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Full text search for all issues, and other additional search functionality, will be added in 2022. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1890–1914 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context The-Author-Issues Publication Date The date of an event (in YYYY, YYYY-MM or YYYY-MM-DD format) 1891-01-15 Volume 1 Issue 9 Pages Page range in volume 223–250 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18910115 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin Vol. I.–No. 9] - JANUARY 15, 1891. [Price, Sixpence. The Author. THE ORGAN OF THE SOCIETY OF AUTHORS (INCORPORATED). CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Qublished for the Society by ALEXANDER P. WATT, 2, PATERNOSTER SQUARE, LONDON, E.C. 1891. ## p. 222 (#270) ############################################ ii. ADVERTISEMENTS. Messrs. METHTJEN'S NEW BOOKS. By S. BARING GOULD. URITH : A Story of Dartmoor. By S. Baring Goui.d, Author of " Mchalah," "Arminell," &c. 3 vols. \Xearly Ready. By HANNAH LYNCH. PRINCE OF THE GLADES. By Hannah Lynch. 2 vols. [Ifmrfy Ready. By W. CLARK RUSSELL. A MARRIAGE AT SEA. By W. Clark Russell, Author of **'l'hc Wreck of the Grosvenor," &c. 2 vols. [Nearly Ready. THE LIFE OF ADMIRAL LORD COLLINGWOOD. By W. Clark Russell, Author of "The Wreck of ihe Grosvenor." With Illustrations by K. Brangwyn. 8vo. [Nearly Heady. By W. H. POLLOCK. FERDINAND'S DEVICE. By Walticr Hkrriks Pollock. Post 8vo. is. {February. By R. PRYCE. THE QUIET MRS. FLEMING. By Richard Pryce. Crown 8v0. 3*. 6d. [February. By J. B. BURNE, M.A. PARSON AND PEASANT: Chapters of their Natural History. By J. B. Bl rne, M.A., Rector of Wasing. Crown 8vo. $s. [Ready, By E. LYNN LINTON. THE TRUE HISTORY OF JOSHUA DAVIDSON, Christian and Communist. By E. Lynn Linton. Tenth and Cheaper Edition. Post Svo. is. [Ready. Works by S. BARING GOULD, Author of 11 Mchalah" &c. OLD COUNTRY LIFE. By S. Baring Gould. With Sixty—even Illustrations by W. Parkinson, F. D. Bkoi okd, and P. Masey. I-arge Crown 8vo, cloth super extra, top edge gilt, tcu. 6d. Second Edition. l* Old Country Life, as healthy wholesome reading, full of breezy life and movement, full of quaint stories vigorously told, will not be excelled by any book to be published throughout the year. Sound, hearty, and Englt*.h to the core."— World. HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. By S. Baking Gould. First Series. Demy 8vo, 10s. 6</. Seeond Edition. "A collection of exciting and entertaining chapters. The whole volume is delightful reading."— Times. SECOND SERIES. HISTORIC ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. Second Series. By S. Baking Gould, Author of " Mehalah." Demy 8vo. 10s. 6d. [Ready. "A fascinating book."—Leeds Mercury. SONGS OF THE WEST: Traditional Ballads and Songs of the West of England, with their Traditional Melodies. Collected by S. Baring Gould, M.A., and H. Fleetwood Shki'i aru, M.A. Arranged for Voice and Piano. In 4 Parts (containing 25 Songs each), 3*. each nett. Part /., Third Edition. Part //., Second Edition. Part ///., ready. Pari IV., in preparation. "A rich and varied collection of humour, pathos, grace, and poetic fancy."—Saturday Review. YORKSHIRE ODDITIES AND STRANGE EVENTS. By S. Baring Gould. New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo, 6s. [Noio Ready. TWO BOOKS FOR BOYS. Cr. Svo. $s. MASTER ROCKAFELLAR'S VOYAGE. By W. Clark Russki.i., Author of "The Wreck of the Grosvenor," &c. Illustrated by Gordon Browne. SVD BELTON ; or, The Boy who would not go to Sea. fly G. Manville Fenn, Author of "In the King's Name," &c. Illustrated by Gordon Browne. TWO BOOKS FOR GIRLS. Cr. Svo. 3s. 6d. DUMPS. By Mrs. Tarr, Author of "Adam and Eve," "Dorothy Fox," &c. Illustrated by W. Parkinson. A GIRL OF THE PEOPLE. By L. T. Meade, Author of "Scamp and I," &c. Illustrated by R. Barnes. METHUEN'S NOYEL SERIES. Three Shillings and Sixpence. Messrs. METHUEN will issue from time to time a Series of copyright Novels, by well-known Authors, handsomely bound, at the above popular price. The first volumes (now ready) are: F. MABEL ROBINSON. 1. THE PLAN OF CAMPAIGN. S. BARING GOULD. Author of " Mehalah;' 2. JACQUETTA. Mrs. LEITH ADAMS (mrs. de courcy i.aifan). 3. MY LAND OF BEULAH. G. MANVILLE FENN. 4. ELI'S CHILDREN. S. BARING GOULD. Auihor of "Mchalah," 5. ARMINELL : A Social Romance. EDNA LYALL. Author of " Donovan," &*c. 6. DERRICK VAUGHAN, NOVELIST. With portrait of Author. F. MABEL ROBINSON. 7. DISENCHANTMENT. Other Volumes will be announced in due course. j£noltsb Xcaoevs of IReligion. Edited by A. M. M. STEDMAN, M.A. Crown 8vo. 2s. od. A series of short biographies, five from party bias, of the most prominent leaders of religious life and thought in this and the last century. CARDINAL NEWMAN. R. //. Huttott. [Ready. ! JOHN WESLEY. /. H. Overton. [Nearly Ready. UNIVERSITY EXTENSION SERIES. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. Under the above title Messrs. METHUEK have commenced the publication of a series of books on historical, literary, and economic subjects, suitable for extension students and home-reading circles. THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By H. de B. GntniNS, M.A., late Scholar of Wadham College, Oson., Cobden Prizeman. With Maps and Plans. [Ready- A HISTORY OF ENGLISH POLITICAL ECONOMY. By L. L. Price, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxon., Extension Lecturer in Political Economy. [A'ear/y Ready. VICTORIAN POETS. By A. Sharp. [Nearly RcaJv. PROBLEMS OF POVERTY: An Inquiry into the Industrial Conditions of the Poor. By J. A. Hoiisotf, M.A., late Scholar of Lincoln College, Oxon., U. E. Lecturer in Economics. \Ncarty Ready. THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. By J. E. Symbs, M.A., Principal of University College, Nottingham. \Ktarly Ready. SOCIAL QUESTIONS OF TQ-DAY. A series of volumes upon the most important topics of social, economic, and industrial interest—written by the highest authorities on the various subjects. The first two volumes will be— TRADES UNIONISM-New and Old. By G. Howell, M.P. XFebruary. POVERTY AND PAUPERISM. By Rer. L. R. Phelps, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxon. {March- METHUEN & Co., 18, Bury Street, W.C. ## p. 223 (#271) ############################################ (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly?) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vol. I.—No. 9.] JANUARY 15, 1891. [Price Sixpence. CONTENT S; PAGE PACK Conditions of Membership 223 Balzac and his English Critics 24> Warnings 223 Tarstow, Denver & Co., Limited »43 News and Notes 224 Ah English Academy 244 International Copyright ■ »9 The Exchange of Books • • 245 The American Copyright Act 333 In Grub Street =45 A Proprietor-Editor "35 Cases *»7 "The Kinds of Criticism" ■• "38 New Books and New Editions :.. '48 On some Parallel Passages 240 Advertisements ... 250 CONDITIONS OF MEMBERSHIP. WARNINGS; The Subscription is One Guinea anriually, payable on the 1st of January of each year. The sum of Ten Guineas for life membership entitles the subscriber to full membership of the Society. Authors of published works alone are eligible for member- ship. Those who desire to assist the Society but are not authors are admitted as Associates, on the same subscription; but have no voice in the government of the Society. Cheques and Postal Oiders should be crossed "The Im- perial Bank, Limited, Westminster Branch." Those who Wish to be proposed as members may serlH their names at any time to the Secretary at the Society's Offices, when they will receive a form for the enumeration of their works. Subscriptions entered after the 1st of Oc'ober will cover the next year. The Secretary may be personally consulted between the hours of I p.m. and 5. except on Saturdays. It is preferable that an appointment should be made by letter. The Author, the Organ of the Society, can be procured through all newsagents, or from the publisher, A. P. Walt, 2, Paternoster Square, E.C. A copy will l)c sent free to any member of the Society fo.r one twelvemonth, dating from May, 1889. It is hoped, however, that most members will subscribe to the paper. The yearly subscription is 6s. 6it., including postage, which may be sent to the Secretory, 4, Portugal Street, W.C. With regard to the reading of MSS. for young writers, the fee for this service is one guinea. MSS. will be read and reported upon for others than members, but members cannot have their works read for nothing. In all cases where an opinion is desired upon a manuscript, the author should send with it a table of contents. A type- written scenario is also of very great assistance. It must be understood that such a reader's report, however favourable, does not assist the author towards publication. VOL. I. Readers of the Author are earnestly desired to make the following warnings as widely known as possible. They are based on the experience of six years' work upon the dangers to which literary property is exposed :— (1) Never to sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, unless an opportuniiy of proving the correctness of the figures is given them. (2) Never to enter into any correspondence with publishers, especially wiih advertising publishers, who are not recommended by experienced friends, or by this Society. (3) Never; on any account whatever, to bind themselves down for future work to any one firm of publishers. (4) Never to accept any proposal of royalty without con- sultation with the Socie'y, or, at least, ascertaining exactly what the agreement gives to the author and what to ihe publisher. (5) Never to accept any offer of money for MSS., with- out previously taking advice of the Society. (6) Never to accept any pecuniary risk or responsibility without advice. (7) Never, when a MS. has been refused by respectable houses, to pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. (8) Never to sign away American or foreign rights. Keep them. Refuse to sign an agreement containing a clause which reserves them for the publisher. If the publisher insists, take away the MS. and offer it to another. (9) Never forget that publishing is a business, like any- other business, totally unconnected with philanthropy, charity, or pure love of literature. You have to do with business men. ## p. 224 (#272) ############################################ 224 THE AUTHOR. NEWS AND NOTES. THE New York Nation, speaking of the Copy- right Bill, remarks on the curious ideas which have been shown to prevail as to literary property. "They are ideas which one naturally expects to meet with among those who have never known anybody who possessed literary property, or made any money out of it. The notion that there can be property in the expression of ideas, has owed its acceptance in every country to familiarity with the spectacle of authors receiving money from publishers." Exactly the same ignor- ance has long prevailed in this country. People understand property in a book: but property in what makes a book, the soul of the book, they cannot understand. Nor, too often, can he who infused that soul into paper and press understand' it. There are many, very many, still who are willing to take whatever is offered, in absolute disregard of what the honest merchant who buys it is going to make out of it. The spectacle which we desire to present to the world is not that of authors " receiving money," like a dole, and greedily stipulating and sticking out for more, but that of authors negotiating, on business principles, for the transfer, or arranging for the management of property as real as a mine or an estate. The proposed memorial to the late Rev. Henry White has met with a ready response. The sum of £goo has been collected. A stained glass window is to be placed in the Savoy Chapel and a mosaic in the Chapel of King's College, London. The rest of the money will be expended in the en- dowment of cots in the children's ward of King's College Hospital. The memory of such a man as Henry White, who wrote but little, necessarily passes away when his friends are dead. It is well that something should survive to show that there once lived this man whom all men loved. I have received a good many letters concerning the suggested Authors' Club or Authors' House, but I want more, and I keep the question open for another month. Meantime will those who have as yet expressed no opinion be good enough to let me have their views? The case is now fairly before us. We understand what such an institution may do for the cause of literature, and what may be its dangers and difficulties. If either is resolved upon there will be wanted a volunteer Committee of management or, at least, s< me who are ready to do the work of starting the preliminary organization. Will those who are willing to help in this way send in their names? The Spectator offers certain facts of interest to some of our readers. They concern the produc- tion of Christmas gift-books. Twenty years ago, the writer states, that paper noticed eighty volumes of the kind, and devoted seven columns to the task. Ten years ago a hundred and eight were reviewed in thirteen columns. This year there are more than a hundred and fifty brought out by fifty pub- lishers. In twenty years, therefore, the output of gift-books at Christmas has been doubled. The population has increased by twenty per cent, in the same time, which accounts for some of the in- crease. Education, not only of the Board School kind, but of the more liberal kind, has been enor- mously extended, so that the sons of that class which formerly attended wretched private schools now go to great schools like St. Paul's or the City of London, where they get as good an education as if they were at Harrow or Rugby. And the education of girls has widened even more astonish- ingly. This accounts for another part of the in- crease. The Spectator thinks that the middle-class Englishman never buys books except to give away, and that the increase in the number of Christmas gift-books shows the increase of the custom of giving books which are cheap and pretty, and look costly. Well, there is something in the theory. But it is not completely true. The ordinary professional man does not buy books. That is true. Why? Be- cause he doesn't want to read. When he is not at work it is after dinner, when he talks or he takes his pipe. Very often he works every evening, and has no time at all for reading. A doctor in practice, for instance, has very little time in- deed for reading. But his household have; and his boys and girls buy as many books as they can afford. In fact, this common belief that books are not bought by English people is based on nothing more than the two facts that men in active work have very little time for reading, and that their means are too slender to admit of doing much more than subscribe to the library. But, by hook or by crook, the younger ones do get books. Look at a school-boy's shelves. And see the people buying books at the stalls. I will try to get some statistics, if I can, on the people who buy books as a contri- bution to social manners. The Spectator has likewise in purblind fashion begun to teach us what Christmas books ought to be. Now Christmas books mean books printed and published about Christmas time. Five and twenty years ago they meant books or stories con- nected, in some way or other, with the Festival of Joy and Good Tidings and Gargantuan Feeding. That time has gone by. He who writes a tale tq ## p. 225 (#273) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 225 be published for Christmas no longer troubles himself the least about Yule Tide and the feasting. In fact, I think the feasting itself is decreasing every year. For my own part I have had a hand in about fifteen Christmas stories. They have been published in October, and they have no more to do with the Feast of Christmas than with the Feast of Lanterns. The better the story, the more highly finished as a work of art, the better Christmas book it makes. Mr. George Saintsbury's book, or rather the first chapter of it, has been considered in another place. Here is a remark somewhat after the comparative method which he advocates. He has treated not of the greatest men—Scott, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Byron, find no place in his book—but of those who standnextto the greatest. Among them, forinstance, are Crabbe, Hogg, Sydney Smith, Hazlitt, Moore, Leigh Hunt, Peacock, De Quincey, Praed, Lock- hart, and Borrow. These are all very respectable names; they stand very nearly in the first line; one doubts whether we could now find, taking England and America together, a living eleven capable of standing up to this dead eleven. Yet, though we seem to know so much about them, how little do we really know of their work and their personality? Who now regardeth Crabbe? who readeth Hogg? A few lines from the former, a few verses from the latter, are all we know. Moore is read no longer. Leigh Hunt is fading into oblivion surely and swiftly; De Quincey, for a few things that he did, still lives; Praed, for the same reason, still lives; Hazlitt no longer lives in the common mind; Peacock belongs to the library of the student; Borrow has a few lovers here and there; Lockhart, save for his Life of Scott—a large saving—is no more than a name. In fact, the list teaches that a very limited immortality is the in- evitable lot of all but one or two. He, however, who has succeeded in catching the ear of the world and pleasing or helping along his own genera- tion just for his own life, ought to be contented, because he has really achieved a great thing. He who, like Praed, succeeds in getting the world to put one single poem in that Treasury of Literature, which will last so long as the present speech is maintained, has accomplished a most wonderful feat. He is truly blessed of the gods. But for most writers, even of those who seem well to the front in their generation, a strictly limited immor- tality is their portion. And this we should do well to remember. The death of M. Octave Feuillet removes one of the foremost figures in French literature. I VOL. I. suppose that everybody has read the "Vicomte de Camors" and the "Roman d'un jeune homme pauvre." Not so many have read his "Honneur d'artiste," the "Histoire de Sibylle," or "La Morte." But there is hardly any artist in fiction of whom a young writer could learn more. A careful study of his methods should be a liberal education in the art. May we venture to recom- mend it to some of our young writers? —♦ Another death, that of Kinglake, removes a veteran of letters. I suppose his " History of the Crimean War" is a great work, but I have never read it. The reason is that as a lad I suffered, . with all the other young men of the time, such agonies of impotent rage at the sufferings of our soldiers in that terrible Crimean winter, when they were mocked with green coffee berries, boots made of brown paper, putrid tins of beef, and all the rest of it, that I have never ventured to open the book or to read over again the dismal and maddening story. Kinglake to me was always Eothen King- lake. Mr. Louis Stevenson (see Author, November, 1890, p. 166) furnished good and sufficient reasons why one must not too hastily bring charges of plagiarism against a novelist. Mr. Hall Caine, in a story given in the PallMall Gazette oi December 22nd, 1890, gives another warning against hasty charges of this kind. He tells how, when a boy, he saw, sitting in a chamber of an Infirmary, a young woman with bandaged eyes waiting for some one. She had recently been operated upon for cataract; she was ordered to keep on her bandages for a fortnight under penalty of permanent blind- ness; she was waiting for her child, born before the operation, whom she had, therefore, not yet seen. Twenty years later, he wrote a novel with exactly that situation. But he made the mother brave the consequences. In order to see her child she tears off the bandage. Now exactly the same situation was used by the French novelist, Leon Lespes, in a novel written sometime in the thirties or the forties. At the first discovery every one holds up his hands. Plain plagiarism! Shame! Yet with what a plain tale is the resemblance proved to be no plagiarism at all! This was pure accident. Such a thing might happen to anyone who observes a fact and makes it into a dramatic situation. Another danger is that of using the same materials and authorities as another novelist. Suppose, for instance, that two s a ## p. 226 (#274) ############################################ 226 THE AUTHOR. men were at the same time engaged upon separate works, turning on the manners and customs of the early sixteenth century. They would both go to Erasmus—they must. Once there were two novelists engaged jointly upon a romance of the middle of the last century. They agreed upon sending their heroine to Tunbridge Wells. It was not until they had paid a longish visit to the place, and after all the contemporary literature and gossip about Tunbridge had been studied, that they remembered that Thackeray had already made Tunbridge Wells his own. They therefore re- treated and found another place, and began' again. But suppose it had not beeri Thackeray, but another and sbme obscure and unsuccessfiil writer who had thus treated of the place—there would have beeri a fine opportunity for a cry of plagiar- ism. BecaiiSe, you see, there is only one "crib," or set of cribs, for Tunbridge Wells in 1750, and whether it is Thdckeray or Ignotus who wants to use that place at that tinie, he must Use that set Of cribs and ndrie other. "AUTHORS.—Introductionstopublishersand editors, by journalist of standing; commis- sion only on MS. sold; exceptional chance; _H. D. F., Office." The above advertisement has appeared in an evening paper. A member of the Society answered it, stating that he was a writer of some success, but would be pleased to extend his connection among editors of magazines. He received no reply. It is difficult to understand what the advertiser means. As everyone knows perfectly well, an introduction to editors and publishers is never wanted and is of no use. They are almost the only people in the world who want no introduction: Any respectable solicitor requires one with a new client. The best editor in the world wants none. A perfect stranger may go to him and will be received with cordiality if he has anything good to offer. Hdw, then, can a writer be benefited by the "journalist of standing"? Considering this question and waiting for an answer from the advertiser, we advise readers to send their MSS. themselves to editors until they get a satis- factory reply Another advertisement inviting authors to send MSS. to the advertiser which appeared in a leading paper early in October, attracted many. The advertiser called once only, a few days after the insertion of his invitation. He took away a bundle of MSS. and returned no more. Meantime one of those who answered the advertisement, after writing again and again to the advertiser, and failing to get any reply, appealed to the Society. Other com- plaints reaching the Secretary of MSS. having been sent and kept without any reply, the case was laid before the manager of the paper, who delivered up to the office all the MSS. lying in his office. These have been returned to the authors. The others which had been carried away, have since been returned, and an explanation has been offered. From a correspondent:—"Talking of misprints the following occurred to me in my journalistic experience. I had written the familiar proverb, 'Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.' The sporting compositor turned it out—' Take care of the fence, and the hounds will take care of themselves.' It is not only smart, but true." The Times arindunces that the Handbook to the Public Records, upon which Mr. Scargill Bird, the Superintendent to the Search Department at the Public Record Office; has been engaged for some years in compiling, is now finally revised and ready for press, and may be expected shortly. The work is an elaborate catalogue raisonnec of the Public Records: The "National Cyclopaedia of American Bio- graphy " is published by James T. White and Co. It contains the autobiographies of "prominent" citizens of the big Republic, such as mayors and other great men, authors included. Each notice contains a portrait and an autograph; and, in some cases, a picture of the great man's residence: The portraits are little things, costing two or three dollars a-piece. The following is an extract from a letter addressed by the enterprising publishers to an American author, who has forwarded it to us. It will, perhaps, furnish a hint to other enterprising gentlemen on this side the ocean. Every sug- gestion by which authors may be tricked is gladly welcomed by British, as well as by American, enterprise. "We are asked to embellish these biographies with vignette portraits, like those shown ; and they are in such request, we are obliged to restrict them to only the more prominent persons. "We feel that your position and work in the world entitles you to this portrait. There are 6,000 representative persons living who should have portraits, which would require an outlay that no publisher would be justified in assuming. This expense, however, distributed pro rata is so small and we feel that its addition to the biography is so ## p. 227 (#275) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 227 great, that no one can afford to have it omitted. They cost $70 each. A photo process plate, such as can only be printed on special coated paper, cannot be used. This is an etching drawn by a portrait artist of the highest ability, and engraved, so as to retain its vigour and delicacy through large editions. This is what gives the life to the portrait, &c." Such an appeal to vanity, patriotism, justice, and cheapness all combined must be irresistible. There are actually 6,000 "representative" Americans— happy country to possess 6,000great men!—one in every 10,000 souls, one in every 6,oco adults, one in every 3.000 men, one in every 1,000 educated men! If all these, except a remnant, pay up the S70 for what costs $2, there is a little trifle of $400,000 profit for the enterprising publisher. Well, we give it away. Millions in it. But the Author only lives to benefit his fellow creatures. A paper calling itself an agreement has just been placed in my hands by one of the parties concerned. It is a lady. She did not sign the document until she had asked the advice of her bankers, who jhem: selves, she states, also took advice. This is much as if she had asked the opinion of the grocer, who had diffidently taken counsel with his friend the butcher. The result is pleasing, and reflects the highest credit on fhe general intelligence of the bankers and their advisers. (1.) The author paid ^58 towards the production of a work which'would cost about £$0. (2.) She agreed to pay whatever the honest pub- lisher should please to charge for correc- tions. (3.) She agreed to give him a free hand to adver- tise anywhere—in his own lists at a pound a word if he chooses—up to £20. (4.) She agreed to give the man "half the profits." Half the profits! This is a beautiful example of trading on the ignorance of the author. Half the profits! For here is the account as it is pretty certain to be rendered. It must be remembered that, as stated above, the actual cost of prpducing the work will be about £$0. The extreme case of selling off the whole edition is taken. £ s. a. Cost of production, stated at 58 o o Corrections (say) ... <.. 717 6 Advertising ... ... ... 20 o o 500 copies—■ 400 sold, producing 60 press 20 author 20 in stock 500 Loss £ s. d. 70 o o J5 «? £85 17 6 So that on the most favourable chance there can be no profits, and must be a loss. But the loss will very likely be a great deal more. Probably, an account more like the follow- ing will be submitted :— Cost of production Corrections (or any other fancy amount) Advertising (or any other fancy amount) £ 75 11 30 s. d. o o IS 8 6 o 500 copies— 20 sold, producing 60 press 420 in stock 500 Loss... £"6 15 8 £ s- d. 3 10 o ... 113 5 8 £"6 '5 8 This, however, is how the transaction will figure up in the publisher's private book :— £ s. d. Actual cost of production ... ... 4c o o Corrections (say) ... ... ... 1104 Advertising (say) ... ... ... 5 o o Profit to publisher ... ... ... 74 o o By payment of author Ditto for corrections ... Ditto for advertising ... By sale of (say 200 copies) ,£120 10 o £ s. d. ... 58 o o 7 10 o 20 o o •• 35 0 0 £l20 IO O £»5 17 6 This is what one gets by taking advice of people who know nothing whatever about the subject. ## p. 228 (#276) ############################################ 228 THE AUTHOR. We are constantly being asked what royalties mean when they are offered in agreements. Now, in the June number of the Author we gave a distinct statement of what is really meant by the various kinds of royalties offered; a six shilling novel of average length being taken as the basis of calculation. Let us repeat what was there proved. It was shown that a ten per cent, royalty gives the following proportions :—■ For the first edition of 1,000 copies—■ Publisher: Author : : 3:2; For the second edition of 3,000 copies— Publisher : Author : : 3:1; and so on, for which we refer the reader to that num- ber. A practical though rough and imperfect way of testing a royalty is this. For a first edition of a thousand the cost of production may be taken at one-sixth the published price, viz. :—at is. for a 6s. book. The retail price may be taken at T7j, or, to be very liberal to the publisher, at ^. For a second edition of large numbers, the cost of production is about ith the published price: the retail price remains at -^j. These figures can be very easily applied by the reader when his next agreement is offered for signature. After two hundred and fifty years the countrymen of Drummond of Hawthornden are about to erect a tomb over the neglected grave of their poet. It will be the tomb which he himself asked his friend the Earl of Stirling, to place over him. Alexis, when thou shalt hear wandering Fame, Tell, Death hath triumphed o'er my mortal spoils, And that on earth I am but a sad name, If thou e'er held me dear, by all our love, By all that bliss, those joys, Heaven here us gave, I conjure thee, and by the Maids of Jove, To grave this short remembrance on my grave: "Here Damon lies, whose songs did sometimes grace The murmuring Esk. May Hoses shade the place I" I wonder how many living folk have read Drummond. A few of his verses are well known because they are preserved in that collection which is in most English houses, the "Golden Treasury." Readers who feel moved—may many be moved !— to contribute to this monument, may note that Mr. A. P. Purvis, Esk Town, Lasswade, is the Hon. Sec, to whom their tribute may be paid. The Com- mittee is entirely composed of Scottish gentlemen. Among them I see the name of Mr. Andrew Lang —but they will allow the Southron to assist. We have read with amazement certain remarks made in the English Court of Justice by a certain person learned in the law concerning a great French writer. The person learned in the law, going outside his case, which had nothing to do with the works of this great French writer, but only with certain pictures professing to illustrate these works, called the said great French writer a "filthy-minded old monk, who is only considered a classic because he has been dead three hundred years." It is not likely that among the readers of this paper there can be any who want a defence of Rabelais. If to speak words of wisdom for the instruction of humanity for all time is the work one expects of a filthy-minded monk, then is the said person learned in the law a critic who may be followed. If it is a decent thing for an advocate to go beyond his case in order to throw mud at an author whom he.does not understand, then is the above-named person learned in the law a* model for all advocates. To those who do understand this great master, it seems a de- plorable thing that such words should be uttered of such a man by a member of that profession which is generally believed to be not only learned in the law, but cultivated above and beyond all other professions. As regards the pictures, they seem to have been seized with all the zeal which might be expected. Eleven of those seized were ordered by the magistrate to be returned immedi- ately. No one, meantime, has so much as raised the question, how far they really illustrate the work. I have myself been twice to the Gallery, and I dare say I shall go again. Some of the drawings are extremely clever, and some, but not many, seem really to have caught the spirit of the writer. Some clothe his robust pages with pruriency. 4 This is the busiest time of the year as regards publications. It is therefore a favourable time for pursuing our researches into the extent of the alleged "risks" run by those whose business it is to produce new books. My allegation is that publishers very seldom run any risk at all—in the matter of belles lettres, of course. I know very little about the risks, if any, incurred in technical, scientific, legal, or medical works. These, how- ever, are not advertised in the Times. The sheet of the Times before me contains four columns of advertisements, two of which are restricted to books published during the last three months. Let us take these two. The following is the analysis :— (1.) Nine books. Of these five are novels by ## p. 229 (#277) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 229 tried and proved writers; three are on special subjects which appeal to large classss and are by writers whose names command respect; one is a book of travels in a country of which people are never tired of hearing. Result: no risk. (2.) Five books: one a second edition. One a new volume of a successful series. Three on subjects and by writers about whom there can be no doubt. Result: no risk. (3.) Six books. All novels. All by proved writers. No risk. (4.) Eight books. Two books of travel certain to be greatly in demand. Two novels by well-known writers. A book of poems with a well-known name. A book of essays by a name of world-wide celebrity. A large and expensive historical book. Result: one book—the last—which may carry risk with it. (5.) Seven books. One of biography, certain to command an audience. One an addition to a greatly successful series. One of popular science. One a novel by a proved writer. Two books of verse, evidently paid for by the authors. One a translation which seems also paid for. If not, risky, but of little importance. (6.) Seven books. All religious. All by well- known men. No risk. (7.) One book. By a writer of surprising success. No risk. (8.) Eight books. Six books on Art. Two by very well-known writers. No risk. (9.) Five books. One, a novel by a new hand; might seem risky. But it is a reprint, and has already been proved in serial form. No risk. (10.) Fifteen books. A varied list. The sub- ject and writers prove that the books are certain to command success. No risk. (11.) Seven books. Four of tbem are technical, The remaining three are by authors whose names stand very high indeed. No risk. (12.) Five books. Four by very well-known and successful writers. The fifth a well- advised venture. Risk, unless the author takes it, in one case. Thus, out of eighty-three new books and among thirteen publishers we can discover two books only in which there is any risk. These are those who are considered first class publishers. The books are published on a half-profit system and a royalty system. A few, but very few, are bought. But it must be understood that the practice of buying books is rapidly going out. Let us understand, however, what is meant exactly by saying that there is no risk. This: that the publisher, being a sensible man of business, very seldom pays for producing a book unless he sees his way very clearly to at least such a sale as will give him back his money with some return for his own profit. The obituary of the year includes among those who attained literary distinction the names of Cardinal Newman, of whom 1 am inclined to believe that his hymns will give him an abiding place in the English memory long after his Apologia and other works have been forgotten. His great age, his scholarly reputation, his individual character and his position in the Church to which he seceded, all helped to exaggerate at his death his literary rank Dr. Dollinger, Professor Delitsch, the Archbishop of York, the Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. Littledale, Canon Liddon, Canon Molesworth, the Rev. Henry White, and Dr. Adler, are among the divines deceased; Sir Richard Burton, Pro- fessor Thorold Rogers, Professor Sellar, Dr. Schlie- mann, among the scholars and archaeologists; Lord Carnarvon, Lord Rosslyn, Sir Louis Malet, Dion Eoucicault, Alphonse Karr, Octave Feuillet, Chatrian, Adolphe Belot, Charles Gibbon, Gustave Revilliot of Geneva, George Hooper, represent the losses in general literature. There are also many names of scientific and medical writers. No great English writer has passed away during the last twelve months. The paper of the month is "The Light that Failed," in Lippincott. Walter Besant. * INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. I. [The following account of the passage of the Copyright Bill by the House was written by the Secretary of the American Copyright League for the New York Critic.] The passage of the International Copyright Bill by the House of Representatives on the 3rd inst. was by no means wholly unexpected to the Com- mittee representing the Leagues, most of whom know what laborious work has been done in the "campaign of education " that has been carried on since the defeat of May 2nd. This campaign, which resulted in a change of 72 votes, began on the morning after that disaster, when the printed arguments of the friends of the bill were placed in the boxes of members on the theory that then if ## p. 230 (#278) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. ever they would be sure to receive attention. From that day to this, in the face of the hopeless- ness of some of the most prominent friends of the cause, there has been no intermission in the effort to reach the House with argument, and with evidences that the best sentiment of the country demands the bill. Time would fail to tell here the details of the summer campaign, and of the un- expected dangers which had to be guarded against. These must be reserved for the official report of the year's work. It is probably unnecessary after the vote of December 3rd to apologize to those who in August thought that the summons of the Secretary to another struggle was only another cry of wolf. The vote qf last week was to me unexpected only to the extent of a week's margin. It was easy to see upon my arrival ip Washington on Sunday night that the work of the Committee during the recess and especially since the election was bearing fruits. Interviews on Sunday night, on Monday and on Tuesday morning showed a determination on the part of leading friends of the bill to put it through promptly. To avoid con- sideration of a bill virtually at the head of Com- mittee business, would have indicated a hostility on the part of the leaders of the majority which did not exist. On the contrary, it was evident that while the measure was in no sense a partisan one, the LI. Congress could not afford to leave as part of its record the official license of literary piracy. This consideration assured the bill its chance, but not its success, which came from an accession of individual votes on each side of the Chamber. On Tuesday at 11.30, when it was known that the "morning hour" was to be restored that day, pimphlets and petitions of {he League were placed in the boxes of tho^e members whose attitude was not known to be fr.endly, all of whom had received at their homes since the election the arguments issued by the American Copyright League, and those of Mr Putnam, the indefatigable Secretary of the Publishers' League, together with letters supplementing personal appeals. The vote on the question of consideration, 132 to 74, though npt a test vote, was most encouraging, but, in view of the information of the Committee, not surprising. The unworthy tactics of the enemy in filibustering against the Eighth Commandment were maintained with more acerbity than skill or intelligence, and in some cases without sincere conviction. (It is reported that even Mr. Springer, who added to the di-grace of Illinois by leading the opposition, has acknowledged since the vote that the bill was a good one.) These tactics were, however, a gross parliamentary mistake, since they gave Mr. Simonds the best of reasons for moving the previous ques- tion, which was ordered late in the day in a thin house by 106 to 73. This was a test vote and was accepted as conclusive proof that the final vote would occur on the next day, and that it would be largely favourable. It was the opinion of our Congressional friends that the fight was won. On Wednesday morning Dr. Eggleston, Mr. W. W. Appleton and Mr. Scribner arrived, and the work of soliciting votes was renewed. Dr. Eggle- ston, whose laborious work in the cause at Washing- ton two years ago and last year will be remembered, and the state of whose health had deprived the Committee of his services during the summer campaign, though still suffering from illness, could not keep out of the fight. Wednesday's work on the floor was like nothing so much as a fine con- test at football. The copyright wedge was again formed with Captain Simonds in the angle with the ball (i.e., the bill), and with a strong rush line, an 1 with Butterworth as right tackle, and Breckinridge as left tackle, the steady and persistent advance was continued until the goal was reached The great moral victory thus accomplished is belittled by attempting to assign personal credits for it. It is, first of all, a victory for honest public sentiment, and in this part of the contest the press of the country, with one notorious exception, has done an enormous service, in which the Washing- ton correspondents almost without an exception have joined. The laborious service in past years of a few energetic and devoted men must not be forgotten, foremost of whom, for the length and efficiency of his pioneer work, was George Parsons Lathrop. Secondly, it is a victory for a clean campaign of argument, and should inspirit advo- cates of other just causes to depend upon frank approach to Representatives on that plane rather than upon any other. Thirdly, with all the effort that has been put forth in various quarters by authors, by publishers, by the Typothetae, and' others, it would be idle to deny that the chief factor in the fight has been the organizations of the typographers, who, beginning by working for their own interest, have become warm advocates of copyright as a principle. But, as I write, the bill is not yet through the Senate, though it is difficult to entertain the idea of its defeat there for any reason. The remem- brance of Jonathan Chace's wise and gentle championship of it in that body is itself a tower of strength. The calamity it would be to civilization were the newspapers of March 4th, 1891, to announce that the reform had gone by default, ought to stir every reader of these lines to write at once to his two Senators to urge upon them right of way for the copyright bill. Robert Undekwoud Johnson. ## p. 231 (#279) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 231 n. The following is from an American correspon- dent, one of the inner ring in the cause of Copy- right :— "The fight has been short and sharp, and deci- sive; and on the lines laid out by the Copyright Committee. ... It was important to impress on the leaders of the Republican side, who were friendly to us, the fact that this was their last chance of having the Copyright Bill put to their credit. The late elections made them particularly impres- sionable on the side of public opinion, and since the vote of May 2nd we have poured in upon them evidences of the popular strength of the cause. I am not saying that their course was dictated wholly by policy. I believe the organization of our sup- port has been so thorough that had the elections been otherwise the Bill would have passed at this Session. But the Republicans' calamity was our opportunity. Lodge and McKinley have been especially helpful in getting a day. ... It was a pretty fight—much like a football fight under the Rugby Rules. Our men formed a wedge with Simonds with the ball (i.e., the Bill) inside the angle, and they moved steadily forward with each defeat of the evening's five dilatory votes, reaching the ordering of the question after three hours and a-half of filibustering, which gave Simonds the pre- text he wanted for that motion. The first day ended with the success of that vote, making it sure that the Bill would pass the next day. The intermis- sion was like the quarter-hour before the second half at football. After twenty minutes' debate on either side, our wedge again began its advance, un- checked by five dilatory motions, with the result, as you know, of the passage of the Bill by 139 to 95." Ill The American Copyright Act is already producing a shower of letters and articles, which one watches, day by day, hoping for instruction and dreading mischief. Nothing more mischievous and dan- gerous could have been devised than this rushing into print of terrified printers, self-advertising pub- lishers and others, crying out before they are hurt. The only word of wisdom was from Professor Max Miiller. Said the Professor, "Sit down and hold your tongues." All the writers seemed agreed that a deadly blow is about be dealt at English printers. For my own part, I do not believe in the deadliness of the blow, nor, in fact, in any blow at all. At the same time, I think that there is some doubt as to the ultimate effect of the Bill, whether we are justified in clamouring for a clause granting copyright to books in the English lan- guage, only on the condition that a copy printed in this country is deposited—not in Stationers' Hall —but in a Government office created for this pur- pose, is a doubtful question. There are one or two points on the general question which I submit for consideration. 1. We read everywhere that the pirates are smitten with confusion and dispersed. Are they? First of all, they have a stock of hundreds of volumes containing all the literature of Great Britain from the beginning. It will take a very- long time to get through this stock,, and, in fact, no living man will see the end of it, because the copyright is always expiring of modern literature, which then becomes everybody's property. 2. Secondly, suppose, as will certainly happen, that the people hitherto called pirates want to pub- lish new works by British authors. They will not be able to get the best new books because they cannot afford to pay for them. But they will get the second and third-rate books because they will offer a five-pound note for the copyright. Now the author, if he can get nothing better, will generally take a five-pound note. If the history of many cheap editions was known, we should find that many very well known books had been bought up for cheap rights at absurd sums. I once saw a little document—some years ago—showing such a negotiation, between two publishers, over a quantity 0/ copyrights. Among them the copyright of a certain work by a very popular novelist, now deceased, was actually disposed of for five pounds. Therefore, the cheap libraries will have little diffi- culty in keeping up, and the Americans will go on having their cheap literature. 3. Will our own books be printed in the first place in America? I think not. When a book is going to be successful why trouble about the cost of composition? It is a trifle; so many sheets at three-and-twenty shillings—say—it is nothing compared with the manifest advantages of double printing. 4. Then there is the spelling. Lives there a caitiff Briton so vile as to allow, if he can prevent it, his work to appear in his own country, in the vulgar and debased spelling which they have adopted in the States? Let us remember that this is a spelling which destroys the history of our language as told by the growth of our words; that it ruins the familiar appearance of our classics; and that it was only adopted in a spirit of spitefulness against Great Britain. In small things as well as in great, the magnanimous great Republic lias always, it seems to me, been spiteful against the Mother Country. Are we prepared to adopt traveler, theater, favor, and the 01 her abominations? Never. ## p. 232 (#280) ############################################ 232 THE AUTHOR. 5. "But," it is argued, "we must not treat America as we treat France. This is not a question of free trade or protection. We must consider the absolute mischief which may be done to us by the free importation to our shores of printed sheets with their bad spelling and ugly type, and the loss ihey will cause to the printers. They are afraid of us. If they wish to preserve their trade and their spelling they are right, because we print and we spell better and more cheaply than they do. They cannot complain if we guard ourselves. It is not retaliation—it is simple self-defence if we grant copyright only to books in the English language, composed in this country, and registered at a Government office provided for the purpose." This is what is said: The danger is said to be two- fold (1) that American editions will be printed by American printers. Well, if so we are no worse off than before. (2) That American printed books will flood our market. They cannot, I believe, for the reasons above stated. Still, no one knows exactly what is going to happen, and we had better wait and look on awhile, and not suffer ourselves to be excited about possibilities. 6. The letters all pretend to treat the question as an authors' question. This is very humorous. How long will it be before authors will be per- suaded into signing away their American rights as well as all their other rights? And even in cases when a royalty is the basis of agreement. How much more is it a publishers' than an authors' question? Yet Mr. Arnold Forster, who is Secretary, I believe, of Cassell's Company, talks without'a smile of authors foregoing some of their profits as if—poor wretches !—they had much to forego. The recent Farrar-Cassell case let a little daylight into many things. Let us, however, endea- vour to make this an authors' question by keeping American rights in our own hands. Let us do all we can in this direction; but in many cases—perhaps in most—it will become a publishers' question. W. B. IV. The following from a correspondent. "What effect will the American Bill produce? In other words what kinds of literature will be affected by the Bill, and to what extent? First let us con- sider what English books are produced in America at the present moment. According to the Nation of December nth, 1890, the number of books produced during the preceding week was seventy- two. Of these, twenty-eight seem—because one is not sure about two or three—to be written or compiled by Americans. The rest, forty-four in number, are of "foreign," i.e., chiefly English origin. Of these, twenty-one are works of fiction, but three are French or German, and four are reprints. Remain, out of seventy-two books, four- teen—or about one in five—novels written by living English writers. Twenty-three remain to be accounted for. Books of religion, travel, Greek and Roman literature, and general literature, fill up the list. Now, ten of the novels are published at 25 or 50 cents. This price will certainly become impossible unless the reign of the penny novelette is to begin in America. Therefore, out of the ten, only those authors who enjoy any popularity in America will profit by the Bill. In other words, it will only be worth while to produce those works for which there is certain to be some demand. It has to be proved what English authors are in demand. Next, for the first time the American author will be enabled to compete for popularity with the Englishman. If one may judge from certain indications, he will prove a very formidable competitor indeed, both in America and in the country. Therefore, while the success- ful novelist will—unless he allows his publishers to seize the whole increase—very largely im- prove his position, it will become doubly—trebly, nay, ten times as difficult to gain the ear of the two worlds. And some of those who believe that because they have been reprinted in a cheap series, they are therefore popular, will be dis- appointed. "Will better work in fiction be produced—work of better and truer art? I am convinced that this will be one effect of International Copyright. That is to say, those who now rely solely on the strength of situations and the interest of a plot will go on disregarding style and finish. As for construction and dramatic effect they have it already, or they could not succeed at all. But those who aim higher will meet with encouragement from both sides of the Atlantic, wherever there are people of culture able to value style and finish. The success of those writers—headed by George Mere- dith—who, an artist in the highest sense, shows that there are wide circles open to them wherever the common language is spoken." V. The probable passing of the Bill necessitates an- other warning which has been added to the list. No one must now sign any agreement which does not specially reserve American rights. No one as yet knows what these may be worth, but it is at least safe to suppose that a successful book on this side of the Atlantic will be also successful on the other side. Let us, at any rate, assume that it will be successful, and safeguard our chances accordingly. ## p. 233 (#281) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 233 THE AMERICAN COPYRIGHT ACT. 51s/ Congress, 2nd Session. H. R. 10881. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. December 3, 1890. Head twice and ordered to lie on the table. AN ACT to amend title sixty, chapter three, of the Revised Statutes of the United States, relating to Copyrights. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United Stales of America in Congress assembled, That section forty-nine hundred and fifty-two of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as follows:— "Sec 4952. The author, inventor, designer, or proprietor of any book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, engraving, cut, print, or photograph or negative thereof, or of a painting, drawing, chromo, statue, statuary, and of models or designs intended to be per- fected as works of the fine arts, and the executors, administrators, or assigns of any such person shall, upon complying with the provisions of this chapter, have the sole liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing, com- pleting, copying, executing, finishing, and vending the same; and, in the case of dramatic composition, of publicly performing or repre- senting it or causing it to be performed or represented by others; and authors or their assigns shall have exclusive right to dramatise and translate any of their works for which copyright shall have been obtained under the laws of the United States." Sec 2. That section forty-nine hundred and fifty-four of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as follows: "Sec. 4954. The author, inventor, or designer, if he be still living, or his widow or children, if he be dead, shall have the same exclusive right continued for the further term of fourteen years, upon recording the title of the work or description of the article so secured a second time, and complying with all other regulations in regard to original copyrights, within six months before the ex- piration of the first term ; and such persons shall, within two months from the date of said renewal, cause a copy of the record thereof to be published in one or more newspapers printed in the United States for the space of four weeks." Sec. 3. That section forty-nine hundred and fifty-six of the Revised Statutes of the United States be, and the same is hereby, amended so that it shall read as follows: "Sec. 4956. No person shall be entitled to a copyright unless he shall, on or before the day of publication in this or any foreign country, deliver at the office of the Librarian of Congress, or deposit in the mail within the United States, addressed to the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, District of Columbia, a printed copy of the title of the book, map, chart, dramatic or musical com- position, engraving, cut, print, photograph, or chromo, or a description of the painting, drawing, statue, statuary, or a model or design for a work of the fine arts for which he desires a copyright, nor unless he shall also, not later than the day of publication thereof in this or any foreign country, deliver at the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, District of Columbia, or deposit in the mail within the United States, addressed to the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, District of Columbia, two copies of such copyright book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, engraving, chromo, cut, print, or photograph, or in case of a painting, drawing, statue, statuary, model, or design for a work of the fine arts, a photograph of same: Provided, That in the case of a book the two copies of the same required to be delivered or deposited as above shall be printed from type set within the limits of the United States, or from plates made therefrom. During the existence of such copyright the importation into the United States of any book so copyrighted, or any edition or editions thereof, or any plates of the same not made from type set within the limits of the United States, shall be, and it is hereby, prohibited, except in the cases specified in section twenty- five hundred and five of the Revised Statutes of the United States, and except in the case of persons purchasing for use and not for sale, who import not more than two copies of such ## p. 234 (#282) ############################################ 234 THE AUTHOR. book at any one time in each of which cases the written consent of the proprietor of the copyright, signed in the presence of two wit- nesses, shall be furnished with each impor- tation: And provided, That any publisher of a newspaper or magazine may, without such consent, import for his own use but not for sale not more than two copies of any news- paper or magazine published in a foreign country. Frovided, nevertheless, That in the case of books in foreign languages, of which only translations in English are copyrighted, the prohibition of importation shall apply only to the translations of the same, and the importation of the books in the original lan- guage shall be permitted." Sec. 4. That section forty-nine hundred and fifty-eight of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, amended so that it will read as follows: "Sec. 4958. The Librarian of Congress shall receive from the persons to whom the services designated are rendered the following fees: "First. For recording the title qr descrip- tion of any copyright book or pther article, fifty cents. "Second. For every copy under seal of such record actually given to the person claiming the copyright, or his assigns, fifty cents. "Third. For recording and certifying any instrument of writing for the assignment of a copyright, one dollar. "Fourth. For every copy of an assignment, one dollar. "All fees so received shall be paid into the Treasury of the United States: Provided, That the charge for recording the title of description of any article entered for copyright, the production of a person not a citizen or resident of the United States, shall be one dollar, to be paid as above into the Treasury of the United States, to defray the expenses of lists of copyrighted articles as hereinafter provided for. "And it is hereby made the duty of the Librarian of Congress to furnish to the Secretary of the Treasury copies of the entries of titles of all books and other articles wherein the copyright has been completed by the de- posit of two copies of such book printed from type set within the limits of the United States, in accordance with the provisions of this Act and by the deposit of two copies of such other article made or produced in the United States; and the Secretary of the Treasury is hereby directed to prepare and print, at intervals of not more than a week, catalogues of such title-entries for distribution to the collectors of customs of the United States and to the postmasters of all post-offices receiving foreign mails, and such weekly lists, as they are issued, shall be furnished to all parties desiring them, at a sum not exceeding five dollars per annum; and the Secretary and the Postmaster-General are hereby empowered and required to make and enforce such rules and regulations as shall prevent the importation into the United States, except upon the conditions above specified, of all articles copyrighted under this Act during the term of the copyright." Sec. 5. That section forty-nine hundred and fifty-nine of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as follows: •'Sec. 4959. The proprietor of every copy- right book or other article shall deliver at the offipe of thp Librarian of Congress, or deposit in the mail, addressed to the Librarian of Con gress, at Washington, District of Columbia, a copy of every subsequent edition wherein any substantial changes shall be made: Pro- vided, however, That the alterations, revisions, and additions made to books by foreign authors, heretofore published, of which new additions shall appear subsequently to the taking effect of this Act, shall be held and deemed capable of being popyrighted as above provided for in this Act, unless they form a part Qf the serjes in cqurse of publication at the time this Act shall take effect." Sec. 6. That section forty-nine hundred and sixty-three of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as follows: "Sec. 49Q3. Every person who shall insert or impress such notice, or words of the same purport, in or upon any book, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, print, cut, engraving, or photograph, or other article, for which he has not obtained a copyright, shall be liable to a penalty of one hundred dollars, recoverable one-half for the person who shall sue fpr such penalty, and one-half to the use of the United States." Sec. 7. That section forty-nine hundred and sixty-four of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, amended so as to read as follows: "Sec. 4964. Every person who, after the recording of the title of any book and the depositing of two copies of such book, as provided by this Act, shall, within the term limited, and without the consent of the pro prietor of the copyright first obtained in writing, signed in presence of two or more witnesses, print, publish, dramatise, translate, or import, or knowing the same to be so ## p. 235 (#283) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 235 printed, published, dramatised, translated, or imported, shall sell or expose to sale any copy of such book, shall forfeit every copy thereof to such proprietor, and shall also forfeit and pay such damages as may be recoverad in a civil action by such proprietor in any coUrt 6f competent jurisdiction." Sec 8. That section' forty-nine hundred and sixty-five of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, so aniended as to read as follows: "Sec. 4965. If any person, after the record- ing of the title of any map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, print, cut, engraving, or photograph, or chronio, or of the description of any painting; drawing, statiie, statuary, or model or design intended to be perfected and executed as a work of the fine arts, as pro- vided by this Act, shall within the term limited, and without the consent of the proprietor of the copyright first obtained in writing, signed in presence of two or more witnesses, engrave, etch, work, copy, print, publish, dramatise, translate, or import, either in whole or in part, or by varying the main design with intent to evade the law, or, knowing the same to be so printed, published, dramatised, translated, or imported, shall sell or expose to sale any copy of such map or other article as aforesaid, he shall forfeit to the proprietor all the plates on which the same shall he copied and every sheet thereof, either copied or printed, arid shall further forfeit one dollar for every sheet of the same found in his possession, either printing, printed, copied, published, imported, or exposed for sale, and in case of a painting, statue, or statuary, he shall forfeit ten dollars for every copy of the same in his possession, or by him sold or exposed for sale; one-half thereof to the proprietor and the other half to the use of the United States." Sec. 9. That section fdrty-niHe hundred arid sixty-seven of the Revised Statutes be, arid the same is hereby, arhended so as to read as follows: "Sec: 4967. Every person who shall print or publish any rrianUscript whatever without the consent of the author or proprietor first obtained, shall be liable to the author or pro- prietor for all damages occasioned by such injury." Sec. 10. That section forty-nine hundred and seventy-one of the Revised Statutes be, and the same is hereby, Repealed. Sec. 11. That for the purpose of this Act each volume of a book in two or more volumes, when such volumes are published separately and the first one shall not have been issued before this Act shall take effect, and each number of a periodical shall be considered an independent publication, subject to the form of copyrighting as above. Sec. 12. That this Act shall go into effect on the first day of July, anno domini eighteen hundred and ninety-one. Sec: 13. That this Act shall only apply to a citizen of a foreign state or nation when such foreign state or nation permits to citizens of the United States of America the benefit of copyright on substantially the same basis as its own citizens; or when such foreign state or nation permits to citizens of the United States of Arherica copyright privileges substaritially similar to those provided for in this Act; or when such foreign state or nation is a party to ah international agreement which provides for reciprocity in the grant of copyright, by the terms of which agreement the United States of America may at its pleasure become a party to such agreement. The existence of either of these conditions shall be determined by the opinion of the Attofney;General of the United States, whenever ah occasion for such a determination arises. Passed the House of Representatives December 3. '890- Attest: Ebwii. McPherson, Clerk. A PROPRIETOR-EDITOR. HIS methods of gaining a livelihood were simple enough in conception, though somewhat tortuous in their working. He did not seem rich, or even to have escaped far from the clutch of actual poverty, yet, alter his way, He had solved the problem of '"the struggle for life," and had learned how to pass easelul days supported by other folks' weaknesses. He was the Proprietor-Editor of a Society journal, printed on the finest hand-woven paper, and embellished with occasional illustrations. It was, according to its own head-lines (which ought to have known), the chosen organ of "haul ton" yet had but a limited sale, and I was not the only one of the Proprietor-Editor's acquaintances who had vaguely wondered how such an expensively produced and vilely written paper could possibly be made to produce any profits for anybody. And now I know, and the gorgeous simplicity of it all fills me with admiration. The Proprietor-Editor and I were fellow-members of a small club, where the food was excellent and the conditions of membership lax, and it was in the smoking room of this institution, and under the ## p. 236 (#284) ############################################ 236 THE AUTHOR. stimulus of his afternoon whiskey, that he made the following proposal to me. "I see," said he, "that you come here a great deal. You are not busy? Looking for a job, perhaps? How would Babylon suit you? I'm giving it up." I inquired why: also how much the post was worth: and thirdly in whose gift it lay. It may have been that the Proprietor-Editor's whiskey was more potent than usual, it may have been that I seemed to him a complacent, nay, almost an unscrupulous sort of person ; it may have been that he held in light esteem the morals of all the members of our club, but—for this reason or for that—he unbosomed himself to me. "My dear fellow—to answer your questions— the post is in my gift, as you call it. I am not giving it away, however, but I'll sell it to you. It's worth whatever you like to make it worth. I call it a thousand a year. I'm leaving because I want peace. The thing is getting a bit blown on. But you'll be fresh, and you're younger, and it won't worry you. I've got a brother-in-law in the City, a biggish man at the wholesale furnishing game, who wants a partner, and I'm going to him. He thinks my literary attainments will be useful in the catalogues. You know! Calling a little cup- board 'a rose-wood cabinet with inlaid top and claw pedestal (Empire),' &c. I'm getting an old man and I want peace—and literary people are such quarrelsome folk. Now I'll sell you the property right out—prospects and liabilities, copyrights, and office furniture" "Inlaid, with claw pedestal (Empire)," I mur- mured. "And accepted MSS.," he continued, dis- regarding the interruption, "for the totally inadequate sum of five hundred pounds. Say the word, and your fortune's made, and we'll have a split whiskey in honour of the event." I begged for details. "I have always thought," he went on unctuously, "that those for whose chief benefit and amuse- ment a paper is carried on, should be the people who should pay for it. Now the people for whose chief benefit my magazine has been circulated are the advertisers; this is obvious, and I have always taken steps, therefore, to ensure that they should be practically grateful. Again, those who derive the greatest pleasure from reading my journal are the people who write it, therefore I leave my con- tributors to take their pay out in pure, healthy pleasure. I allow no sordid money question to come between me and those whom I am anxious to serve." "You do not pay for contributions, you mean." "Young fellow," he responded, perhaps a little thickly, "I pay nobody. But I like you. There's no literary rot about you, and I'll show you how to be an editor like me." Here he settled himself luxuriously in his chair, and let his admiring eyes rove up and down his podgey little person, from the heavy gold chain across his waistcoat to the new patent toe on the fender. He was not a proud man, but he felt that I must be consumed with envy at his distinguished position in the world of letters. "I pay nobody," he repeated, "but printers are not so easily to be got over; they are generally one's chief trouble. I have had three since I started the paper. The first man I paid, regularly. That was for a very little time, for I had very little money, and I didn't know the ropes as I do now. Then I printed on the nod for two or three months—till he began to get anxious. Then I sent him a cheque for the whole and a bit over. And that's the last that I ever paid him. He allowed me a year's credit after that, as my behaviour seemed so handsome, and at the end of that time he got nasty, so I left him. He came round to me and talked big. He said he should make it warm for me in the court. 'Stop,' says I, 'what's your game? My blood or my money?' 'Why, your money, you little brute,' says he—he was a very violent man. 'Then you'd better sit down,' said I, 'and have a whiskey and soda and talk it over. You might be able to help me get it for you.' He was agreeable, and I put it to him that he must do nothing to spoil my credit, as I could not undertake to pay two printers at once. But I promised to pay him, if he would give me such an introduction to some other printer that I could again get credit. He thought for a bit and then he said, 'Well, you might do worse, and I'll give you a line of introduction,' and would you believe it, the fool sent me to my own brother. Of course that was sheer luck, and you mustn't expect to have that sort of luck often. He said, 'I'm sending you to another confounded Israelite, and I wish him joy of you,' and he wrote a flaming letter about my commercial habits, integrity, and the rest, and directed it to Messrs. Silverton and Co., my brother Isaac's trading name. And I stopped with my brother for one year, and paid him every week ready money for printing. I couldn't even get a week's credit out of him. 'The first day your money isn't here on Tuesday morning by twelve, I stop work on the paper,' said he, 'and it won't come out. If you're ten minutes late with the money, I stop the job.' He's a hard man is Isaac, and he had all this down on paper. One day I was half-an-hour late, I think. 'I won't go to press,' says he, 'unless you give me a five pound note as a bonus.' To his own brother! I had to give it him though. I ## p. 237 (#285) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 237 could not afford to break with him just then. But he's a hard man is Isaac. Don't you print with him. "In the course of a month or so my old printer began to ask. about his account. I was pretty civil with him. I told him I thought it best to pay a bit in ready money at first, so as to establish a credit and get the work done cheaply. He agreed, for he remembered how he had been done clean that way himself. At last he got savage; then he got threatening; then he sent trie a lawyer's letter, and then a writ. I paid no atten- tion till it got to terra-cotta, and then I spoke to my brother Isaac, and he took a hand. 'Did you write this here introduction to me?' says he to the poor chap. 'Yes,' says the man. 'I have always found Mr. Reuben a most satisfactory and punctual man to deal with,' quoted my brother. 'Here, you bring ) our action, and I'll bring mine at the same time.' We heard no more of him. "Then my brother says, 'This is too warm. I'll give you a letter of introduction to the beast who undersold me about the Penny Pilferer. He can come to see by my books what regular pay you are, and I'll show him the good recom- mendation you brought with you to me. It's a pity that such a document should not be used somewhere outside the family circle. You ought to get a year's credit at least out of him—and that's all I can do for you.' I've been with that chap ever since; I haven't paid him a cent yet. But I shall have to do so soon, and that's why I'm leaving." He paused. "Splendid!" said I. "Now about the contri- butors." "Oh, them!" he continued, slightingly, "we generally go in for women, you know. Their cackle is much neater than men's, and their writing is much better. They don't want so much tnone), and it's easier to get them for nothing at all. Most of my magazine is done by my staff—er— my sub-editor does it with scissors and paste. A lady clerk runs about and takes notes of functions; she bribes pew-openers and makes up to house- maids, and so we get our original matter. I—er— write the city article. An outside broker gives me the information, and one of his clerks answers the financial correspondence. I don't pay them; they do it for love of letters, I suppose, and it's nothing to me if their sisters, and their cousins, and their aunts unload on my public. There remains the feuilleton. I advertise for this. One three-and- sixpenny advertisement will generally bring in over fifty MSS., and the stamps which accompany them are always handy for the office." "But how about returning the MSS.?" "I never return MSS. I may want 'em." "But," said I, in my innocence, "you'll have to pay for them, if you obtain contributions like that." "Oh ! shall I ?" said he, finely contemptuous at the idea. "Oh! shall I? I pay nobody, as I began by informing you, until I cannot help it, and there are not many of these people who force me to extremes. Some wait on for months without saying anything. Some begin writing letters to me from the first. Some are polite, some are more threatening; but I answer none, at any rate for months. That alone chokes off two-thirds of them. It almost always finishes the women. I write to a few of the men, under certain circumstances, and tell them that their previous communication was mislaid, that the Proprietor-Editor is now out of town, but that he will certainly write to them immediately on his return. That keeps them going for another two months. Then, if they still keep bothering, I say the paper will shortly change hands, when definite conclusions concerning the return or retention of MSS. will be come to in every case. You would hardly believe it, but that chokes off a good half of the few that remain. This is how it works out. Say forty-five people answer the advertisement, which brings in 30^ worth of stamps at once, and that goes a long way in an office where you don't answer letters till you've got to. Of these two or three people never write at all about the matter, and we never hear of them again. They are the totally inexperienced, and become subscribers to my paper for years, so as to watch the columns for their contributions. They believe that to be the usual method of pro cedure. All the rest will write once or twice at least, and thirty or so will write regularly once a week for two or three months, sometimes, I am glad to say, enclosing more stamps for replies; a dozen of these will still keep on writing after the patience of the rest has been exhausted, and these are the people who may have to be told about the con- templated sale of the property, or the absence of the Proprietor-Editor, before they get thoroughly tired. With the remaining six or so I have to deal further. They will generally call and talk about law, and want to know what I am going to do. They are usually men with sticks. I look at those MSS. They are in all likelihood the only ones by practised hands, being written by authors who have experience of the silly way in which other journals are worked, and expect me to behave likewise. If any of these stories suit my purpose I have them printed, and that's a very practical answer to any questionings about what I am going to do. When they write for payment I say nothing. Then they write urgently, and I say, 'At the end ## p. 238 (#286) ############################################ 238 THE AUTHOR. of our financial quarter, we shall have the pleasure of sending you our cheque in payment of your con- tributions to Babylon at scale prices.' The date you see is pretty vague, and that keeps them quiet for another three months. It is probably now over a year since they answered my advertisement. If they continue to worry I pay them at the rate of half-a-crown a column, and that terminates the transaction, fori can always swear that is my 'scale price.' And that's how to get original contribu- tions. It's simple, certain and cheap, and if you don't mind abu ive letters (I don't) there's not a word to be said against it. But it is easier to work the oracle with women than with men." "And suppose they call and kick up a row?" "My dear sir, I use the strong arm' of the law. I send for a policeman, and have them turned out. Of course my methods occasionally lead to un- pleasantness. For instance, I wouldn't go to the Aborigines Club, even if I could get a story from Mr. Rudyard Kipling for nothing, by doing so. I daren't; I should be kicked. But then I don't want to go. The whiskey's better here, and I hate literary people. Sometimes, when things are very stormy in the office, I take a trip until the storm has blown over. I find such a change very pleasant and by no means expensive. "And now I'll tell you how I work the adver- tisers. I mark out a little tour, and then I write to the best hotels in the places, and inform the owners that the editor and owner of Babylon, 'an influential weekly journal of fact, fiction, society, sport, and finance,' proposes to stay a few days at their hotel, and will feel better able to recommend the establishment if a liberal reduction in the tariff is extended to him. Nearly all the answers I receive are favourable. I go, and I am treated en prince. When I leave I suggest to the pro- prietor that his bill, 'really a small one consider- ing the admirable character of the service and the luxury of the appointments,' should be met by a column or so of advertisement in my valu- able paper. The proprietor almost always ac- quiesces, in which case we part the best of friends. If he doesn't, well, 1 have to pay, and then I don't say anything about his rubbishing public-house in Babylon. He daren't ask me why, for of course I should come the honest, and say that I found nothing in his establishment worth noticing. It would look at once as if he had tried to nobble a fine and independent editor. Oh! it's quite cheap. Before I start I go round among the general advertisers, and get any little thing I want —an umbrella, a Gladstone bag, a travelling lamp, or a rug; these generous fellows are always ready to supply me, knowing that if they do not some one else will, and will get the gratuitous puffs. This kind of thing, you know :—' If any of my readers think of going north in this bitter weather I would advise them to pay a visit to Messrs. So-and-So's stores, and inspect their admirable stock of travel- ling rugs, with patent lined pockets, and reversible india-rubber covering.' It's quite easy to do, and I daresay you could learn to write them quite quickly if you gave your mind to it. The plan, you see, supplies me with subject for paragraphs as well as creature comforts. Quite cheap, as I say, and also quite simple. I believe it's what they call the new journalism. I don't read much my- self, but I see that expression cropping up now and then, and I fancy that's what must be meant by it Well, sir, what do you say to becoming the new editor of Babylon?" He stopped, with closing eyes. "I don't think it's a deal," said I. "Well," he said slowly and sleepily, as he put his glass down empty for the last time before he dozed off, "you know your own business best, but it seems to me that I am selling you a valuable position, and business enough to support it, for a ridicu- lously small sum. I have also told you how to work it, instead of leaving you to find out for yourself. But I daresay you feel you are not fitted for the post." * "THE KINDS OF CRITICISM." "■ "HE full and proper office of the critic can I never be discharged except by those -*- who remember that 'critic' means judge. Expressions of personal liking, though they can hardly be kept but of criticism, are not by them- selves judgment. The famous 'J'aime mieux Alfred de Mussei,' is not criticism . . . There must be, at least, some attempt to take in and render the whole virtue of the subjects considered, some effort to compare them with their likes in other as well as the same languages, some en- deavour to class and value them. And as a con- dition preliminary, there must, I think, be a not inconsiderable study of widely differing periods, forms, manners, of litera'ure itself. The test question, as I should put it of the value of criticism is, 'What idea of the original could this critic give to a tolerahly instructed person who did not know that original?' And again, how far has this critic seen steadily and seen whole, the subject which he has set himself to consider? How far has he referred the main peculiarities of that subject to their proximate causes and effects? How far has he attempted to place, and succeeded in placing, the subject in the general history of literature, i" ## p. 239 (#287) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 239 the particular history of his own language, in the collection of authors of its own department?" These excellent and weighty words form part of an introduction to a book which, in its own depart- ment, that of pure criticism, promises to be the book of the year—Mr. George Saintsbury's "Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860" (Percival and Co.)- This introduction is called "The Kinds of Criticism." It is, in itself, a short Treatise on the Art of Criticism, and it should be printed separately and placed in the hands of everyone who pretends to become a reviewer. It may be, as Mr. Andrew Lang suggests, that critics and reviewers have nothing to do with each other essentially, though accidentally the discharge of their functions may he combined in the same person. Yet even a reviewer can do himself no harm in learning the functions of a critic. How then shall the young man become a critic? First, Mr. Saintsbury tells him, by reading; by wide and careful reading. Not that reading will make a critic, but few are the critics who can be made without it. "For my part," says the author, "I should not dare to continue criticising so much as a circulating library novel"—but there are novels and novels—a man may do worse than criticise a Meredith, and he, too, is "circulated "—" if I did not perpetually pay my respects to the classics of many literatures." In short, the critic, truly equipped, must start from a wide comparative study of different languages and literatures. This is the first principle, the only road to criticism. If we accept it, we understand at once the reason, first, why there are so few critics, and secondly, why women are seldom good critics. For the different literatures must include Greek, Latin, French, and should include German and Italian as well, not to speak of the Hebrew literature, which even Mr. Saintsbury's critic must be gener- ally content to have in translation. Very well, thus prepared, the critic "must constantly refer back his sensations of agreement and disagreement, of liking arid disliking, in the comparative fashion. Let Englishmen be compared with Englishmen of other times to bring out this set of differences, with foreigners of modern tiroes to bring out that, with Greeks and Romans to bring out the other. Let poets of old days be compared with poets of new, classics with romantics, rhymed with unrhymed. . . . 'Compare, always com- pare,' is the first axiom of criticism." After these rules follows another equally useful. "Always make sure, as far as you possibly can, that what you like and dislike is the literary, and not the extra-literary character, of the matter under examination." And yet another. "Never be content without VOL. I. at least endeavouring to connect cause and effect- in some way, without giving something like a reason for the faith that is in you." The readers of the Author are, one and all, deeply interested in the elevation and maintenance of the standard of criticism. The literature of every age, in fact, in great measure depends upon the standard set up by the critics. Where criticism is low and ignorant of better things, unable even to appreciate effort in the true direction, the writers sink with their judges. For true criticism, a point not insisted by Mr. Saintsbury, does not destroy, but builds up: it does not deride ; it instructs. Why is it, for instance, that the modern taste for the best and highest poetry is so much belter than their taste for the higher work in fiction or in the drama? That it is so is proved, first by the excellent critical work on poetry, which is given to the world in the magazines of the day; next by the Browning Societies, which show, if they show nothing else, an intense and widespread love for great verse. One reason lies, one is tempted to believe, in the ineffable incompetence of the ordinary reviews of fiction. The young writer finds no instruction in the reviews which he reads. He never even looks for any; he is content if he gets off without a contemptuous jeer. He knows that he is making an essay towards a fine Art, but he has no guides; those who should lead him are dumb; they do not even understand that they have a fine Art to deal with; his judges do not know the rules of the Art; they do not know that there are any rules; nay, too often they cannot understand that there is any artistic work at all to be reviewed. As a natural consequence the great mass of the fiction put forth is without form and void. Of the ordinary criticism as applied to fiction we will perhaps speak on a future occasion. It is enough here to claim for criticism at its best its educational importance. Mr. Saintsbury's views of the ordinary reviewer are stated with great clearness. "That a very large amount of reviewing is determined by doubt- less well-meaning incompetence, there is no doubt whatever. It is, on the whole, the most difficult kind of newspaper writing, and it is, on the whole, the most lightly assigned and the most irresponsibly performed. I have heard of newspapers where the reviews depended almost wholly on the accident of some of the staff taking a holiday, or being laid up for a time on the shelf, or being considered not up to other work; of others—though this, I own, is scarcely credible—when the whole reviewing was farmed out to a manager, to be allotted to devils as good to him seemed; of many where the reviews were a sort of exercising ground on which novices were trained, broken down hacks turned out to grass, and invalids allowed a little gentle exercise. I ## p. 240 (#288) ############################################ 240 THE AUTHOR. • . . . Of common mistakes on the subject which are not merely silly crazes, such as the log rolling craze and the five-pound note craze, and the like; the worst known to him, though it is shared by some who should know better, is that a specialist is the best reviewer. I do not say that he is always the worst, but that is about as far as my charity, informed by much experience, can go." The present writer has also heard of newspapers when the books are all bundled off together to one man, who turns them off in little paragraphs of half-a-dozen lines each at eighteenpence a book. And yet authors and publishers are such fools as to send their books to such a paper and to expose themselves to such treatment. For one thing, let us take comfort. Books are abused by many reviewers for many reasons. They are never abused—Mr. Saintsbury maintains—for the good things in them. This brief resume of a highly important and op- portune paper must not be supposed to be tendered as an adequate criticism. It is tendered as an introduction and as an invitation. The former is likely to make readers of the Author uneasy on the subject of criticism—perhaps to awaken their con- sciences as to their own sins, because we have reviewers, if not critics among us: the latter as an invitation to get the book for themselves and to read carefully point by point what a good critic should be. * ON SOME PARALLEL PASSAGES. IT has for many years been to me a source of wonder that the many annotators of the text of Shelley's poems should not have noticed that in the fifth song of "St. Irvyne" the poet appropriates, with the alteration of but two insig- nificant words, a complete line from Beattie's "Minstrel," viz.:— "O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave." This line, familiar to all readers of poetry, Shelley transferred bodily to the song above mentioned, where it appears as— "Ah ! when shall day dawn on the night of the grave." A new edition of Shelley's poems is daily expected, annotated by one of his ablest biographers, and it may be that this edition will contain a note on this passage, but no such note is to be found in any existing edition. Readers of Mr. W. M. Rossctti's exhaustive memoir of Blake will doubtless remember that Milton frequently appeared in Blake's visions, and held converse on matters celestial and terrestrial with the imaginative poet-painter. On one occasion, Blake said, speaking of these visits, "He came to ask a favour of me; said he had committed an error in ' Paradise Lost,' which he wanted me to correct in a poem or picture. But I declined; I said I had my own duties to perform." Other remarks made by Milton during these visitations have not been recorded by Blake, but a student of both poets may be forgiven for fancying that Milton would have been justified in asking Blake in what moment of forgetfulness he had written in "The Keys of the Gates of Paradise," the lines— "On the shadows of the moon Climbing through night's highest noon," lines so closely akin to— "To behold the wandering moon Riding near her highest noon," which form one of the many beauties of "II Penseroso"; or why, when penning " King Edward III," he had put into the mouth of his bishop the words— "... the arts of peace are great, And no less glorious than those of war," thereby making him echo sentiments to be found in a celebrated sonnet addressed to the Lord General Cromwell, May, 1652, in which the writer declares that— "Peace hath her victories No less renowned than War."* Landor occasionally complained of the manner in which his poems were treated, and certainly in one remarkable instance two brother bards attempted to beautify their work with a sea-shell stolen from his grottos; a shell which lost all its murmurous melody and glimmering beauty in their hands, and justified his remarks upon their action. But Landor was himself on one occasion a defaulter. The reader of his poem "The Phocceans," a poem published with others in 1802, will find the follow- ing lines— "In his own image the Creator made, His own pure sunbeam quicken'd thee, O man! Thou breathing dial! since thy day began The present hour was always tiiarht with shade!" * Were Landor alive, not the least delightful of his "Imaginary Conversations " would be a dialogue between these two great poets. We learn from that priceless l>ook, Forster's " Life of Landor," that the old lion in his declining days, "picked up some of the writings of Blake, and was strangely fascinated by them," and had this conversation been added to the long list of treasures received from the same hand, the anachronism of making the dead and living ]X>et meet would have been as justifiable as was that which was justified for all time in the poem wherein Landor made Laertes and Homer meet, and bade Homer sing once more. ## p. 241 (#289) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 241 and if iie turns to Wordsworth's "An Evening Walk," written 1789, published 1793, he will find the same imagery— "Alas! the idle tale of man is found Depicted in the dial's moral round; Hope with reflection blends her social rays , To gild the golden tablet of his days; Vet still, the sport of some malignant power, He knows but from its shade the present hour." I.andor's version is undeniably the finer both in composition and sentiment. Blanco White's sonnet, "Mysterious Night," first printed in 1828, has recently been paraphrased in one of Walt Whitman's prose poems. In his "Night on the Prairies," he says—■ "I was thinking the day most splendid till I saw what the not-day exhibited, I was thinking the globe enough till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes. And he adds after quiet contemplation of the stars— "0 I see noiv that life cannot exhibit all to me, as the day cannot, I see that I am to "wait for "what will be exhibited by deith." The "rawest as well as the ripest student" of English literature will at once recognise in these lines the sentiments expressed in White's solitary sonnet of which the concluding lines are— "Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun ! or who could find, Whilst flow'r and leaf and insect stood revealed, 7'hat to such countless orbs thou mad*st us blind! Why do vie then shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life?" In that glorious poem, Charles Wells's "Joseph and his Brethren," which owes its rescue from " the waste-paper basket of forgetfulness," to the energetic action of Mr. Swinburne, will be found lines bearing a perilous resemblance to familiar verses by Words- worth, viz.—' "To me a simple flower is cloth'd with thoughts That lead the mind to Heaven." words which at once recall the concluding lines of the great "Ode "— "To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears." Wells's drama did not appear until twenty years after the publication of \\ ordsworth's "Ode." At the risk of multiplying examples ad nauseam I may add that in Mr. Alfred Austin's "Tower of Babel," Act ii, scene 1, a philosopher named Sidon gives expression to sentiments closely resembling those of King Lear. The gods say Sidon deals hardly with men— vol I ". . . . they make sport of us, Treating us much as boys treat cockroaches They prick us just to see what we will do." Lear, it will be remembered, exclaimed— "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport." A much more grim reflection upon "the unjust justice of omnipotence." Richard W. Colles. * BALZAC AND HIS ENGLISH CRITICS. THE primacy of Balzac in French fiction has at length been acknowledged by English - speaking critics. The recognition of his universal supremacy is approaching, but it seems that it will be long before his proper place as a philosopher and a seer of rare inspiration will be allowed him. It is, however, an encouraging sign that his critics agree on one point, that any attempt at general criticism of his whole work and especially of La Com^die Humaine, is futile, and that any review must be but the slightest sketch. Each new attempt confirms the opinion that we must confine ourselves to commentary alone. It is well for us that Balzac counts among his critics some of the most eminent living writers of English. I cannot, however, consider the clever essays of Mr. Henry James and Mr. Leslie Stephen nor yet of the gifted author of a recent article in the Quarterly, as representing him with great fidelity. Mr. W. S. Lilly unfortunately spoils an otherwise appreciative notice by a most irrelevant inquiry into Balzac's interior religion. Mr. Parsons has written a very trustworthy general review in the Atlantic Monthly, careful and accurate, and free from obtrusive originality. Mr. Thomas Hake has a trustworthy article, "A Realist at Work," in Belgravia. Of more particular articles Mr. Philip Kent's "Balzac's views of the Artistic Tempera- ment," is excellent, and Mr. George Moore's "Some of Balzac's Minor Pieces," if a little dis- connected, is interesting and enthusiastic. The criticisms which I know in English are usually to be relied on for justice of criticism, in inverse ratio to the cleverness with which they are written. It is a remarkable tribute to the breadth and depth of Balzac's intellect that his critics can always find predominant in his works those traits which they are individually disposed to notice. In this he is like the Bible, to which every sect which has arisen since the canon was formed appeals for confirmation T 2 ## p. 242 (#290) ############################################ 242 THE AUTHOR. of its peculiar doctrines. On these controverted points I believe his critics misrepresent him most. Mr. Leslie Stephen denies that Balzac possessed a knowledge of the human heart, on the ground that such knowledge does not exist. He considers individuality so strong in every man that it prevents a writer from embodying feeling outside his own potential experience. He explains Balzac's thou- sand creations as the reflection of the thousand facets of his many-sided self. On the other hand, an evident altruist writing lately in Lippincotfs Magazine, considers that there is no such thing as individuality, and implies that Mr. Leslie Stephen lacked experience because he recognizes it. The fact that Balzac has been largely introduced into England by the school which claims him as their founder—the realistic school divided between M. Zola and M. Bourget—is misleading. He is accredited with the philosophy, as well as the method, of his followers. He is deprived of one of his strongest claims to supremacy in his art, the union of idealism in conception with extraordinary realism in expression. Sheer realism is incompatible with art; it must logically lead to the gross bad taste which disfigures M. Zola's powerful work, the monotonous vivisection of M. Bourget, or the intolerable dulness of their lesser pupils. Literature is limited in its possible subjects; to pass these limitations is to fail as M. Zola has failed, by excess in one direction, and less gifted followers of Mr. Henry James may fail in another. The idealist, misled by Balzac's minuteness, pre- judges that his philosophy is materialistic. The realist has an evident undercurrent of distrust for the idealism which to him is antipathetic and spiritualises his master's creations. The optimist objects to La Comedie Humaine as a wicked parody of the world he reveres. Mr. Leslie Stephen has said, "We don't often catch sight in his pages of God frowning or the devil grinning; his world seems to be pretty well forgotten by the one, and its inhabitants quite able to dispense with the services of the other." The same may be said with equal truth of English society at the present time, for even if the morality of romantic fiction requires it, in actual life at least, a god has no need to advertise, and a devil is too discreet to display his tail. The immorality ascribed to Balzac is in reality that subtlest and most powerful form of morality which teaches by suggestion without di- dacticism. It is strange that his Christian critics should be shocked because he represents evil as apparently getting the best of the bargain of life, and the children of this world, in their generation, wiser than the children of Light. It is also strange that idealists should accuse him of realism when the actor he so often brings to the stake is the perfect wise man. But, on the other hand, it has been more truly said that Balzac is so moral as to be sometimes untrue. In this cross fire of criticism one position has not, I think, been taken, that the object Balzac set before him was itself immoral, that a detailed history of contemporary society is a story too horrible to be told. On this point he might possibly be held to fail as a moralist. Perfect attainment of an end in view is recognized as so high an excellence in art, and Balzac has achieved so much that the morality of his aim is little questioned The historical nature of his work is accepted at the outset, but there are very few critics who do not forget it in the course of their arguments. To keep this steadily in view is essential to rendering him justice, and to obtaining a full appreciation of his marvellous work. It is noticeable that he calls the subdivisions of the scenes not "romans" or "contes," but "e'tudes." The truth of his characters has been attacked, contemporaries adverse to him confirm it, and it would not be difficult to surpass his most terrible examples of iniquity by quoting actual events occurring daily in London. It is quite true that the abnormal is not the ideal. But considering that romance deals with the less rather than the more usual event—with the marriape or murder of its heroes rather than with their downsitting and up- rising. And considering the greater effect that dramatic situations leave upon the mind and memory, it will be found that the proportion borne by the abnormal in La Comedie Humaine is none too great for artistic effect, and establishes no presumption that Balzac misunderstood the nature of the ideal. There is a tendency among brilliant critics to criticise adversely separate studies of the Comedie Humaine, and to apply their criticism to the whole. In this way Balzac is censured for long and elabo- rate details concerning characters of "minor impor- tance. There is truth in the censure; no doubt the artistic value of some of the studies is lessened by digressions, but it must be remembered that the minor character so minutely described in one is usually destined to be the hero of another. To appreciate this arrangement the studies should be read in their internal chronological order, beginning with "Le Martyr Calviniste," and ending with "Comedians sans le savoir." It is impossible to criticise one study rightly without a knowledge of the rest. To discuss the morality of Balzac in detail would require a volume. Mr. Swinburne alone, in a note to his Essay on William Blake, fully appreciates his power as a "master of morals." I believe that he exercises this power at least equally with Shakes- ## p. 243 (#291) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 243 peare, not by interpretation, but as a pure artist by implication; this question the high authority of Mr. Swinburne has decided to the contrary. One study by Balzac is so well known and has been so much criticised that I may perhaps notice a very common misapprehension concerning it. The blind devotion of Pere Goriot is almost always regarded as ignoble, and Pere Goriot as a libel on the heroic character of King Lear. But the short account of his life before the drama begins, gives a clue not sufficiently considered. Pere Goriot is a man of vile character; he has practised the most despicable trade; he has grown rich by usurious corn-dealing in time of famine. He has fattened on the starvation of the poor. He is not a Jew spoiling the Egyptians, but a Frenchman of the people preying on the keen hunger of his own brothers. He has no religion, no education, no morality. But in him is one—instinct perhaps— not wholly evil, his utter devotion to his daughters. (If this had been Shakespeare's work this point would long ago have been seized on and belauded as "a touch of nature " of extraordinary beauty.) Le Pere Goriot's nature is too contracted, too frozen into its separate cells by long habit, for the good to leaven it perceptibly. He is a low type of nature incapable of rising (as all nature is incapable) above its own sphere, but the one good quality does raise him to the extreme bounds of his sphere, and he dies by so cruel a martyrdom that we are ready to forget his infamous greed. He is a character with one talent, and he uses it. Pere Goriot is not likely to attract the optimist; however, there is nature and idealism in the sketch of him all the same. A certain "snobbishness" and want of taste has been charged against Balzac, because his leaders of society are guilty of impertinences and want of refined feeling. The usually adverse Sainte Beuve testifies that these characters are extraordinarily like contemporary life at the time, and then Balzac does not necessarily approve of what he describes. In many of the cases specially noticed, his critics are deceived by his power of concealment. It is to fall into the error of which he is accused, to imagine that perfection in etiquette or a prominent position in society ensure perfect gentleness of mind. Lastly, the monarchismand Catholicism of Balzac are said to be mere affectations. Passages are quoted to prove this. The Abbe, tutor to de Marsay in "Ferragus," is even regarded as a type of Balzac's priest. Even that most brilliant and convincing of critics, Mr. Henry James, cannot make us consider this quite fair. Balzac has explicitly declared that he wrote as a monarchist and a Catholic. There are strong expressions of reverence in his writing for both the throne and the Church; no word is found disrespectful to religion or the family. If the philosophy of Louis Lambert is incompatible with Christian Philosophy, which I am not prepared to maintain, it is purely specu- lative, and has not the evidential value of distinct purpose. As a race devoted to licence in politics and religion, we may regret the lack of it in so compre- hensivea mind as Balzac's; but by isolating passages in his writing and reading in our own meanings at variance with his expressed purpose, we shall neither do justice to their artistic merit nor arrive at a true knowledge of their philosophy. William Wilson. * TARSTOW, DENVER AND COM- PANY, LIMITED. THE author is getting on. Here we have before us the most practical realisation of our statements that literary property is real, and should meet with the same business-like treatment that other forms of property meet with as a matter of course. For is not Tarstow, Denver and Company, Limited, a business-like affair with a business-like prospectus, and a capital of jQ 10,000 to be divided in orthodox manner into Deferred, Preferred, and Founders' Shares, and are not its objects the publication of the works of one novelist and the arrangement of a literary syndicate for the supply to newspapers and maga- zines of novels and other material? When we look back upon our own earlier circu- lars and remember how hopeless, in days gone by, it would have seemed to us to attempt to persuade anyone that there might be as much money in a good novel as in a good pill, and that the business treatment of each might, with advantage, be made more similar; when we recall our own interest in a syndicate for the supply of newspapers, and our own idea—still present to us—of some profit- sharing scheme for the benefit of our members, it seems almost cantankerous to reflect upon Tarstow, Denver and Company, Limited, in terms of anything short of praise. Yet, from the perusal of the prospectus, we are constrained to prophesy badly for the future of this concern. The following are the chief advantages offered to the shareholders :— (1) The copyrights of the "J.E.M." guide- books. (2) The profits of a syndicate for the supply of novels and other literary matter by well ## p. 244 (#292) ############################################ 244 THE AUTHOR. known authors to newspapers and maga- zines. (3) The copyrights of twelve romances. We should like to say a few words about each. (1) The money value of the copyrights of the J.E.M. guide-books has been estimated by a person of experience, and we are bound to presume that he had before him all the necessary data, but we do not find that a statement made in the prospectus is borne out either by the literary agent's estimate or our own personal experience as to the value of different forms of literary property. It is said in the prospectus that guide-books pay almost better than any other class of books. On this we have to remark first, that in some cases the receipts obtained from the sale of guide-books are 1 irge, these are the cases where the expense to be incurred to make the production accurate and up to date, will be proportionately large; and secondly, that the number of guide-books which achieve substantial success is very small in comparison with the numbers issued. For each of which reasons we demur at the statement that they form a valuable class of books. If anyone has private information concerning the sale of the J.E.M. guide-books, such a person can act on his judgment, but to the ordinary public this would not be a safe guide on this subject. (2) There are large profits to be made by the syndicating of the works of certain authors, but not by the syndicating of the works of the writer in general. Now Tarstow, Denver and Company, Limited, has, we gather from the prospectus, arisen from the ashes of " The Authors' Co-operative Pub- lishing Company, Limited," and this latter Company published a list of certain of their clients whose work was available for syndicating purposes. In the absence from Tarstow, Denver and Company's prospectus of all mention of the well-known names upon whom it is proposed to rely, it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that the authors whose works are to be syndicated are those mentioned in the Authors' Co-operative Publishing Company, Limited's list. Now this list did not consist of well-known authors. There were in it one or two good names and one or two more or less familiar names, but, as a whole, the gentlemen and ladies who were ready to supply work in serial form through the agency of the Authors' Co-operative Publishing Company, Limited, were not well- known authors. If it is to these authors that the prospectus of Tarstow, Denver and Company, Limited, refers, then, having recollection of the great practical difficulty in finding a serial market for any but the work of the very best known people, we respectfully submit that the chances of large profits to the shareholders are very poor. (3) The Company are to acquire the copy- rights of twelve romances by a certain author. Here we are face to face with a difficulty. Romances are a valuable property, and do not require either the accurate attention or the careful revision, editing, and bringing up to date which must be so annoying to the author of a guide-book; but it is with romances as it is with guide-books—if they are not good the public won't have them, and if they are not by a well-known name the public won't look at them. To which class do these twelve romances belong :—to either? to neither? to both? We do not speak in the least bit other than most courteously, but if the author writes under the name given in the circular he has not a well-known name; and to the best of our belief has not under that name given to the public as yet a good book. If, however, he writes under a nom-de-plume it is a different case entirely, and he may be the popular author of admirable romances; but then how does he come to have twelve on hand? We make bold to say that Miss Braddon and Mrs. Oliphant never yet got so far ahead of their market and their printer. The directors ought to take the investor more into their confi- dence, but in the absence of information on the subject we must examine this matter for ourselves. Either this author has tried to dispose of these romances in book form, and has not met with encouragement from the purblind publisher, and in that case we make bold to say that these copyrights are not worth buying or he has pur- posely kept his work back from a large and eager public, so that its value might be enhanced by the delay. In this latter case it would seem that he might be disposing of his copyrights cheaply, and that his best method of repaying himself for his work would be to take his payment in shares. If he has not wanted the publishers' money why should he want the money of Tarstow, Denver and Company, Limited? But, after all, these matters would become clear if we knew the names of the twelve romances and the places where they could be read in serial form. The investor is left too much in the dark. The Society of Authors would only too gladly recognize with cordiality the success of any scheme of any sort whereby authors, their agents, their employers, and their public could be brought to look upon literary work as property to be dealt with according to the usual rules prevalent in the disposal of other forms of property, but it cannot be conceded that Tarstow, Denver and Company Limited, hold forth—on examination of their prospectus—much chance of pecuniary benefit to the investor. ## p. 245 (#293) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 245 AN ENGLISH ACADEMY. THE pressure on our space does not allow of a long letter from Mr. J. McGrigor Allan being printed in full. He quotes Bulwer Lytton on the Royal Society; but the Royal Society of 1891 is a very different institution from that of 1827. Also the same authority on the French Academy and on the Royal Academy. He con- cludes :—" Human nature and English character have not changed since Bulwer wrote. We know exactly what to expect, if an Academy of Letters should be established. It would be powerfully influenced—if not leavened, and actually governed by Royalty, Aristocracy, and the Clergy. The Republic of Letters would be heavily handicapped. A British Forty of Bishops, Historians, Poets, Essayists, Moral Philosophers, Philologists, and Scientists might not deign to recognise even a first- rate novelist as a man, or woman of letters. To many such, a popular novelist would hardly be known by report. Horace Walpole relates that Bishop Warburton recommended 'Tristram Shandy' to the Bench of Bishops, saying that the author was the English Rabelais. They had never heard of such a writer! An Oxford Professor thought Thackeray's 'Vanity Fair' a religious work! In a Literary Academy, Clerical influence would be against novelists. Novels are denounced from the pulpit. Yet wise preachers recommended Richardson's novels. The most philosophical of French novelists, Balzac, was not a member of the Academy. If I am correct in thinking that an English Literary Academy (while welcoming princes and dukes) would hardly admit a Walter Scott, Literature would lose far more than it would gain, by establishing an English Academy of Letters." * THE EXCHANGE OF BOOKS. IN the Author tor June of last year, a suggestion was made that we might organize a kind of Book Exchange. It was there pointed out that some men are constantly obliged to buy books for some special purpose which they do not want any more, and would be glad to exchange. Others there are who are always wanting to complete their sets, improve their collections, get first editions, all kinds of things. Why, it was asked, cannot the Author give us space to advertise these wants and wares? Why not? If the idea seems practical, and one which might be taken up with advantage, let it be carried out. Will those who are ready to make trial send me their lists? They should be two-fold, thus— c. Books wanted. 2. Books to exchange or to sell. The price should be stated. Names, but not for publication, should accom- pany the list. * IN GRUB STREET. AUTHORS may be interested to know that the movement set on foot at Mr. Henry Blackburn's Art School in Victoria Street, to give information as to the best way to draw for reproduction in the press, is now thoroughly estab- lished. A considerable number of students have qualified themselves according to their ability, for drawing for the press, and more than one author of note has mastered the technique of book illustration. But Mr. Henry Blackburn's greatest prize in his school is a real life "art-critic." "At last," he says, "there will be one reviewer capable of speaking of the modern 'processes' from personal knowledge." The firm of Field and Tuer is dissolved, Mr. Field retiring. Mr. Andrew W. Tuer will continue the publishing and printing businesses, &c, undo the style of the Leadenhall Press. Messrs. Bentley have just issued a novel by Mr. Egerton Castle, under the title of "Consequences." Mr. Castle is well-known as a skilful swordsman and also as a writer on swordsmanship. His "Masters of Fence" is highly thought of by the comparatively small circle of readers competent to express an opinion; such a work and his biblio- graphy of fencing appended to Mr. W. H. Pollock and Mr. Grove's " Fencing" volume of the Bad- minton Library showed that a master of fence may be at the same time an antiquarian and a scholar. Readers who had the good fortune to light on a short story which Mr. Castle contributed some time ago to the Cornhill will not be surprised if he wins laurels on a larger field. Mr. Lockwood, speaking the other day on literature at the Graphic dinner, expressed himself profoundly sensible of the truth of the proverb, that " the pen is mightier than the sword." His experience of the sword, however, he went on to confess, was limited. It seems he had to wear one once at a Mansion House Dinner. ## p. 246 (#294) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. It would be invidious to inquire as regards :he obituary of the rear 18^0. 'whether the year has given us as much as it has taken away. Half-a- dozen future geniuses may have been bom. and it would be premature to prophesy irr.rnGruiliry cr oblivion for this or that work. Many may have h/een overestimated, many great bocks may have been passed over. Even ailowir.g for this, however, it cannot be said to have been an annus miraiuis. Of course everyone has been occupied with mere important subjects than literature. Cannibalism, libel actions, divorce suits, ecclesiastical persecu- tion, and a thousand other burning topics have taken up everyone's time. Curiously enough poetry has come out the best Setting aside the work of those already famous, there has been some excellent verses from recent hands this last year. Much of it should find a place in some future England's Helicon. To find the annus mirabilis of English literature one must go back to the fifties. Take 1855. In tliat excellent catalogue of Mr. Henry Morley's, "A Sketch of English Literature,'' he gives, among others, the following as all issued in this remarkable year: Robert Browning, "Men and Women"; Alfred Tennyson, "Maud"; Dickens, "Little Dorrit"; Thackeray, "The Rose and the Ring"; Charles Kingsley, "Westward Hoi"; George Meredith, "shaving of Shagpat"; Leigh Hunt, "Old Court Suburb"; Anthony Trollope, "The Warden"; Matthew Arnold. "Poems"; and the Saturday Review was established. '58, '59, '62, '64, wctc also extraordinary for the number and excel- lence of great works. The Saturday Review was a contribution to literature no less than journalism. As a Radical remarked the other day, the Times and the Saturday Review are the two best papers in the world. The public have a right, perhaps, to expect some- thing ever new and delightful from the author of "A Daughter of Heth"; yet the most sanguine may well be enthusiastic over Mr. Black's latest novel, " Stand Fast, Craig Royston." Though pub- lished at the end of the year, it is rather the book of the New Year. It will be admitted that even Mr. Black has never achieved such a masterly piece of characterisation as that of old George Bethune. One of the great merits of the book is its modernity. You feel you have met the sort of people Mr. Black describes; they are not stuffed dolls dressed in nineteenth century clothes, with conversation culled from primaeval Ollendorf. Mr. Harris, the millionaire socialist, is highly humorous, hut of minor characters the best is Mr. Courtney Fox, London Correspondent of the Edinburgh Chrcnidt. whose sentiments about the nor.hem capital I must confess to sharing. Messrs. Macmillan have just issued a pocket volume of the complete works of Lord Tennyson. Of course the double co'amn was a necessity, but why should the exterior be made to resemble a prayer bock? Surely it was not an intentional resemblance to defy detection when the Idylls of the King are preferable to a dull sermon. I su: 70-e there are people who carry favourite books about in their pockets wherever they go, but one only hears of them in romance. Except on a railway jcumey it is the last place I should put a bock. For the prevailing passion of compressing great authors into the smallest space I have very little sympathy, unless it is to take them to church. Mr. Walter Scott, by the way, is to be congratulated on having erased the hideous red border on the pages of his Canterbury Poets, which disfigured the early volumes; it gave a very Common Prayer Book air to a number of not very religious bards. The new edition of the "Earthly Paradise" in one volume has long been among the traditional felt wants. Mr. William Morris is certainly the third among the sons of light now living. His many admirers cannot but regret his desertion of the Muses for very ephemeral socialistic literature, whose chief object is to promote an earthly other place. Once I was talking to a follower and admirer of Mr. William Morris, who was deeply read in the master's works; but he objected to the "Earthly Paradise" for two reasons. One was that there was too much about kings, the other, a certain passage in which farm labourers were called by what he thought an offensive name. It is in one of those beautiful interludes for each month. I believe it refers to the Roman earth- works at Dorchester, near Oxford, cut up by the plough :— "Across the gap made by our English kinds, Ami(l>t the Roman's handiwork, behold Far oft the long roofed church." If my friend had only read Mr. Freeman's works, he would have known all about hinds, and moots, and gemots, which to the uninitiated do sound offensive. The Daily News of the 5th inst. devoted an interesting leader to one of the most interesting of new reprints. Etonians and Cambridge men, as well as book collectors, have long treasured the two small thin volumes of "Ionica," by Mr. William ## p. 247 (#295) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. Cory, and fortunate possessors of these have always recognised in him one of the most original of modern poets, as indeed he was the most rare. At the sale of the late Provost of King's Library a copy went for as much as three guineas. In the anthology of " Living English Poets," the author was represented by " Mimnermus in Church," but until Mr. George Allen's republication there has been no second edition. The wonderful rendering of the lines of Callimachus from the Greek Anthology has long been in verbal circulation, but I do not think it has ever been reprinted. There are many poems that are new in this volume, but this will not detract from the first edition, so that bibliophils need not despair. I believe a first edition only becomes precious when a second has been issued. There was more of fulfilment than promise in "Ionica," and the new poems show no sign of falling off. Some American, I hear, is buying up all the edition de luxe of the Henry Irving Shakespeare; as a speculation, I suppose. It has not gone very well so far, but this should make it valuable, and would please political economists if no one else. Among many other reprints is the " Hypnoto- machia Poliphili," which comes out under the auspices of Mr. Andrew Lang, in the "Tudor Library," and therefore everyone who is able will purchase; those who are unable will sell all they have to do so. Does the study of Greek, even of the most superficial nature, benefit a man? Those schools with modern and classic sides surely will meet the views of the cheap science and Stratford-atte- P.owe-French advocates. John Bright is always held up as a master of English, as one who knew no Greek, who preferred Thucydides in translation to the original (with which he was un- acquainted). But it is not by selecting individual exceptions that the case is proved. Everyone can- not know Greek, but if it becomes a speciality it will not have the influence it has had hitherto. As Mr. Oscar Wilde said, Bohn's cribs would be a much better instance than john Bright against the retention of Greek as a compulsory subject. It might be a case for an academy to decide. A new novel by John Strange Winter will be commenced in Lloyd's weekly newspaper, on February ist. It is a tale of the Divorce Court. VOL. I. A new novel by Bertram Mitford, author of " The Fire Trumpet," is announced by Messrs. Sutton and Drowley, under the terrific title of "The Weird of Murderer's Hollow." * CASES. I. "T" AST January a certain artistic journal was I taken over by a well-known London pub- ■*—' lisher, re-named, and re-issued with a flourish of trumpets in the shape of a list of contri- butors, containing some of our best known writers and artists. Thinking this a sufficient guarantee, I sent a MS. with ten or twelve tone drawings (I had already contributed to the journal under its old name). Some time in the early days of 1890 I heard unpleasant rumours, and to make sure I wrote to the editor, and stating my price, asked for its return, if unavailable. In May he replied that the sum was too high, that he did not wish 'to beat me down' if I could place it elsewhere, but that if 'you care to let me have it, I shall be glad to hear your lowest price, and perhaps we may come to terms.' My price being at the usual rate, I replied that as I could not take less, I should be glad to have the MS. back. Sum- mer came; I went abroad, and only in October did I hear that the review had collapsed. I there- upon wrote to the publisher for my MS. (a friend had received hers), and he replied that my letter had been sent on to the late editor. Hearing nothing, I wrote again with the same results. What is to be done? Is the publisher liable? MSS. may get mislaid, but drawings do not easily, and they make pretty scrap books." II. Another case. "MS. accepted and price stated by letter. Review ceases to exist. Editor wishes to return them because they are no longer of any use (one was waiting eighteen months before the crash came, for its turn). Is this just? Supposing I order coals in June, and in December I take to gas stoves, am I honest in refusing to pay for the coals, and will the merchant come and fetch them if I say I have no longer any use for them? Probably I should be marched to the County Court under such conditions. Why then should not editors and publishers be made to pay for goods they have distinctly bought at a specified u ## p. 248 (#296) ############################################ 248 THE AUTHOR. price? In the discussion which took place in the Times touching publishers and authors, we were told that as the former bore the losses, they were entitled to the profits. But here are cases in which the publishers and proprietors take the profits, and the authors bear the loss, pecuniary and otherwise, as well as of their absolute property. It is not the author's fault if an editor accepts more MSS. than he can use before the smash comes; and they seem to me to be the only sort of dry goods which a purchaser can send back after eighteen months' possession. In the discussion referred to, one of the writers spoke of its being "charity" to give an author more money than he agreed to take, supposing his work prove a success; but he omitted to state whether he considered it to be mean, to say the least, to refuse to pay what had been arranged, because the periodical comes to an end. It is no question of extra payment under certain conditions, but of the sum promised months ago. We hear a great deal of abuse of American procedure; I can only say, that in my limited experience, I have always been treated justly, and in a gentlemanly manner, by Americans. The cases I have cited are purely British." X. Y. Z. NEW BOOKS AND NEW EDITIONS. Theology. III. We have at different times received numerous complaints from our members, and from authors outside our ranks, that the behaviour of the pro- prietors or editors of certain magazines is not only wanting in courtesy—which may be nothing in business, but in honesty—which is a great deal. We have before us information as to the pay- ments usually made by all sorts of serials, daily, weekly, and monthly, high-class, middle and low, to their contributors, and the result has been that we know which are the just and courteous, which are the grave offenders, and which are the merely unmannerly and unbusinesslike. If anybody is anxious to know what his or her chance may be of getting paid for contributions to any particular paper, and how long they may have to wait for the money, the information can in most cases be obtained from our Secretary, whose communications will in all necessary cases be of a strictly libellous character. BETTANV, G. T. The World's Religions. 7s. 6J. Carlyle, Rev. G. Moses and the Profits, 2s. 6d. DlMOCK, Rev. N. The Doctrine of the Death of Christ in Relation to the Sin of Man. 7s. 6d. Dixon, R. W. History of Church of England. Vol. IV. 16 j. Fouard (Abbe Constant). The Christ the Son of God. Translated by Griffith. 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Vol. III. 4.1-. 6d. McAritiur, Sir W. A Biography. By T. McCullagh. Js. 6d. Olii'HANT, Mrs. Royal Edinburgh, her Saints, Kings, and Scholars. Illustrations by George Reid, R.S.A. Macmillan. 21s. STEPHEN, L.,and Lee, S. Dictionary of National Biography. Edited by. Vol. XXV. 15-f. Thornton, P. M. The Stuart Dynasty. Popular Edition. Wrights, H. C. Stories in American History. 3*. 6d. General Literature. Andrews, W. Old-Time Punishments. Hull, Andrews; London, Simpkin, Marshall and Co. 6s. Baker, Lady. Letters to my Girl Friends. Wells Gardner. 6s. Batty, J. The Spirit and Influence of Chivalry, y. 6a. Besant, Walter. To Call her Mine. With 8 Illustra- tions by A. Forestier. Chatto and Windus. 3*. 6t(. Black, William. Stand Fast, Craig Royston! Sampson Low and Co. 3 vols. y. 6</. ## p. 249 (#297) ############################################ THE AUTHOR. 249 BRAMSTON, M. Dangerous Jewels. National Society. V- Silver Star Valley. National Society. 3/. Boyessf.n, H. H. 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Fisher Unwin. 6s. Rubinstein, Anton. Autobiography of. Translated from the Russian by A. Delano, y. Science. Braithwaite, Dr. Retrospect of Medicine. Vol. CD. 6s. 6<i. Gore, J. E. Astronomical Lessons. Roper and Drowley. y. 6d. Gowan, T. W. The Honey Bee: its Natural History. 2s. 6d. Green, E. F., and Severn, W. D. Handbook to Dr. Koch's Treatment, y. 6d. Renan, E. The Future of Science. Translated from the French. Chapman and Hall. l&s. ## p. 250 (#298) ############################################ 250 ADVERTISEMENTS. TYPE - WRITING. I MISS ETHEL DICKENS, TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, AUTKORS' MSS. CAREFULLY TRANSCRIBED, 26, WELLINGTON STREET, STRAND Writings by Post receive prompt attention. I (Over the Office of " All the Year Round"). SCIENTIFIC & MEDICAL PAPERS A SPECIALITY. MSS. copied. Price List on application. MRS. GILL, MISSES ERWIN, TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, 13, DORSET STREET, PortMAN SQUARE, W. ST. PAUL'S CHAMBERS, 19, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. 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Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Author, Vol. 01 Issue 09 (January 1891) Subject The topic of the resource The Author, Vol. 01 Issue 09 (January 1891) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <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> Type The nature or genre of the resource Publication Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context 1891-01-15-The-Author-1-9 publications The Author