. 9. That section fdrty-niHe hundred arid<br />
sixty-seven of the Revised Statutes be, arid the<br />
same is hereby, arhended so as to read as follows:<br />
"Sec: 4967. Every person who shall print<br />
or publish any rrianUscript whatever without<br />
the consent of the author or proprietor first<br />
obtained, shall be liable to the author or pro-<br />
prietor for all damages occasioned by such<br />
injury."<br />
Sec. 10. That section forty-nine hundred and<br />
seventy-one of the Revised Statutes be, and the<br />
same is hereby, Repealed.<br />
Sec. 11. That for the purpose of this Act each<br />
volume of a book in two or more volumes, when<br />
such volumes are published separately and the first<br />
one shall not have been issued before this Act shall<br />
take effect, and each number of a periodical shall<br />
be considered an independent publication, subject<br />
to the form of copyrighting as above.<br />
Sec. 12. That this Act shall go into effect on<br />
the first day of July, anno domini eighteen<br />
hundred and ninety-one.<br />
Sec: 13. That this Act shall only apply to a<br />
citizen of a foreign state or nation when such<br />
foreign state or nation permits to citizens of the<br />
United States of America the benefit of copyright<br />
on substantially the same basis as its own citizens;<br />
or when such foreign state or nation permits to<br />
citizens of the United States of Arherica copyright<br />
privileges substaritially similar to those provided<br />
for in this Act; or when such foreign state or<br />
nation is a party to ah international agreement<br />
which provides for reciprocity in the grant of<br />
copyright, by the terms of which agreement the<br />
United States of America may at its pleasure<br />
become a party to such agreement. The existence<br />
of either of these conditions shall be determined<br />
by the opinion of the Attofney;General of the<br />
United States, whenever ah occasion for such a<br />
determination arises.<br />
Passed the House of Representatives December<br />
3. '890-<br />
Attest: Ebwii. McPherson, Clerk.<br />
A PROPRIETOR-EDITOR.<br />
HIS methods of gaining a livelihood were<br />
simple enough in conception, though<br />
somewhat tortuous in their working. He<br />
did not seem rich, or even to have escaped far<br />
from the clutch of actual poverty, yet, alter his way,<br />
He had solved the problem of '"the struggle for<br />
life," and had learned how to pass easelul days<br />
supported by other folks' weaknesses.<br />
He was the Proprietor-Editor of a Society<br />
journal, printed on the finest hand-woven paper,<br />
and embellished with occasional illustrations. It<br />
was, according to its own head-lines (which ought<br />
to have known), the chosen organ of "haul ton"<br />
yet had but a limited sale, and I was not the only<br />
one of the Proprietor-Editor's acquaintances who<br />
had vaguely wondered how such an expensively<br />
produced and vilely written paper could possibly<br />
be made to produce any profits for anybody.<br />
And now I know, and the gorgeous simplicity of<br />
it all fills me with admiration.<br />
The Proprietor-Editor and I were fellow-members<br />
of a small club, where the food was excellent and<br />
the conditions of membership lax, and it was in<br />
the smoking room of this institution, and under the<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 236 (#284) ############################################<br />
<br />
236<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
stimulus of his afternoon whiskey, that he made the<br />
following proposal to me.<br />
"I see," said he, "that you come here a great<br />
deal. You are not busy? Looking for a job,<br />
perhaps? How would Babylon suit you? I'm<br />
giving it up."<br />
I inquired why: also how much the post was<br />
worth: and thirdly in whose gift it lay.<br />
It may have been that the Proprietor-Editor's<br />
whiskey was more potent than usual, it may have<br />
been that I seemed to him a complacent, nay,<br />
almost an unscrupulous sort of person ; it may have<br />
been that he held in light esteem the morals of all<br />
the members of our club, but—for this reason or<br />
for that—he unbosomed himself to me.<br />
"My dear fellow—to answer your questions—<br />
the post is in my gift, as you call it. I am not<br />
giving it away, however, but I'll sell it to you. It's<br />
worth whatever you like to make it worth. I call it<br />
a thousand a year. I'm leaving because I want<br />
peace. The thing is getting a bit blown on. But<br />
you'll be fresh, and you're younger, and it won't<br />
worry you. I've got a brother-in-law in the City, a<br />
biggish man at the wholesale furnishing game, who<br />
wants a partner, and I'm going to him. He thinks<br />
my literary attainments will be useful in the<br />
catalogues. You know! Calling a little cup-<br />
board 'a rose-wood cabinet with inlaid top and<br />
claw pedestal (Empire),' &c. I'm getting an old<br />
man and I want peace—and literary people are such<br />
quarrelsome folk. Now I'll sell you the property<br />
right out—prospects and liabilities, copyrights, and<br />
office furniture"<br />
"Inlaid, with claw pedestal (Empire)," I mur-<br />
mured.<br />
"And accepted MSS.," he continued, dis-<br />
regarding the interruption, "for the totally<br />
inadequate sum of five hundred pounds. Say the<br />
word, and your fortune's made, and we'll have a<br />
split whiskey in honour of the event."<br />
I begged for details.<br />
"I have always thought," he went on unctuously,<br />
"that those for whose chief benefit and amuse-<br />
ment a paper is carried on, should be the people<br />
who should pay for it. Now the people for whose<br />
chief benefit my magazine has been circulated are<br />
the advertisers; this is obvious, and I have always<br />
taken steps, therefore, to ensure that they should<br />
be practically grateful. Again, those who derive<br />
the greatest pleasure from reading my journal are<br />
the people who write it, therefore I leave my con-<br />
tributors to take their pay out in pure, healthy<br />
pleasure. I allow no sordid money question to<br />
come between me and those whom I am anxious<br />
to serve."<br />
"You do not pay for contributions, you mean."<br />
"Young fellow," he responded, perhaps a little<br />
thickly, "I pay nobody. But I like you. There's<br />
no literary rot about you, and I'll show you how to<br />
be an editor like me." Here he settled himself<br />
luxuriously in his chair, and let his admiring eyes<br />
rove up and down his podgey little person, from<br />
the heavy gold chain across his waistcoat to the<br />
new patent toe on the fender. He was not a proud<br />
man, but he felt that I must be consumed with<br />
envy at his distinguished position in the world of<br />
letters.<br />
"I pay nobody," he repeated, "but printers are<br />
not so easily to be got over; they are generally one's<br />
chief trouble. I have had three since I started the<br />
paper. The first man I paid, regularly. That was for<br />
a very little time, for I had very little money, and I<br />
didn't know the ropes as I do now. Then I printed<br />
on the nod for two or three months—till he began<br />
to get anxious. Then I sent him a cheque for the<br />
whole and a bit over. And that's the last that I<br />
ever paid him. He allowed me a year's credit after<br />
that, as my behaviour seemed so handsome, and at<br />
the end of that time he got nasty, so I left him.<br />
He came round to me and talked big. He said<br />
he should make it warm for me in the court.<br />
'Stop,' says I, 'what's your game? My blood or<br />
my money?' 'Why, your money, you little<br />
brute,' says he—he was a very violent man.<br />
'Then you'd better sit down,' said I, 'and have a<br />
whiskey and soda and talk it over. You might be<br />
able to help me get it for you.' He was agreeable,<br />
and I put it to him that he must do nothing to<br />
spoil my credit, as I could not undertake to pay<br />
two printers at once. But I promised to pay him,<br />
if he would give me such an introduction to some<br />
other printer that I could again get credit. He<br />
thought for a bit and then he said, 'Well, you<br />
might do worse, and I'll give you a line of<br />
introduction,' and would you believe it, the fool<br />
sent me to my own brother. Of course that was<br />
sheer luck, and you mustn't expect to have that sort<br />
of luck often. He said, 'I'm sending you to another<br />
confounded Israelite, and I wish him joy of you,'<br />
and he wrote a flaming letter about my commercial<br />
habits, integrity, and the rest, and directed it to<br />
Messrs. Silverton and Co., my brother Isaac's<br />
trading name. And I stopped with my brother for<br />
one year, and paid him every week ready money<br />
for printing. I couldn't even get a week's credit out<br />
of him. 'The first day your money isn't here on<br />
Tuesday morning by twelve, I stop work on the<br />
paper,' said he, 'and it won't come out. If you're<br />
ten minutes late with the money, I stop the job.'<br />
He's a hard man is Isaac, and he had all this down<br />
on paper. One day I was half-an-hour late, I<br />
think. 'I won't go to press,' says he, 'unless you<br />
give me a five pound note as a bonus.' To his<br />
own brother! I had to give it him though. I<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 237 (#285) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
237<br />
could not afford to break with him just then. But<br />
he's a hard man is Isaac. Don't you print with<br />
him.<br />
"In the course of a month or so my old printer<br />
began to ask. about his account. I was pretty<br />
civil with him. I told him I thought it best to<br />
pay a bit in ready money at first, so as to establish<br />
a credit and get the work done cheaply. He<br />
agreed, for he remembered how he had been done<br />
clean that way himself. At last he got savage;<br />
then he got threatening; then he sent trie a<br />
lawyer's letter, and then a writ. I paid no atten-<br />
tion till it got to terra-cotta, and then I spoke to<br />
my brother Isaac, and he took a hand. 'Did<br />
you write this here introduction to me?' says he<br />
to the poor chap. 'Yes,' says the man. 'I<br />
have always found Mr. Reuben a most satisfactory<br />
and punctual man to deal with,' quoted my<br />
brother. 'Here, you bring ) our action, and I'll<br />
bring mine at the same time.' We heard no more<br />
of him.<br />
"Then my brother says, 'This is too warm.<br />
I'll give you a letter of introduction to the beast<br />
who undersold me about the Penny Pilferer.<br />
He can come to see by my books what regular<br />
pay you are, and I'll show him the good recom-<br />
mendation you brought with you to me. It's a<br />
pity that such a document should not be used<br />
somewhere outside the family circle. You ought to<br />
get a year's credit at least out of him—and that's all<br />
I can do for you.' I've been with that chap ever<br />
since; I haven't paid him a cent yet. But I shall<br />
have to do so soon, and that's why I'm leaving."<br />
He paused.<br />
"Splendid!" said I. "Now about the contri-<br />
butors."<br />
"Oh, them!" he continued, slightingly, "we<br />
generally go in for women, you know. Their<br />
cackle is much neater than men's, and their writing<br />
is much better. They don't want so much tnone),<br />
and it's easier to get them for nothing at all.<br />
Most of my magazine is done by my staff—er—<br />
my sub-editor does it with scissors and paste. A<br />
lady clerk runs about and takes notes of functions;<br />
she bribes pew-openers and makes up to house-<br />
maids, and so we get our original matter. I—er—<br />
write the city article. An outside broker gives me<br />
the information, and one of his clerks answers the<br />
financial correspondence. I don't pay them; they<br />
do it for love of letters, I suppose, and it's nothing<br />
to me if their sisters, and their cousins, and their<br />
aunts unload on my public. There remains the<br />
feuilleton. I advertise for this. One three-and-<br />
sixpenny advertisement will generally bring in over<br />
fifty MSS., and the stamps which accompany them<br />
are always handy for the office."<br />
"But how about returning the MSS.?"<br />
"I never return MSS. I may want 'em."<br />
"But," said I, in my innocence, "you'll have to<br />
pay for them, if you obtain contributions like<br />
that."<br />
"Oh ! shall I ?" said he, finely contemptuous at<br />
the idea. "Oh! shall I? I pay nobody, as I began<br />
by informing you, until I cannot help it, and there<br />
are not many of these people who force me to<br />
extremes. Some wait on for months without<br />
saying anything. Some begin writing letters to me<br />
from the first. Some are polite, some are more<br />
threatening; but I answer none, at any rate for<br />
months. That alone chokes off two-thirds of them.<br />
It almost always finishes the women. I write to a<br />
few of the men, under certain circumstances, and<br />
tell them that their previous communication was<br />
mislaid, that the Proprietor-Editor is now out of<br />
town, but that he will certainly write to them<br />
immediately on his return. That keeps them<br />
going for another two months. Then, if they still<br />
keep bothering, I say the paper will shortly change<br />
hands, when definite conclusions concerning the<br />
return or retention of MSS. will be come to in<br />
every case. You would hardly believe it, but that<br />
chokes off a good half of the few that remain.<br />
This is how it works out. Say forty-five people<br />
answer the advertisement, which brings in 30^<br />
worth of stamps at once, and that goes a long way<br />
in an office where you don't answer letters till<br />
you've got to. Of these two or three people never<br />
write at all about the matter, and we never hear<br />
of them again. They are the totally inexperienced,<br />
and become subscribers to my paper for years, so<br />
as to watch the columns for their contributions.<br />
They believe that to be the usual method of pro<br />
cedure. All the rest will write once or twice at<br />
least, and thirty or so will write regularly once a<br />
week for two or three months, sometimes, I am glad<br />
to say, enclosing more stamps for replies; a dozen<br />
of these will still keep on writing after the patience<br />
of the rest has been exhausted, and these are the<br />
people who may have to be told about the con-<br />
templated sale of the property, or the absence of<br />
the Proprietor-Editor, before they get thoroughly<br />
tired. With the remaining six or so I have to deal<br />
further. They will generally call and talk about<br />
law, and want to know what I am going to do.<br />
They are usually men with sticks. I look at those<br />
MSS. They are in all likelihood the only ones<br />
by practised hands, being written by authors who<br />
have experience of the silly way in which other<br />
journals are worked, and expect me to behave<br />
likewise. If any of these stories suit my purpose<br />
I have them printed, and that's a very practical<br />
answer to any questionings about what I am going<br />
to do. When they write for payment I say nothing.<br />
Then they write urgently, and I say, 'At the end<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 238 (#286) ############################################<br />
<br />
238<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
of our financial quarter, we shall have the pleasure<br />
of sending you our cheque in payment of your con-<br />
tributions to Babylon at scale prices.' The date<br />
you see is pretty vague, and that keeps them quiet<br />
for another three months. It is probably now<br />
over a year since they answered my advertisement.<br />
If they continue to worry I pay them at the rate<br />
of half-a-crown a column, and that terminates the<br />
transaction, fori can always swear that is my 'scale<br />
price.' And that's how to get original contribu-<br />
tions. It's simple, certain and cheap, and if you<br />
don't mind abu ive letters (I don't) there's not a<br />
word to be said against it. But it is easier to<br />
work the oracle with women than with men."<br />
"And suppose they call and kick up a row?"<br />
"My dear sir, I use the strong arm' of the law.<br />
I send for a policeman, and have them turned out.<br />
Of course my methods occasionally lead to un-<br />
pleasantness. For instance, I wouldn't go to the<br />
Aborigines Club, even if I could get a story from<br />
Mr. Rudyard Kipling for nothing, by doing so. I<br />
daren't; I should be kicked. But then I don't<br />
want to go. The whiskey's better here, and I hate<br />
literary people. Sometimes, when things are very<br />
stormy in the office, I take a trip until the storm has<br />
blown over. I find such a change very pleasant<br />
and by no means expensive.<br />
"And now I'll tell you how I work the adver-<br />
tisers. I mark out a little tour, and then I write<br />
to the best hotels in the places, and inform the<br />
owners that the editor and owner of Babylon, 'an<br />
influential weekly journal of fact, fiction, society,<br />
sport, and finance,' proposes to stay a few days at<br />
their hotel, and will feel better able to recommend<br />
the establishment if a liberal reduction in the tariff<br />
is extended to him. Nearly all the answers I<br />
receive are favourable. I go, and I am treated<br />
en prince. When I leave I suggest to the pro-<br />
prietor that his bill, 'really a small one consider-<br />
ing the admirable character of the service and<br />
the luxury of the appointments,' should be met<br />
by a column or so of advertisement in my valu-<br />
able paper. The proprietor almost always ac-<br />
quiesces, in which case we part the best of<br />
friends. If he doesn't, well, 1 have to pay, and<br />
then I don't say anything about his rubbishing<br />
public-house in Babylon. He daren't ask me why,<br />
for of course I should come the honest, and say<br />
that I found nothing in his establishment worth<br />
noticing. It would look at once as if he had tried<br />
to nobble a fine and independent editor. Oh! it's<br />
quite cheap. Before I start I go round among the<br />
general advertisers, and get any little thing I want<br />
—an umbrella, a Gladstone bag, a travelling lamp,<br />
or a rug; these generous fellows are always ready<br />
to supply me, knowing that if they do not some one<br />
else will, and will get the gratuitous puffs. This<br />
kind of thing, you know :—' If any of my readers<br />
think of going north in this bitter weather I would<br />
advise them to pay a visit to Messrs. So-and-So's<br />
stores, and inspect their admirable stock of travel-<br />
ling rugs, with patent lined pockets, and reversible<br />
india-rubber covering.' It's quite easy to do, and<br />
I daresay you could learn to write them quite<br />
quickly if you gave your mind to it. The plan,<br />
you see, supplies me with subject for paragraphs<br />
as well as creature comforts. Quite cheap, as I<br />
say, and also quite simple. I believe it's what they<br />
call the new journalism. I don't read much my-<br />
self, but I see that expression cropping up now and<br />
then, and I fancy that's what must be meant by<br />
it Well, sir, what do you say to becoming the<br />
new editor of Babylon?"<br />
He stopped, with closing eyes.<br />
"I don't think it's a deal," said I.<br />
"Well," he said slowly and sleepily, as he put his<br />
glass down empty for the last time before he dozed<br />
off, "you know your own business best, but it seems<br />
to me that I am selling you a valuable position,<br />
and business enough to support it, for a ridicu-<br />
lously small sum. I have also told you how to work<br />
it, instead of leaving you to find out for yourself.<br />
But I daresay you feel you are not fitted for the<br />
post."<br />
*<br />
"THE KINDS OF CRITICISM."<br />
"■ "HE full and proper office of the critic can<br />
I never be discharged except by those<br />
-*- who remember that 'critic' means judge.<br />
Expressions of personal liking, though they can<br />
hardly be kept but of criticism, are not by them-<br />
selves judgment. The famous 'J'aime mieux<br />
Alfred de Mussei,' is not criticism . . . There<br />
must be, at least, some attempt to take in and<br />
render the whole virtue of the subjects considered,<br />
some effort to compare them with their likes in<br />
other as well as the same languages, some en-<br />
deavour to class and value them. And as a con-<br />
dition preliminary, there must, I think, be a not<br />
inconsiderable study of widely differing periods,<br />
forms, manners, of litera'ure itself. The test<br />
question, as I should put it of the value of criticism<br />
is, 'What idea of the original could this critic give<br />
to a tolerahly instructed person who did not know<br />
that original?' And again, how far has this critic<br />
seen steadily and seen whole, the subject which<br />
he has set himself to consider? How far has he<br />
referred the main peculiarities of that subject to<br />
their proximate causes and effects? How far has<br />
he attempted to place, and succeeded in placing,<br />
the subject in the general history of literature, i"<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 239 (#287) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
239<br />
the particular history of his own language, in the<br />
collection of authors of its own department?"<br />
These excellent and weighty words form part of<br />
an introduction to a book which, in its own depart-<br />
ment, that of pure criticism, promises to be the<br />
book of the year—Mr. George Saintsbury's "Essays<br />
in English Literature, 1780-1860" (Percival and<br />
Co.)- This introduction is called "The Kinds of<br />
Criticism." It is, in itself, a short Treatise on the<br />
Art of Criticism, and it should be printed separately<br />
and placed in the hands of everyone who pretends<br />
to become a reviewer. It may be, as Mr. Andrew<br />
Lang suggests, that critics and reviewers have<br />
nothing to do with each other essentially, though<br />
accidentally the discharge of their functions may<br />
he combined in the same person. Yet even a<br />
reviewer can do himself no harm in learning the<br />
functions of a critic.<br />
How then shall the young man become a critic?<br />
First, Mr. Saintsbury tells him, by reading; by<br />
wide and careful reading. Not that reading will<br />
make a critic, but few are the critics who can be<br />
made without it. "For my part," says the author,<br />
"I should not dare to continue criticising so much<br />
as a circulating library novel"—but there are novels<br />
and novels—a man may do worse than criticise a<br />
Meredith, and he, too, is "circulated "—" if I did<br />
not perpetually pay my respects to the classics of<br />
many literatures." In short, the critic, truly<br />
equipped, must start from a wide comparative<br />
study of different languages and literatures. This is<br />
the first principle, the only road to criticism. If<br />
we accept it, we understand at once the reason,<br />
first, why there are so few critics, and secondly,<br />
why women are seldom good critics. For the<br />
different literatures must include Greek, Latin,<br />
French, and should include German and Italian<br />
as well, not to speak of the Hebrew literature,<br />
which even Mr. Saintsbury's critic must be gener-<br />
ally content to have in translation. Very well, thus<br />
prepared, the critic "must constantly refer back<br />
his sensations of agreement and disagreement, of<br />
liking arid disliking, in the comparative fashion.<br />
Let Englishmen be compared with<br />
Englishmen of other times to bring out this set of<br />
differences, with foreigners of modern tiroes to<br />
bring out that, with Greeks and Romans to bring<br />
out the other. Let poets of old days be compared<br />
with poets of new, classics with romantics, rhymed<br />
with unrhymed. . . . 'Compare, always com-<br />
pare,' is the first axiom of criticism."<br />
After these rules follows another equally useful.<br />
"Always make sure, as far as you possibly can,<br />
that what you like and dislike is the literary, and<br />
not the extra-literary character, of the matter under<br />
examination."<br />
And yet another. "Never be content without<br />
VOL. I.<br />
at least endeavouring to connect cause and effect-<br />
in some way, without giving something like a reason<br />
for the faith that is in you."<br />
The readers of the Author are, one and all,<br />
deeply interested in the elevation and maintenance<br />
of the standard of criticism. The literature of every<br />
age, in fact, in great measure depends upon the<br />
standard set up by the critics. Where criticism is<br />
low and ignorant of better things, unable even to<br />
appreciate effort in the true direction, the writers<br />
sink with their judges. For true criticism, a point not<br />
insisted by Mr. Saintsbury, does not destroy, but<br />
builds up: it does not deride ; it instructs. Why is<br />
it, for instance, that the modern taste for the best and<br />
highest poetry is so much belter than their taste for<br />
the higher work in fiction or in the drama? That<br />
it is so is proved, first by the excellent critical work<br />
on poetry, which is given to the world in the<br />
magazines of the day; next by the Browning<br />
Societies, which show, if they show nothing else,<br />
an intense and widespread love for great verse.<br />
One reason lies, one is tempted to believe, in the<br />
ineffable incompetence of the ordinary reviews of<br />
fiction. The young writer finds no instruction in the<br />
reviews which he reads. He never even looks for any;<br />
he is content if he gets off without a contemptuous<br />
jeer. He knows that he is making an essay towards<br />
a fine Art, but he has no guides; those who should<br />
lead him are dumb; they do not even understand<br />
that they have a fine Art to deal with; his judges<br />
do not know the rules of the Art; they do not<br />
know that there are any rules; nay, too often they<br />
cannot understand that there is any artistic work<br />
at all to be reviewed. As a natural consequence<br />
the great mass of the fiction put forth is without<br />
form and void. Of the ordinary criticism as applied<br />
to fiction we will perhaps speak on a future occasion.<br />
It is enough here to claim for criticism at its best<br />
its educational importance.<br />
Mr. Saintsbury's views of the ordinary reviewer<br />
are stated with great clearness. "That a very<br />
large amount of reviewing is determined by doubt-<br />
less well-meaning incompetence, there is no doubt<br />
whatever. It is, on the whole, the most difficult<br />
kind of newspaper writing, and it is, on the whole,<br />
the most lightly assigned and the most irresponsibly<br />
performed. I have heard of newspapers where the<br />
reviews depended almost wholly on the accident of<br />
some of the staff taking a holiday, or being laid up<br />
for a time on the shelf, or being considered not up<br />
to other work; of others—though this, I own, is<br />
scarcely credible—when the whole reviewing was<br />
farmed out to a manager, to be allotted to devils as<br />
good to him seemed; of many where the reviews<br />
were a sort of exercising ground on which novices<br />
were trained, broken down hacks turned out to<br />
grass, and invalids allowed a little gentle exercise.<br />
I<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 240 (#288) ############################################<br />
<br />
240<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
• . . . Of common mistakes on the subject<br />
which are not merely silly crazes, such as the log<br />
rolling craze and the five-pound note craze, and the<br />
like; the worst known to him, though it is shared<br />
by some who should know better, is that a specialist<br />
is the best reviewer. I do not say that he is always<br />
the worst, but that is about as far as my charity,<br />
informed by much experience, can go."<br />
The present writer has also heard of newspapers<br />
when the books are all bundled off together to one<br />
man, who turns them off in little paragraphs of<br />
half-a-dozen lines each at eighteenpence a book.<br />
And yet authors and publishers are such fools as<br />
to send their books to such a paper and to expose<br />
themselves to such treatment.<br />
For one thing, let us take comfort. Books are<br />
abused by many reviewers for many reasons. They<br />
are never abused—Mr. Saintsbury maintains—for<br />
the good things in them.<br />
This brief resume of a highly important and op-<br />
portune paper must not be supposed to be tendered<br />
as an adequate criticism. It is tendered as an<br />
introduction and as an invitation. The former is<br />
likely to make readers of the Author uneasy on the<br />
subject of criticism—perhaps to awaken their con-<br />
sciences as to their own sins, because we have<br />
reviewers, if not critics among us: the latter as<br />
an invitation to get the book for themselves and<br />
to read carefully point by point what a good critic<br />
should be.<br />
*<br />
ON SOME PARALLEL PASSAGES.<br />
IT has for many years been to me a source of<br />
wonder that the many annotators of the text<br />
of Shelley's poems should not have noticed<br />
that in the fifth song of "St. Irvyne" the poet<br />
appropriates, with the alteration of but two insig-<br />
nificant words, a complete line from Beattie's<br />
"Minstrel," viz.:—<br />
"O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave."<br />
This line, familiar to all readers of poetry, Shelley<br />
transferred bodily to the song above mentioned,<br />
where it appears as—<br />
"Ah ! when shall day dawn on the night of the grave."<br />
A new edition of Shelley's poems is daily expected,<br />
annotated by one of his ablest biographers, and it<br />
may be that this edition will contain a note on this<br />
passage, but no such note is to be found in any<br />
existing edition.<br />
Readers of Mr. W. M. Rossctti's exhaustive<br />
memoir of Blake will doubtless remember that<br />
Milton frequently appeared in Blake's visions, and<br />
held converse on matters celestial and terrestrial<br />
with the imaginative poet-painter. On one occasion,<br />
Blake said, speaking of these visits, "He came to<br />
ask a favour of me; said he had committed an<br />
error in ' Paradise Lost,' which he wanted me to<br />
correct in a poem or picture. But I declined; I<br />
said I had my own duties to perform." Other<br />
remarks made by Milton during these visitations<br />
have not been recorded by Blake, but a student of<br />
both poets may be forgiven for fancying that Milton<br />
would have been justified in asking Blake in what<br />
moment of forgetfulness he had written in "The<br />
Keys of the Gates of Paradise," the lines—<br />
"On the shadows of the moon<br />
Climbing through night's highest noon,"<br />
lines so closely akin to—<br />
"To behold the wandering moon<br />
Riding near her highest noon,"<br />
which form one of the many beauties of "II<br />
Penseroso"; or why, when penning " King Edward<br />
III," he had put into the mouth of his bishop the<br />
words—<br />
"... the arts of peace are great,<br />
And no less glorious than those of war,"<br />
thereby making him echo sentiments to be found<br />
in a celebrated sonnet addressed to the Lord<br />
General Cromwell, May, 1652, in which the writer<br />
declares that—<br />
"Peace hath her victories<br />
No less renowned than War."*<br />
Landor occasionally complained of the manner in<br />
which his poems were treated, and certainly in one<br />
remarkable instance two brother bards attempted<br />
to beautify their work with a sea-shell stolen from<br />
his grottos; a shell which lost all its murmurous<br />
melody and glimmering beauty in their hands, and<br />
justified his remarks upon their action. But Landor<br />
was himself on one occasion a defaulter. The<br />
reader of his poem "The Phocceans," a poem<br />
published with others in 1802, will find the follow-<br />
ing lines—<br />
"In his own image the Creator made,<br />
His own pure sunbeam quicken'd thee, O man!<br />
Thou breathing dial! since thy day began<br />
The present hour was always tiiarht with shade!"<br />
* Were Landor alive, not the least delightful of his<br />
"Imaginary Conversations " would be a dialogue between<br />
these two great poets. We learn from that priceless l>ook,<br />
Forster's " Life of Landor," that the old lion in his declining<br />
days, "picked up some of the writings of Blake, and was<br />
strangely fascinated by them," and had this conversation<br />
been added to the long list of treasures received from the<br />
same hand, the anachronism of making the dead and living<br />
]X>et meet would have been as justifiable as was that which<br />
was justified for all time in the poem wherein Landor made<br />
Laertes and Homer meet, and bade Homer sing once more.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 241 (#289) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
241<br />
and if iie turns to Wordsworth's "An Evening<br />
Walk," written 1789, published 1793, he will<br />
find the same imagery—<br />
"Alas! the idle tale of man is found<br />
Depicted in the dial's moral round;<br />
Hope with reflection blends her social rays<br />
, To gild the golden tablet of his days;<br />
Vet still, the sport of some malignant power,<br />
He knows but from its shade the present hour."<br />
I.andor's version is undeniably the finer both in<br />
composition and sentiment.<br />
Blanco White's sonnet, "Mysterious Night," first<br />
printed in 1828, has recently been paraphrased in<br />
one of Walt Whitman's prose poems. In his<br />
"Night on the Prairies," he says—■<br />
"I was thinking the day most splendid till I saw what the<br />
not-day exhibited,<br />
I was thinking the globe enough till there sprang out so<br />
noiseless around me myriads of other globes.<br />
And he adds after quiet contemplation of the stars—<br />
"0 I see noiv that life cannot exhibit all to me, as the day<br />
cannot,<br />
I see that I am to "wait for "what will be exhibited by deith."<br />
The "rawest as well as the ripest student" of<br />
English literature will at once recognise in these<br />
lines the sentiments expressed in White's solitary<br />
sonnet of which the concluding lines are—<br />
"Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed<br />
Within thy beams, O Sun ! or who could find,<br />
Whilst flow'r and leaf and insect stood revealed,<br />
7'hat to such countless orbs thou mad*st us blind!<br />
Why do vie then shun Death with anxious strife?<br />
If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?"<br />
In that glorious poem, Charles Wells's "Joseph<br />
and his Brethren," which owes its rescue from " the<br />
waste-paper basket of forgetfulness," to the energetic<br />
action of Mr. Swinburne, will be found lines bearing<br />
a perilous resemblance to familiar verses by Words-<br />
worth, viz.—'<br />
"To me a simple flower is cloth'd with thoughts<br />
That lead the mind to Heaven."<br />
words which at once recall the concluding lines of<br />
the great "Ode "—<br />
"To me the meanest flower that blows can give<br />
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears."<br />
Wells's drama did not appear until twenty years<br />
after the publication of \\ ordsworth's "Ode."<br />
At the risk of multiplying examples ad nauseam<br />
I may add that in Mr. Alfred Austin's "Tower of<br />
Babel," Act ii, scene 1, a philosopher named Sidon<br />
gives expression to sentiments closely resembling<br />
those of King Lear. The gods say Sidon deals<br />
hardly with men—<br />
vol I<br />
". . . . they make sport of us,<br />
Treating us much as boys treat cockroaches<br />
They prick us just to see what we will do."<br />
Lear, it will be remembered, exclaimed—<br />
"As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods;<br />
They kill us for their sport."<br />
A much more grim reflection upon "the unjust<br />
justice of omnipotence."<br />
Richard W. Colles.<br />
*<br />
BALZAC AND HIS ENGLISH<br />
CRITICS.<br />
THE primacy of Balzac in French fiction has<br />
at length been acknowledged by English -<br />
speaking critics. The recognition of his<br />
universal supremacy is approaching, but it seems<br />
that it will be long before his proper place as a<br />
philosopher and a seer of rare inspiration will be<br />
allowed him. It is, however, an encouraging sign<br />
that his critics agree on one point, that any attempt<br />
at general criticism of his whole work and especially<br />
of La Com^die Humaine, is futile, and that any<br />
review must be but the slightest sketch. Each<br />
new attempt confirms the opinion that we must<br />
confine ourselves to commentary alone.<br />
It is well for us that Balzac counts among his<br />
critics some of the most eminent living writers of<br />
English. I cannot, however, consider the clever<br />
essays of Mr. Henry James and Mr. Leslie Stephen<br />
nor yet of the gifted author of a recent article in<br />
the Quarterly, as representing him with great<br />
fidelity. Mr. W. S. Lilly unfortunately spoils an<br />
otherwise appreciative notice by a most irrelevant<br />
inquiry into Balzac's interior religion. Mr. Parsons<br />
has written a very trustworthy general review in the<br />
Atlantic Monthly, careful and accurate, and free<br />
from obtrusive originality. Mr. Thomas Hake<br />
has a trustworthy article, "A Realist at Work," in<br />
Belgravia. Of more particular articles Mr. Philip<br />
Kent's "Balzac's views of the Artistic Tempera-<br />
ment," is excellent, and Mr. George Moore's<br />
"Some of Balzac's Minor Pieces," if a little dis-<br />
connected, is interesting and enthusiastic. The<br />
criticisms which I know in English are usually to<br />
be relied on for justice of criticism, in inverse ratio<br />
to the cleverness with which they are written. It<br />
is a remarkable tribute to the breadth and depth<br />
of Balzac's intellect that his critics can always find<br />
predominant in his works those traits which they<br />
are individually disposed to notice. In this he is<br />
like the Bible, to which every sect which has arisen<br />
since the canon was formed appeals for confirmation<br />
T 2<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 242 (#290) ############################################<br />
<br />
242<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
of its peculiar doctrines. On these controverted<br />
points I believe his critics misrepresent him most.<br />
Mr. Leslie Stephen denies that Balzac possessed<br />
a knowledge of the human heart, on the ground<br />
that such knowledge does not exist. He considers<br />
individuality so strong in every man that it prevents<br />
a writer from embodying feeling outside his own<br />
potential experience. He explains Balzac's thou-<br />
sand creations as the reflection of the thousand<br />
facets of his many-sided self. On the other hand,<br />
an evident altruist writing lately in Lippincotfs<br />
Magazine, considers that there is no such thing as<br />
individuality, and implies that Mr. Leslie Stephen<br />
lacked experience because he recognizes it.<br />
The fact that Balzac has been largely introduced<br />
into England by the school which claims him as<br />
their founder—the realistic school divided between<br />
M. Zola and M. Bourget—is misleading. He is<br />
accredited with the philosophy, as well as the<br />
method, of his followers. He is deprived of one<br />
of his strongest claims to supremacy in his art, the<br />
union of idealism in conception with extraordinary<br />
realism in expression.<br />
Sheer realism is incompatible with art; it must<br />
logically lead to the gross bad taste which disfigures<br />
M. Zola's powerful work, the monotonous vivisection<br />
of M. Bourget, or the intolerable dulness of their<br />
lesser pupils.<br />
Literature is limited in its possible subjects; to<br />
pass these limitations is to fail as M. Zola has<br />
failed, by excess in one direction, and less gifted<br />
followers of Mr. Henry James may fail in another.<br />
The idealist, misled by Balzac's minuteness, pre-<br />
judges that his philosophy is materialistic. The<br />
realist has an evident undercurrent of distrust for<br />
the idealism which to him is antipathetic and<br />
spiritualises his master's creations. The optimist<br />
objects to La Comedie Humaine as a wicked<br />
parody of the world he reveres. Mr. Leslie Stephen<br />
has said, "We don't often catch sight in his pages<br />
of God frowning or the devil grinning; his world<br />
seems to be pretty well forgotten by the one, and<br />
its inhabitants quite able to dispense with the<br />
services of the other." The same may be said with<br />
equal truth of English society at the present time,<br />
for even if the morality of romantic fiction requires<br />
it, in actual life at least, a god has no need to<br />
advertise, and a devil is too discreet to display his<br />
tail. The immorality ascribed to Balzac is in<br />
reality that subtlest and most powerful form of<br />
morality which teaches by suggestion without di-<br />
dacticism. It is strange that his Christian critics<br />
should be shocked because he represents evil as<br />
apparently getting the best of the bargain of life,<br />
and the children of this world, in their generation,<br />
wiser than the children of Light. It is also strange<br />
that idealists should accuse him of realism when<br />
the actor he so often brings to the stake is the<br />
perfect wise man. But, on the other hand, it has<br />
been more truly said that Balzac is so moral as to<br />
be sometimes untrue. In this cross fire of criticism<br />
one position has not, I think, been taken, that the<br />
object Balzac set before him was itself immoral,<br />
that a detailed history of contemporary society is<br />
a story too horrible to be told. On this point he<br />
might possibly be held to fail as a moralist. Perfect<br />
attainment of an end in view is recognized as so<br />
high an excellence in art, and Balzac has achieved<br />
so much that the morality of his aim is little<br />
questioned The historical nature of his work is<br />
accepted at the outset, but there are very few<br />
critics who do not forget it in the course of their<br />
arguments. To keep this steadily in view is<br />
essential to rendering him justice, and to obtaining<br />
a full appreciation of his marvellous work. It is<br />
noticeable that he calls the subdivisions of the<br />
scenes not "romans" or "contes," but "e'tudes."<br />
The truth of his characters has been attacked,<br />
contemporaries adverse to him confirm it, and it<br />
would not be difficult to surpass his most terrible<br />
examples of iniquity by quoting actual events<br />
occurring daily in London. It is quite true that<br />
the abnormal is not the ideal. But considering that<br />
romance deals with the less rather than the more<br />
usual event—with the marriape or murder of its<br />
heroes rather than with their downsitting and up-<br />
rising. And considering the greater effect that<br />
dramatic situations leave upon the mind and<br />
memory, it will be found that the proportion borne<br />
by the abnormal in La Comedie Humaine is none<br />
too great for artistic effect, and establishes no<br />
presumption that Balzac misunderstood the nature<br />
of the ideal.<br />
There is a tendency among brilliant critics to<br />
criticise adversely separate studies of the Comedie<br />
Humaine, and to apply their criticism to the whole.<br />
In this way Balzac is censured for long and elabo-<br />
rate details concerning characters of "minor impor-<br />
tance. There is truth in the censure; no doubt<br />
the artistic value of some of the studies is lessened<br />
by digressions, but it must be remembered that the<br />
minor character so minutely described in one is<br />
usually destined to be the hero of another. To<br />
appreciate this arrangement the studies should be<br />
read in their internal chronological order, beginning<br />
with "Le Martyr Calviniste," and ending with<br />
"Comedians sans le savoir." It is impossible to<br />
criticise one study rightly without a knowledge of<br />
the rest.<br />
To discuss the morality of Balzac in detail would<br />
require a volume. Mr. Swinburne alone, in a note<br />
to his Essay on William Blake, fully appreciates his<br />
power as a "master of morals." I believe that he<br />
exercises this power at least equally with Shakes-<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 243 (#291) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
243<br />
peare, not by interpretation, but as a pure artist by<br />
implication; this question the high authority of<br />
Mr. Swinburne has decided to the contrary.<br />
One study by Balzac is so well known and has<br />
been so much criticised that I may perhaps notice<br />
a very common misapprehension concerning it.<br />
The blind devotion of Pere Goriot is almost always<br />
regarded as ignoble, and Pere Goriot as a libel on<br />
the heroic character of King Lear. But the short<br />
account of his life before the drama begins, gives<br />
a clue not sufficiently considered. Pere Goriot is<br />
a man of vile character; he has practised the most<br />
despicable trade; he has grown rich by usurious<br />
corn-dealing in time of famine. He has fattened<br />
on the starvation of the poor. He is not a Jew<br />
spoiling the Egyptians, but a Frenchman of the<br />
people preying on the keen hunger of his own<br />
brothers. He has no religion, no education, no<br />
morality. But in him is one—instinct perhaps—<br />
not wholly evil, his utter devotion to his daughters.<br />
(If this had been Shakespeare's work this point<br />
would long ago have been seized on and<br />
belauded as "a touch of nature " of extraordinary<br />
beauty.) Le Pere Goriot's nature is too contracted,<br />
too frozen into its separate cells by long habit, for<br />
the good to leaven it perceptibly. He is a low<br />
type of nature incapable of rising (as all nature<br />
is incapable) above its own sphere, but the one<br />
good quality does raise him to the extreme bounds<br />
of his sphere, and he dies by so cruel a martyrdom<br />
that we are ready to forget his infamous greed.<br />
He is a character with one talent, and he uses it.<br />
Pere Goriot is not likely to attract the optimist;<br />
however, there is nature and idealism in the sketch<br />
of him all the same.<br />
A certain "snobbishness" and want of taste has<br />
been charged against Balzac, because his leaders<br />
of society are guilty of impertinences and want of<br />
refined feeling. The usually adverse Sainte Beuve<br />
testifies that these characters are extraordinarily<br />
like contemporary life at the time, and then Balzac<br />
does not necessarily approve of what he describes.<br />
In many of the cases specially noticed, his critics<br />
are deceived by his power of concealment. It is<br />
to fall into the error of which he is accused, to<br />
imagine that perfection in etiquette or a prominent<br />
position in society ensure perfect gentleness of<br />
mind.<br />
Lastly, the monarchismand Catholicism of Balzac<br />
are said to be mere affectations. Passages are<br />
quoted to prove this. The Abbe, tutor to de Marsay<br />
in "Ferragus," is even regarded as a type of<br />
Balzac's priest. Even that most brilliant and<br />
convincing of critics, Mr. Henry James, cannot<br />
make us consider this quite fair. Balzac has<br />
explicitly declared that he wrote as a monarchist<br />
and a Catholic. There are strong expressions of<br />
reverence in his writing for both the throne and the<br />
Church; no word is found disrespectful to religion<br />
or the family. If the philosophy of Louis Lambert<br />
is incompatible with Christian Philosophy, which<br />
I am not prepared to maintain, it is purely specu-<br />
lative, and has not the evidential value of distinct<br />
purpose.<br />
As a race devoted to licence in politics and<br />
religion, we may regret the lack of it in so compre-<br />
hensivea mind as Balzac's; but by isolating passages<br />
in his writing and reading in our own meanings at<br />
variance with his expressed purpose, we shall neither<br />
do justice to their artistic merit nor arrive at a<br />
true knowledge of their philosophy.<br />
William Wilson.<br />
*<br />
TARSTOW, DENVER AND COM-<br />
PANY, LIMITED.<br />
THE author is getting on. Here we have<br />
before us the most practical realisation of<br />
our statements that literary property is<br />
real, and should meet with the same business-like<br />
treatment that other forms of property meet with<br />
as a matter of course. For is not Tarstow, Denver<br />
and Company, Limited, a business-like affair with<br />
a business-like prospectus, and a capital of<br />
jQ 10,000 to be divided in orthodox manner into<br />
Deferred, Preferred, and Founders' Shares, and<br />
are not its objects the publication of the works of<br />
one novelist and the arrangement of a literary<br />
syndicate for the supply to newspapers and maga-<br />
zines of novels and other material?<br />
When we look back upon our own earlier circu-<br />
lars and remember how hopeless, in days gone by,<br />
it would have seemed to us to attempt to persuade<br />
anyone that there might be as much money in a<br />
good novel as in a good pill, and that the business<br />
treatment of each might, with advantage, be made<br />
more similar; when we recall our own interest in<br />
a syndicate for the supply of newspapers, and our<br />
own idea—still present to us—of some profit-<br />
sharing scheme for the benefit of our members, it<br />
seems almost cantankerous to reflect upon Tarstow,<br />
Denver and Company, Limited, in terms of anything<br />
short of praise.<br />
Yet, from the perusal of the prospectus, we are<br />
constrained to prophesy badly for the future of this<br />
concern.<br />
The following are the chief advantages offered<br />
to the shareholders :—<br />
(1) The copyrights of the "J.E.M." guide-<br />
books.<br />
(2) The profits of a syndicate for the supply of<br />
novels and other literary matter by well<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 244 (#292) ############################################<br />
<br />
244<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
known authors to newspapers and maga-<br />
zines.<br />
(3) The copyrights of twelve romances.<br />
We should like to say a few words about each.<br />
(1) The money value of the copyrights of the<br />
J.E.M. guide-books has been estimated by a<br />
person of experience, and we are bound to presume<br />
that he had before him all the necessary data, but<br />
we do not find that a statement made in the<br />
prospectus is borne out either by the literary<br />
agent's estimate or our own personal experience as<br />
to the value of different forms of literary property.<br />
It is said in the prospectus that guide-books pay<br />
almost better than any other class of books. On<br />
this we have to remark first, that in some cases the<br />
receipts obtained from the sale of guide-books are<br />
1 irge, these are the cases where the expense to be<br />
incurred to make the production accurate and up<br />
to date, will be proportionately large; and secondly,<br />
that the number of guide-books which achieve<br />
substantial success is very small in comparison<br />
with the numbers issued. For each of which<br />
reasons we demur at the statement that they form<br />
a valuable class of books. If anyone has private<br />
information concerning the sale of the J.E.M.<br />
guide-books, such a person can act on his<br />
judgment, but to the ordinary public this would<br />
not be a safe guide on this subject.<br />
(2) There are large profits to be made by the<br />
syndicating of the works of certain authors, but<br />
not by the syndicating of the works of the writer in<br />
general. Now Tarstow, Denver and Company,<br />
Limited, has, we gather from the prospectus, arisen<br />
from the ashes of " The Authors' Co-operative Pub-<br />
lishing Company, Limited," and this latter Company<br />
published a list of certain of their clients whose<br />
work was available for syndicating purposes. In<br />
the absence from Tarstow, Denver and Company's<br />
prospectus of all mention of the well-known names<br />
upon whom it is proposed to rely, it is difficult not<br />
to come to the conclusion that the authors whose<br />
works are to be syndicated are those mentioned in<br />
the Authors' Co-operative Publishing Company,<br />
Limited's list. Now this list did not consist of<br />
well-known authors. There were in it one or two<br />
good names and one or two more or less familiar<br />
names, but, as a whole, the gentlemen and ladies<br />
who were ready to supply work in serial form<br />
through the agency of the Authors' Co-operative<br />
Publishing Company, Limited, were not well-<br />
known authors. If it is to these authors that the<br />
prospectus of Tarstow, Denver and Company,<br />
Limited, refers, then, having recollection of the<br />
great practical difficulty in finding a serial market<br />
for any but the work of the very best known<br />
people, we respectfully submit that the chances<br />
of large profits to the shareholders are very poor.<br />
(3) The Company are to acquire the copy-<br />
rights of twelve romances by a certain author.<br />
Here we are face to face with a difficulty.<br />
Romances are a valuable property, and do not<br />
require either the accurate attention or the careful<br />
revision, editing, and bringing up to date which<br />
must be so annoying to the author of a guide-book;<br />
but it is with romances as it is with guide-books—if<br />
they are not good the public won't have them, and<br />
if they are not by a well-known name the public<br />
won't look at them.<br />
To which class do these twelve romances<br />
belong :—to either? to neither? to both?<br />
We do not speak in the least bit other than<br />
most courteously, but if the author writes under<br />
the name given in the circular he has not a<br />
well-known name; and to the best of our belief<br />
has not under that name given to the public as yet<br />
a good book. If, however, he writes under a<br />
nom-de-plume it is a different case entirely, and he<br />
may be the popular author of admirable romances;<br />
but then how does he come to have twelve on<br />
hand? We make bold to say that Miss Braddon<br />
and Mrs. Oliphant never yet got so far ahead of<br />
their market and their printer. The directors<br />
ought to take the investor more into their confi-<br />
dence, but in the absence of information on the<br />
subject we must examine this matter for ourselves.<br />
Either this author has tried to dispose of these<br />
romances in book form, and has not met with<br />
encouragement from the purblind publisher, and<br />
in that case we make bold to say that these<br />
copyrights are not worth buying or he has pur-<br />
posely kept his work back from a large and eager<br />
public, so that its value might be enhanced by<br />
the delay. In this latter case it would seem that<br />
he might be disposing of his copyrights cheaply,<br />
and that his best method of repaying himself for<br />
his work would be to take his payment in shares.<br />
If he has not wanted the publishers' money why<br />
should he want the money of Tarstow, Denver and<br />
Company, Limited?<br />
But, after all, these matters would become clear<br />
if we knew the names of the twelve romances<br />
and the places where they could be read in serial<br />
form. The investor is left too much in the dark.<br />
The Society of Authors would only too gladly<br />
recognize with cordiality the success of any scheme<br />
of any sort whereby authors, their agents, their<br />
employers, and their public could be brought to<br />
look upon literary work as property to be dealt with<br />
according to the usual rules prevalent in the<br />
disposal of other forms of property, but it cannot<br />
be conceded that Tarstow, Denver and Company<br />
Limited, hold forth—on examination of their<br />
prospectus—much chance of pecuniary benefit to<br />
the investor.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 245 (#293) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
245<br />
AN ENGLISH ACADEMY.<br />
THE pressure on our space does not allow of<br />
a long letter from Mr. J. McGrigor Allan<br />
being printed in full. He quotes Bulwer<br />
Lytton on the Royal Society; but the Royal Society<br />
of 1891 is a very different institution from that of<br />
1827. Also the same authority on the French<br />
Academy and on the Royal Academy. He con-<br />
cludes :—" Human nature and English character<br />
have not changed since Bulwer wrote. We know<br />
exactly what to expect, if an Academy of Letters<br />
should be established. It would be powerfully<br />
influenced—if not leavened, and actually governed<br />
by Royalty, Aristocracy, and the Clergy. The<br />
Republic of Letters would be heavily handicapped.<br />
A British Forty of Bishops, Historians, Poets,<br />
Essayists, Moral Philosophers, Philologists, and<br />
Scientists might not deign to recognise even a first-<br />
rate novelist as a man, or woman of letters. To<br />
many such, a popular novelist would hardly be<br />
known by report. Horace Walpole relates that<br />
Bishop Warburton recommended 'Tristram<br />
Shandy' to the Bench of Bishops, saying that the<br />
author was the English Rabelais. They had never<br />
heard of such a writer! An Oxford Professor<br />
thought Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' a religious<br />
work! In a Literary Academy, Clerical influence<br />
would be against novelists. Novels are denounced<br />
from the pulpit. Yet wise preachers recommended<br />
Richardson's novels. The most philosophical of<br />
French novelists, Balzac, was not a member of the<br />
Academy. If I am correct in thinking that an<br />
English Literary Academy (while welcoming<br />
princes and dukes) would hardly admit a Walter<br />
Scott, Literature would lose far more than it<br />
would gain, by establishing an English Academy of<br />
Letters."<br />
*<br />
THE EXCHANGE OF BOOKS.<br />
IN the Author tor June of last year, a suggestion<br />
was made that we might organize a kind of<br />
Book Exchange. It was there pointed out<br />
that some men are constantly obliged to buy books<br />
for some special purpose which they do not want<br />
any more, and would be glad to exchange. Others<br />
there are who are always wanting to complete their<br />
sets, improve their collections, get first editions,<br />
all kinds of things.<br />
Why, it was asked, cannot the Author give us<br />
space to advertise these wants and wares? Why<br />
not? If the idea seems practical, and one which<br />
might be taken up with advantage, let it be carried<br />
out. Will those who are ready to make trial send<br />
me their lists? They should be two-fold, thus—<br />
c. Books wanted.<br />
2. Books to exchange or to sell. The price<br />
should be stated.<br />
Names, but not for publication, should accom-<br />
pany the list.<br />
*<br />
IN GRUB STREET.<br />
AUTHORS may be interested to know that<br />
the movement set on foot at Mr. Henry<br />
Blackburn's Art School in Victoria Street,<br />
to give information as to the best way to draw for<br />
reproduction in the press, is now thoroughly estab-<br />
lished. A considerable number of students have<br />
qualified themselves according to their ability, for<br />
drawing for the press, and more than one author of<br />
note has mastered the technique of book illustration.<br />
But Mr. Henry Blackburn's greatest prize in his<br />
school is a real life "art-critic." "At last," he<br />
says, "there will be one reviewer capable of<br />
speaking of the modern 'processes' from personal<br />
knowledge."<br />
The firm of Field and Tuer is dissolved, Mr.<br />
Field retiring. Mr. Andrew W. Tuer will continue<br />
the publishing and printing businesses, &c, undo<br />
the style of the Leadenhall Press.<br />
Messrs. Bentley have just issued a novel by Mr.<br />
Egerton Castle, under the title of "Consequences."<br />
Mr. Castle is well-known as a skilful swordsman<br />
and also as a writer on swordsmanship. His<br />
"Masters of Fence" is highly thought of by the<br />
comparatively small circle of readers competent to<br />
express an opinion; such a work and his biblio-<br />
graphy of fencing appended to Mr. W. H. Pollock<br />
and Mr. Grove's " Fencing" volume of the Bad-<br />
minton Library showed that a master of fence<br />
may be at the same time an antiquarian and a<br />
scholar. Readers who had the good fortune to<br />
light on a short story which Mr. Castle contributed<br />
some time ago to the Cornhill will not be<br />
surprised if he wins laurels on a larger field.<br />
Mr. Lockwood, speaking the other day on<br />
literature at the Graphic dinner, expressed himself<br />
profoundly sensible of the truth of the proverb,<br />
that " the pen is mightier than the sword." His<br />
experience of the sword, however, he went on to<br />
confess, was limited. It seems he had to wear one<br />
once at a Mansion House Dinner.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 246 (#294) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
It would be invidious to inquire as regards :he<br />
obituary of the rear 18^0. 'whether the year has<br />
given us as much as it has taken away. Half-a-<br />
dozen future geniuses may have been bom. and<br />
it would be premature to prophesy irr.rnGruiliry cr<br />
oblivion for this or that work. Many may have<br />
h/een overestimated, many great bocks may have<br />
been passed over. Even ailowir.g for this, however,<br />
it cannot be said to have been an annus miraiuis.<br />
Of course everyone has been occupied with mere<br />
important subjects than literature. Cannibalism,<br />
libel actions, divorce suits, ecclesiastical persecu-<br />
tion, and a thousand other burning topics have taken<br />
up everyone's time. Curiously enough poetry has<br />
come out the best Setting aside the work of those<br />
already famous, there has been some excellent<br />
verses from recent hands this last year. Much of it<br />
should find a place in some future England's<br />
Helicon.<br />
To find the annus mirabilis of English literature<br />
one must go back to the fifties. Take 1855. In<br />
tliat excellent catalogue of Mr. Henry Morley's,<br />
"A Sketch of English Literature,'' he gives, among<br />
others, the following as all issued in this remarkable<br />
year: Robert Browning, "Men and Women";<br />
Alfred Tennyson, "Maud"; Dickens, "Little<br />
Dorrit"; Thackeray, "The Rose and the Ring";<br />
Charles Kingsley, "Westward Hoi"; George<br />
Meredith, "shaving of Shagpat"; Leigh Hunt,<br />
"Old Court Suburb"; Anthony Trollope, "The<br />
Warden"; Matthew Arnold. "Poems"; and the<br />
Saturday Review was established. '58, '59, '62, '64,<br />
wctc also extraordinary for the number and excel-<br />
lence of great works. The Saturday Review was<br />
a contribution to literature no less than journalism.<br />
As a Radical remarked the other day, the Times<br />
and the Saturday Review are the two best papers<br />
in the world.<br />
The public have a right, perhaps, to expect some-<br />
thing ever new and delightful from the author of<br />
"A Daughter of Heth"; yet the most sanguine<br />
may well be enthusiastic over Mr. Black's latest<br />
novel, " Stand Fast, Craig Royston." Though pub-<br />
lished at the end of the year, it is rather the book<br />
of the New Year. It will be admitted that even<br />
Mr. Black has never achieved such a masterly<br />
piece of characterisation as that of old George<br />
Bethune. One of the great merits of the book is<br />
its modernity. You feel you have met the sort of<br />
people Mr. Black describes; they are not stuffed<br />
dolls dressed in nineteenth century clothes, with<br />
conversation culled from primaeval Ollendorf. Mr.<br />
Harris, the millionaire socialist, is highly humorous,<br />
hut of minor characters the best is Mr. Courtney<br />
Fox, London Correspondent of the Edinburgh<br />
Chrcnidt. whose sentiments about the nor.hem<br />
capital I must confess to sharing.<br />
Messrs. Macmillan have just issued a pocket<br />
volume of the complete works of Lord Tennyson.<br />
Of course the double co'amn was a necessity, but<br />
why should the exterior be made to resemble a<br />
prayer bock? Surely it was not an intentional<br />
resemblance to defy detection when the Idylls of<br />
the King are preferable to a dull sermon. I<br />
su: 70-e there are people who carry favourite<br />
books about in their pockets wherever they go, but<br />
one only hears of them in romance. Except on a<br />
railway jcumey it is the last place I should put a<br />
bock. For the prevailing passion of compressing<br />
great authors into the smallest space I have very<br />
little sympathy, unless it is to take them to church.<br />
Mr. Walter Scott, by the way, is to be congratulated<br />
on having erased the hideous red border on the<br />
pages of his Canterbury Poets, which disfigured the<br />
early volumes; it gave a very Common Prayer Book<br />
air to a number of not very religious bards.<br />
The new edition of the "Earthly Paradise" in<br />
one volume has long been among the traditional<br />
felt wants. Mr. William Morris is certainly the<br />
third among the sons of light now living. His many<br />
admirers cannot but regret his desertion of the<br />
Muses for very ephemeral socialistic literature,<br />
whose chief object is to promote an earthly other<br />
place. Once I was talking to a follower and<br />
admirer of Mr. William Morris, who was deeply<br />
read in the master's works; but he objected to the<br />
"Earthly Paradise" for two reasons. One was<br />
that there was too much about kings, the other,<br />
a certain passage in which farm labourers were<br />
called by what he thought an offensive name. It<br />
is in one of those beautiful interludes for each<br />
month. I believe it refers to the Roman earth-<br />
works at Dorchester, near Oxford, cut up by the<br />
plough :—<br />
"Across the gap made by our English kinds,<br />
Ami(l>t the Roman's handiwork, behold<br />
Far oft the long roofed church."<br />
If my friend had only read Mr. Freeman's<br />
works, he would have known all about hinds, and<br />
moots, and gemots, which to the uninitiated do<br />
sound offensive.<br />
The Daily News of the 5th inst. devoted an<br />
interesting leader to one of the most interesting of<br />
new reprints. Etonians and Cambridge men, as<br />
well as book collectors, have long treasured the two<br />
small thin volumes of "Ionica," by Mr. William<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 247 (#295) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
Cory, and fortunate possessors of these have always<br />
recognised in him one of the most original of<br />
modern poets, as indeed he was the most rare.<br />
At the sale of the late Provost of King's Library a<br />
copy went for as much as three guineas. In the<br />
anthology of " Living English Poets," the author<br />
was represented by " Mimnermus in Church," but<br />
until Mr. George Allen's republication there has<br />
been no second edition. The wonderful rendering<br />
of the lines of Callimachus from the Greek<br />
Anthology has long been in verbal circulation, but<br />
I do not think it has ever been reprinted. There<br />
are many poems that are new in this volume, but<br />
this will not detract from the first edition, so that<br />
bibliophils need not despair. I believe a first<br />
edition only becomes precious when a second has<br />
been issued. There was more of fulfilment than<br />
promise in "Ionica," and the new poems show<br />
no sign of falling off.<br />
Some American, I hear, is buying up all the<br />
edition de luxe of the Henry Irving Shakespeare;<br />
as a speculation, I suppose. It has not gone very<br />
well so far, but this should make it valuable, and<br />
would please political economists if no one else.<br />
Among many other reprints is the " Hypnoto-<br />
machia Poliphili," which comes out under the<br />
auspices of Mr. Andrew Lang, in the "Tudor<br />
Library," and therefore everyone who is able will<br />
purchase; those who are unable will sell all they<br />
have to do so.<br />
Does the study of Greek, even of the most<br />
superficial nature, benefit a man? Those schools<br />
with modern and classic sides surely will meet the<br />
views of the cheap science and Stratford-atte-<br />
P.owe-French advocates. John Bright is always<br />
held up as a master of English, as one who<br />
knew no Greek, who preferred Thucydides in<br />
translation to the original (with which he was un-<br />
acquainted). But it is not by selecting individual<br />
exceptions that the case is proved. Everyone can-<br />
not know Greek, but if it becomes a speciality it<br />
will not have the influence it has had hitherto.<br />
As Mr. Oscar Wilde said, Bohn's cribs would be a<br />
much better instance than john Bright against the<br />
retention of Greek as a compulsory subject. It<br />
might be a case for an academy to decide.<br />
A new novel by John Strange Winter will be<br />
commenced in Lloyd's weekly newspaper, on<br />
February ist. It is a tale of the Divorce Court.<br />
VOL. I.<br />
A new novel by Bertram Mitford, author of " The<br />
Fire Trumpet," is announced by Messrs. Sutton<br />
and Drowley, under the terrific title of "The<br />
Weird of Murderer's Hollow."<br />
*<br />
CASES.<br />
I.<br />
"T" AST January a certain artistic journal was<br />
I taken over by a well-known London pub-<br />
■*—' lisher, re-named, and re-issued with a<br />
flourish of trumpets in the shape of a list of contri-<br />
butors, containing some of our best known writers<br />
and artists. Thinking this a sufficient guarantee,<br />
I sent a MS. with ten or twelve tone drawings (I<br />
had already contributed to the journal under its<br />
old name). Some time in the early days of 1890<br />
I heard unpleasant rumours, and to make sure<br />
I wrote to the editor, and stating my price, asked<br />
for its return, if unavailable. In May he replied<br />
that the sum was too high, that he did not wish<br />
'to beat me down' if I could place it elsewhere,<br />
but that if 'you care to let me have it, I shall be<br />
glad to hear your lowest price, and perhaps we<br />
may come to terms.' My price being at the<br />
usual rate, I replied that as I could not take less,<br />
I should be glad to have the MS. back. Sum-<br />
mer came; I went abroad, and only in October<br />
did I hear that the review had collapsed. I there-<br />
upon wrote to the publisher for my MS. (a friend<br />
had received hers), and he replied that my letter<br />
had been sent on to the late editor. Hearing<br />
nothing, I wrote again with the same results.<br />
What is to be done? Is the publisher liable?<br />
MSS. may get mislaid, but drawings do not easily,<br />
and they make pretty scrap books."<br />
II.<br />
Another case. "MS. accepted and price stated<br />
by letter. Review ceases to exist. Editor wishes<br />
to return them because they are no longer of any<br />
use (one was waiting eighteen months before the<br />
crash came, for its turn). Is this just? Supposing<br />
I order coals in June, and in December I take to<br />
gas stoves, am I honest in refusing to pay for the<br />
coals, and will the merchant come and fetch them<br />
if I say I have no longer any use for them?<br />
Probably I should be marched to the County<br />
Court under such conditions. Why then should<br />
not editors and publishers be made to pay for<br />
goods they have distinctly bought at a specified<br />
u<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 248 (#296) ############################################<br />
<br />
248<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
price? In the discussion which took place in<br />
the Times touching publishers and authors,<br />
we were told that as the former bore the losses,<br />
they were entitled to the profits. But here are<br />
cases in which the publishers and proprietors<br />
take the profits, and the authors bear the loss,<br />
pecuniary and otherwise, as well as of their<br />
absolute property. It is not the author's fault<br />
if an editor accepts more MSS. than he can use<br />
before the smash comes; and they seem to me<br />
to be the only sort of dry goods which a purchaser<br />
can send back after eighteen months' possession.<br />
In the discussion referred to, one of the writers<br />
spoke of its being "charity" to give an author<br />
more money than he agreed to take, supposing<br />
his work prove a success; but he omitted to state<br />
whether he considered it to be mean, to say the<br />
least, to refuse to pay what had been arranged,<br />
because the periodical comes to an end. It is no<br />
question of extra payment under certain conditions,<br />
but of the sum promised months ago. We hear a<br />
great deal of abuse of American procedure; I can<br />
only say, that in my limited experience, I have<br />
always been treated justly, and in a gentlemanly<br />
manner, by Americans. The cases I have cited<br />
are purely British."<br />
X. Y. Z.<br />
NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS.<br />
Theology.<br />
III.<br />
We have at different times received numerous<br />
complaints from our members, and from authors<br />
outside our ranks, that the behaviour of the pro-<br />
prietors or editors of certain magazines is not only<br />
wanting in courtesy—which may be nothing in<br />
business, but in honesty—which is a great deal.<br />
We have before us information as to the pay-<br />
ments usually made by all sorts of serials, daily,<br />
weekly, and monthly, high-class, middle and low,<br />
to their contributors, and the result has been that<br />
we know which are the just and courteous, which<br />
are the grave offenders, and which are the merely<br />
unmannerly and unbusinesslike. If anybody is<br />
anxious to know what his or her chance may be of<br />
getting paid for contributions to any particular<br />
paper, and how long they may have to wait for<br />
the money, the information can in most cases be<br />
obtained from our Secretary, whose communications<br />
will in all necessary cases be of a strictly libellous<br />
character.<br />
BETTANV, G. T. The World's Religions. 7s. 6J.<br />
Carlyle, Rev. G. Moses and the Profits, 2s. 6d.<br />
DlMOCK, Rev. N. The Doctrine of the Death of Christ in<br />
Relation to the Sin of Man. 7s. 6d.<br />
Dixon, R. W. History of Church of England. Vol. IV.<br />
16 j.<br />
Fouard (Abbe Constant). The Christ the Son of God.<br />
Translated by Griffith. Introduction by Cardinal<br />
Manning. 2 vols. 14*.<br />
Girdleston, R. B. Foundations of the Bible, Studies in<br />
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Kennedy, J. H. Natural Theology and Modern Thought.<br />
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Leckie, J. Life and Religion. 6s.<br />
Newell, E. J. St. Patrick, his Life and Teaching.<br />
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Owen, J. W. The Letter of the Larger Hope. 2s. 6d.<br />
Rankin, J. The Creed in Scotland. W. Blackwood.<br />
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CLINCH, G. Marylelione and St. Pancras, their History,<br />
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McAritiur, Sir W. A Biography. By T. McCullagh.<br />
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Black, William. Stand Fast, Craig Royston! Sampson<br />
Low and Co. 3 vols. y. 6</.<br />
<br />
<br />
## p. 249 (#297) ############################################<br />
<br />
THE AUTHOR.<br />
249<br />
BRAMSTON, M. Dangerous Jewels. National Society.<br />
V-<br />
Silver Star Valley. National Society. 3/.<br />
Boyessf.n, H. H. Against Heavy Odds : a Tale of Norse<br />
Heroism. $s.<br />
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Carew, F. W. No. 747, being the Autobiography of a<br />
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Cobb, T. On Trust. Hurst and Blackett. 3 vols.<br />
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Collins, E. L. Hatlasseh; or, From Captivity to the<br />
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Crawford, F. M. Sanl' Ilario. Macmillan and Co.<br />
Cheap Edition. 35. 6d.<br />
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Dickens, C. Little Dorrit. Crown Edition. 5/.<br />
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Edwards, Mrs. S. The Secret of the Princess. Bentley<br />
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Emerson, P. II., and Goodali., T. F. Wild Life on a<br />
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Goodchild, J. A. My Friends at Sant' Ampelio. Kegan<br />
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Heimburg, W. Was she his Wife? From the German.<br />
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Hutcheson, M. Sjiia: a Shadow of the Nile. y. 6d.<br />
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Tytler, Sarah. Duchess Frances: a Novel. Sampson<br />
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Burnand, F. C, and Others. Short Plays for Drawing<br />
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O'DONNEtx, J. F. Poems. With Introduction by R.<br />
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Palgrave, F. T. Golden Treasury. Macmillan and C".<br />
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