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Title A name given to the resource The Author Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em> Description An account of the resource A digitised run of the Society of Authors' monthly periodical, <em>The Author</em>, 1890<span>–</span>1914, made available together for the first time.<br /><br />Currently users can browse issues and <a href="https://historysoa.com/items/browse?search=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=51&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=is+exactly&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=Index&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;tags=&amp;exhibit=&amp;date_search_term=&amp;submit_search=Search+For+Items&amp;sort_field=Dublin+Core%2CTitle">indices</a> (not available for all volumes). 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) 1891-07-01 Volume 2 Issue 2 Pages Page range in volume 33–64 Ngram Date Version of the date in YYYYMMDD format for use by the Ngram plugin 18910701 Ngram Text Version of the text with no HTML formatting for use by the Ngram plugin <I b e Hutbor. (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. Vol. II.—No. 2.] JULY i, 1891. [Price Sixpence. CONTENTS. PAGE "Warning 37 International Copyright — I. Action of Ihe Society 37 II. Note. By R. U. Johnson 3" III. Mr. Putnam'» Hook 39 IV. Extract from thu New York Critic 39 V. Note. By Julian Corbett 40 VI. Queries 4° Some Note* on a Bill. By Rudyard Kipling 40 An Antiquary's Remonstrance 4* Realism in Grub Street. By A. Lang 43 The Turning of the Worm.—A Pablo 44 PAGE Mr. Gladstone on Author and Publisher 45 The Author's Club. By Arthur Moutcllorc 4* Reviews and Reviewers 4° Notes and News. By Walter Besant 4s The Red Mouse. By Charles G. Leland 54 The Book of the Month 5S If Shakspeare had been Priest. By II. Schtttz Wilson .. .. 5» "ContesCrucls" 5° "At the Author's Head *' 01 Similarity of Plot Some Books of the Month '■J "3 EYRE AND SPOTTISWOODE. ACTION OF LIGHT ON WATER COLOURS— licport to the Science and Art Department of the Committee of Council on Education. (With Diagrams and Plates.) By post, h. i irf. PLIOCENE DEPOSITS OF BRITAIN, THE. By Cleur.st Rkid, F.LK. V.G 8. Five Plates (48 cuts). 5*. 6d. LONDON AND NEIGHBOURHOOD: Guide to the Gcolosyof. By Williak Whitakkr, B.A. 1*. LONDON AND OF PART OK THE THAMES VALLEY, The Gc logv of. By W. Wiiitakfr. B A.. P.R.S., F.G.8., Assoc. Inst. CE. Vol. I. DESCRIPTIVE GEOLOGY. 8vo. cloth, 6*. Vol. II. APPENDICES. 8vo.. cloth, <». ISLE OF WIGHT, Geolopy of. By H. W. Bbtstow, F.R.S., F.G.S. Second Edition. Revised and enlarged by Cleme>t Rbid. F.G.S., and Aubrey Steahax, M.A.. F.G.S. 8vo., cioth, 8». M. COPYRIGHT LAW REFORM: An Exposition of Lord Monkswell's Copyright Bill now before Parliament: with Extracts from the'Report of the Commission of 1878, and on Appendix containing the Berne Convention and the American Copyright Bill. By J. M. Lelt, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. i». 61I. STATE TRIALS, Reports of; New Series. Published nnder the direction ot the State Trials Committee. Edited by Joun MicDosell, M.A., of the Middle Temple. Barrister-at- Law. Vols. I. and II. ready. Vol. III. in the Press. Price iof. per volume. "It is for the most part interesting, not to say fascinating, study for anyone, that is to say, who cares about history at all."—Vailf CHINA (No. i). Report, by C. W. Campbell, of a Journey in North Corca, in September and Octolier, iHSq. A considerable jiortion of the narrative contains descriptive matter that appeals to the general nnder. but there arc also many interesting facts tearing u|xui mining, forestry, agricul- ture, trade, and kindred topics, qd. WESTMINSTER ABBEY. Final Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the present want of space for Monuments in Westminster Abbey; with Appendices. qtl. KKW BULLETIN, 1890. Issued by the Director of Kew Gardens. in. io</. KEW BULLETIN, 1891. Monthly, ad. Appendices, id. each. Annual Subscription, including postage, qd. WEATHER, STUDY AND FORECAST OK. Aids to. By Rev. W. Clemext Lev. M.A. i». ROYAL MILITARY EXHIBITION, 1890. Descriptive Catalogue of Musical Instruments recently exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition. Compiled by Capt. C. R. Day, Oxfordshire Light Infantry, under the orders of Col. Siiaw- Hkllikk, Commandant Royal Military School o! Music. The instruments are fully described; they are arranged systemati- cally under their respective families and classes, and a chrono- logical arrangement has, as much as possible, Itetn adhered to. Each family of instrument has been prefaced by a carefully- written Introductory Essay. Musical pitch has not been left unnoticed, and a learned Essay from the pen of a well-known authority upon the subject appears in the Appendix. The book is illustrated by a series of Twelve Artistically executed Plates in Heliogravure, and with numerous Wood Engravings. The issue is limited to 1,000 copies. ai». Monthly Lists of Parliamentary Papers upon Application. Quarterly Lists Post Free, Miscellaneous List on Application. Every Assistance given to Correspondents j and Books not kept in stock obtained without delay. Remittance should accompany Order. GOVERNMENT AND GENERAL PUBLISHERS. EYRE anil SPOTTISWOODE, Her Jlajesty's Printers, East Harding Slreet, London, E.C.  ## p. 34 (#438) ############################################# 34 A D VE R TI SEMEN TS. THE CENTRAL TYPE-WRITING OFFICE, (ESTABLISHED 1887,) 57 & 58, Chancery Lane, W.C. }Ji iitrinnls: Miss M. E. DUCK and JIiss I. B. LOOKEB. Type-writing and Copying of every Description under- taken for the Literary, Dramatic, Clerical, Legal, and other Professions. Type-writing from Dictation a Specialty. Highest Testimonials for Excellence of Work and Promp- titude from AUTHOBS and others. PRICE LIST OJV APPLICATION-TERMS MODERATE. MISS ZFt. -V. aiLL, TYPE-WRITING OFFICES, 6, Adam Street, Strand, W.C, and 5, Air Street, Piccadilly, W. Authors' and Dramatists' Work a Specialty. All kinds of MSS. copied with care. Extra attention given to diificult hand-writing and to papers or lectures on scientific subjects. Type-writing from dictation. Shorthand Notes taken and transcribed. FURTHER PARTICULARS OX APPLICATION. TYPE-WRITING. Authors' MSS. carefully Transcribed. Writings by Post receive prompt attention. Scientific and Medical Papers a Specialty. MISSES 13, Dorskt Street, Portman Square, W. MISSES E. & S. ALLEN, TYPE AND SHORTHAND WRITERS. TRANSLATIONS and Scientific Work a Special Feature. 39, Lombard Street, E.C. Office Ho. 59 (close to Lift). MISS PATTEN, TYPEWRITES, 44, Oakley Flats, Oakley Street, Chelsea, S.W. —**— Authors' MSS. carefully copied from Is. per 1,000 Words. One additional Copy (Carbon) snpplied Free of Charge. References kindly permitted to George Augustus Sala, Esq. Particulars on Application. ASH WORTH & Co., 4, Abchurch Yard, Cannon Street, E.C. — - - - Authors' MSS. type-written from Is. 3d. per 1,000 words. TRANSLATION'S. CITY TYPE-WRITING & SHORTHAND OFFICES, MANSION HOUSE CHAMBERS, 20, Bucklersbury, London, E.C. The Department for Lady Pupils has unremitting attention, as evidenced by the unqualified Success which has attended its management. The Course includes Shorthand, Type writing, Book-keeping, and Commercial Correspondence, and when Pupils have acquired proficiency— POSITIONS ARE GUARANTEED. Particulars on application to— MARY IFt. PAY. MRS. GII.I., TYPEWRITING OFFICE, ST. PAUL'S CHAMBERS, 19, LUDGATE HILL, E.C. Author's MSS. carefully copied from is. per 1,000 words. One additional copy (carbon) supplied free of charge. References kindly permitted to many well-known Authors and Publishers. Further particulars on application. MISSES AIRD & WEDDERSP00N, SHORTHAND, TRANSLATING, and WP8WRITING OFFICES. 4, SUIT COURT, CORHHIIL, E.C. Translations carefully and correctly made. Shorthand and Typewriting Clerks sent out on short notice. Type- writing of all kinds done with neatness, accuracy, and despatch. Special pains taken with Authors' MSS. Pupils trained in Pitman's System of Shorthand, and in Type- writing. All applications relating to Advertisements in this Journal should be addressed to the Printers and Publishers, EYRE & SP0TT1SW00DE, East Harding Street, Fetter Lane, London, E.C.  ## p. 35 (#439) ############################################# A D VERTISEMENTS. 35 CIk briery of Qutfiors (JfttcorporatrtO* PRESIDENT. The Right Hon. the LORD TENNYSON, D.C.L. Sir Edwin Arnold, K.C.I.E. Alfred Austin. A. W. a Becker. Robert Bateman. Sir Henry Behgnk, K.C.M.O. Walter Besant. Augustine Birrell, M.P. R. I). IIlackmore. Rev. Prok. Bonnet, F.B.S. Lord Hrabourne. James Bryce, M.P. P. W. C'layden. Edward Clodd. W. Martin Conway. Marion Crawford. Oswald Crawkurd, C.M.G. The Earl of Desaet. COUNCIL. A. W. Duhourg. John Eric Erichsen, F.R.S. Prof. Michael Foster, E.R.S. Herbert Gardner, M.P. Richard Garnett, LL.I). Edmund Gosse. H. Rider Haggard. Thomas Hardy. Prof. E. Ray Lankester, E.R.S. J. M. Lely. Rev. W. J. Loftie, F.S.A. F. Max Muller, LL.D. George Meredith. Herman C. Merivale. Rev. C. H. Middleton-Wake, F.L.S. J. C. Parkinson. The Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery. Sir Frederick Pollock, Bart., LL.I). Walter Herries Pollock. A. G. Ross. George Augustus Sala. W. Haitiste Scoones. G. R. Sims. J. J. Stevenson. J as. Sully. William Moy Thomas. H. 1). Traill, D.C.L. The Right Hon. the Baron Henry de Worms. Edmund Yates. lion. Counsel—E. M. Undehdown, Q.C. A. W. a Beckett. W. Martin Conway. COMMITTEE OF MANAGEMENT. Chairman—Walter Besant. Edmund Gosse. J. M. Lely. H. Rider Haggard. Sir Frederick Pollock. A. G. Ross. Solicitors—Messrs. Field, Roscoe, & Co., Lincoln's Inn Fields. Secretary—S. Squire Sprigge. OFFICES. 4, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, W.C. PUBLICATIONS OF THE SOCIETY. 1. The Annual Report. That for .January 1891 can 1m; ha<l on application to the Secretary. 2. The Author. A Monthly Journal devoted especially to the protection and maintenance of Literary Property. Issued to all Menihers. 3. The Grievances Of Authors. (Field & Tuer.) 2s. The Report of three Meetings on the general .subject of Literature and its defence, held at Willis's Rooms, March 1887. 4. Literature and the Pension List. By W. Morris Colles, Barrister-at-Law. (Henry Glaisher, g5, Strand, W.C.) 3*. 5. The History of the Societe des Gens de Lettres. By S. Squire Sprigge, Secretary to the Society, is. 6. The Cost of Production. Li this work specimens are given of the most important forms of type, size of page, Ac, with estimates showing what it costs to produce the more common kinds of liooks. 2s. 6d. Out of Print, New Edition now preparing. 7. The Various Methods Of Publication. By S. Sqt'ire Sprigge. In (his work, compiled from the papers in the Society's offices, the various kinds of agreements proposed by Publishers to Authors are examined, and their meaning carefully explained, with an account of the various kinds of fraud which have been made possible by the different clauses in their agreements. Price 3s. Second Edition. 8. Copyright Law Reform. An Exposition of Lord MonkswelPs Copyright Bill now before Parliament With Extracts from the Report of the Commission of 1878, and an Appendix containing the Berne Convention and the American Copyright Bill. By J. M. Lely. Eyre and Spottiswoode. is. 6d. Other works bearing on the Liternri/ Profession trill follow. vol. 11. C a  ## p. 36 (#440) ############################################# ADVER TISEMENTS. The " Swan" is a beautiful Gold Pen joined to a rubber reservoir to hold any kind of ink, which it supplies to the writing point in a continuous flow. It will hold enough ink for two days' constant work, or a week's ordinary writing, and can be refilled with as little trouble as to wind a watch. With the cover over the gold nib it is carried in the pocket like a pencil, to be used anywhere. A purchaser may try a pen a few days, and if by chance the writing point does not suit his hand, exchange it for another without charge, or have his money returned if wanted. There are various points to select from, broad, meflinm, and flue, every handwriting can lie suited, and toe uricc of toe entire instrument, with filler complete, post free, is only iOs. 6d. The Gold Pens in the "Swan" are Mabie, Todd, & Co.'s famous make. They are 14-earat tempered gold, very handsome, and positively unaffected by any kind of ink. They are pointed with selected polished iridium. The " Encyclopaedia Britannica" says:—"Iridium is a nearly white metal of high specific gravity, it is almost indestructible, and a beautifully polished surface can be obtained upon it." They will not penetrate the paper, and writer's cramp is unknown among users of Gold Pens. One will OUtwear 90 grOSS Of Steel pens. They are a perfect revelation to those who know nothing about Gold Pens. l)u. Oliver Wkndki.t. IIolmks has used one of Mabie, Todd, & Co.'s Gold Pens since 1857, and is using the same one (his "old friend ") to-day. Sydney Gulndv, Ksq., says (referring to die Fountain Pen) :—" It is a vast improvement on every Stylograph." Mobekly Hull, Esq., Manager, The Tunes, says (referring to the Fountain Pen):—" One pen lasted me for six years." S. ]). Waddy, Ksq., Q.C., M.P., Bays (referring to the Fountain Pen) :—" I have used them constantly for some years, and, as far as I can remember, they have never failed me." Send Postal Card for Free Illustrated List (containing interesting Testimonials from the Best People, who have used them for years) to— MABIE, TODD, & BARD, E»3, LOXDON.  ## p. 37 (#441) ############################################# TZhe Hutbor* (The Organ of the Incorporated Society of Authors. Monthly.) CONDUCTED BY WALTER BESANT. II.—No. 2.] JULY i, 1891. [Price Sixpence. Vol. For the Opinions expressed in papers that arc signed the Authors alone are responsible. ■ WARNING. WE have recently ascertained that the " quire stock " of books, if it should bo destroyed by fire either at the printer's or the pub- lisher's, is practically lost to the author, if he should not have sold it. out and out, in the great majority of cases. In hardly any agreements is provision made for insurance of this stock, and without insurance, or negligence on the part of either publisher or printer, the author must bear the whole loss of fire. Manuscript, we may observe, cannot bo insured at all, no fire office being willing to undertake the risk. We propose to return to this important subject next month, and meanwhile shall be glad to receive any suggestions upon it. INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 1. Action of the Society. BY the lime that this number of the Author is in the hands of readers, it, will probably be known whether the American International Copyright Act is hold on the- other side of the Atlantic to include writers of this country or not. It is time, therefore, to place upon record and to make quite plain the action of the Society as regards the position of American authors in Great Britain. This position is perfectly well known. Two Law Lords of the highest eminence held in a certain case that Americans can obtain copyright by simul- taneous publication: two other Law Lords, of perhaps lesser eminence, doubted. Thorp has never been any doubt that by a term of residence on British soil copyright could be secured. The Society two years ago undertook to draft a Bill which should amend and consolidate the Law of Copyright in this country. In this Bill a clause was inserted which would have removed at a single stroke any doubt as to the position of the American thus made as free as ourselves. It was found, however, impossible when the Bill was completed to bring it before the House of Commons with any chance of getting it through. It was therefore resolved to attempt the House of Lords. The Bill was taken in charge by Lord Monkswell, after consultation with our Copyright Commit too. It was read for the first time in November of last year. In April of this year it was road a second time, and after a certain amount of discussion was shelved for the session. Seeing, therefore, the impossibility of getting their Bill through either House, and seeing, further, the necessity of immediate action, in order to give the President of the United States an occasion to refuse the Proclamation so far as this country was concerned, the Committee hold consultations witli various Members of Parliament and American authors and publishers on the whole subject. There appeared several ways out of the diffi- culty :— (1) A single-clause Act of Parliament defining the position of Americans. The objection to this apparently simple measure was the certainty that the opportunity would be seized for proposing retaliatory measures in the interests of printers and paper makers. These measures, proposed perhaps rashly, and before we know whether printers and paper makers will suffer at all, would certainly give rise to great discussion and opposition in the House; they would certainly delay anil perhaps wreck the Bill, in which case our position would In- worse than over.  ## p. 38 (#442) ############################################# 3B THE AUTHOR. (2) An Order in Council. This would take too long to procure, and it was not at all certain that the Government would consent to it. (3) An opinion of the Judicial Committee. To obtain this would probably take too long. (4) An opinion of the Law Officers. The last method appeared to be the readiest and the most likely to produce a satisfactory result. Sir Michael Hicks Beach granted an interview on the subject to Sir Frederick Pollock, the Chairman of the Copyright Committee, and Mr. James Bryce, at which the views of the Committee were submitted. The Government then referred the point to the law officers, including those of the late Govern- ment. It has been announced in the House, in reply to a question by Mr. James Bryce, that these lawyers are all unanimous in their opinion, and that it is a favourable opinion as to the position and rights of American subjects in this country, and that the Foreign Office is in possession of this opinion. Lord Monkswell, whatever may be the result of this action, proposes to press on the Bill at the first opportunity. II. From Mb. R. U. Johnson. The Copyright negotiations are moving more rapidly. As you have doubtless seen, France has already made formal application for admittance to the benefits of our law, accompanying its request with a certificate (1) of its membership in the Berne Convention, and (2) of the fact that Americans have, substantially, the same security under its laws as the citizens of France. It is understood from the State Department (with which 1 am in constant unofficial communication) that the President will admit the existence of the second con- dition as the basis of his proclamation, leaving the value of the first condition in abeyance. We now are expecting that England will make similar appli- cation and certification, and last Tuesday (June 2) our Executive Council (of the Authors' Copyright League) passed resolutions which I have sent to the President, earnestly requesting that he will consider whether the uniform security afforded to American literary projxjrty for many years under British law through simultaneous publication does not furnish the condition precedent of a procla- mation including your authors. Also, another resolution setting forth our opinion that the Berne Convention is such "an international agreement" as that contemplated in Section XIII. of the new Act. We want Great Britain to assume this to be the case by asking for admittance on that ground— even if she be admitted on the other, for we shall then have the moral effect of the support of France and Great Britain in asking that the Berne Con- vention shall be recognised in the cases of the other governments. Now, as to the recognition of the fact that we already have virtually the same rights as you under your law: this very recognition would also have a moral effect in aiding to preserve our status quo Tinder your law. Moreover, a prompt settlement of the question by the admittance of your authors would greatly reinforce the sentiment which must be relied upon to support the Bill here, and to support future amendment of it after it has had a fair working trial. We are urging all these con- siderations upon the State Department. You know what a provincial and uneducated opposition we have had to contend with, and how the question of copyright has been intentionally confused in the public mind here with party questions. Against this feeling (which English criticism of the details of the Bill has heightened) we have had (1) the prestige of success, (2) the recognition of the French Government, and (3) the influence of the Copyright Dinner, which was planned to strengthen copyright sentiment. I have now proposed (4) the striking of a medal in honour of the security offered by the law to literary, artistic, and musical products, and though it is not far enough along to admit of any public mention, 1 think there is no doubt that the project will l>c carried out. Each one of these four events makes it more difficult for our opponents to repeal the law or alter it except as we desire. Now, if we can obtain a prompt arrangement with Great Britain, it will knock out the last of the underpinning of the opposition, which will otherwise say that the Bill is a failure; that "nobody is satisfied wilh it," &c., &c. There are two other ways in which your Govern- ment might have come in for sure recognition as entitled to a proclamation: (1) by the Order in Council extension to us of the Imperial and Colonial Copyright Act, and (2) by new legislation, such as the Monkswell Bill. I learn from Mr. Bryce that the first is impnicticable, and that the second has lx>en postponed to the next session of Parliament, and I judge that he is prodding the Foreign Office to application on the other two grounds. I see nothing else left to do. The President evidently expects foreign Governments to take the initiative, and he will act promptly on their applications. I should be very glad if I could get a reply to this question: Does the English law, in the matter of residence, impose any terms upon Americans not imposed upon yourselves? Note  ## p. 39 (#443) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 39 the query carefully, for it is often being con- founded with the question of whether or not the residence clause is a dead letter. The question in Section XIII. of our law is not What conditions arc imposed I but Is there any discrimination against Americans in imposing them i This may seem impertinently elementary to you, but you will, perhaps, pardon it when I tell you that a number of our men here insist on discussion of our absolute status under your law instead of our relative status; just as they think it pertinent to discuss whether or not we shall attempt to join the Berne Convention, the only question l>eing whether we "may at our pleasure enter" that agreement. Simond's idea was a reciprocity of sentiment—to give the benelits of the Act to any country which had ever offered copyright security to us. In this light, perhaps, our Hill is not so entirely sordid as some of the English manufacturers would have it thought. Bowker has lately been (with Mr. Spofford) in Washington, personally urging our officials to pre- pare for the operation of the law (the Secretary of the Treasury and the Postmaster-General must prepare certain rules), and reinforcing my efforts to hasten the proclamations. Everything seems in good shape now, and no time will be lost at this end of the negotiations. III. Mr. Putnam's Book. Mr. George Putnam has compiled an exceedingly useful volume on the question of Copyright. It contains a useful summary of the Copyright Laws at present in force in the chief countries of the world, as well as a report of the legislation now pending in Great Britain; a sketch of the contest in the United States for 1837 to 1891 in behalf of the International Copyright, and papers on the development of the conception of literary property and on the probable effect of the new American Law. At the present juncture in the history of the law governing literary property, such a contribution possesses the highest interest for all concerned, and all are concerned who either read or write. With Mr. R.R. Bowker's paper on the " Nature and Origin of Copyright," and Mr. Brander Matthews' valuable article on the " Evolution of Copyright," most of our readers are already familiar. But Mr. Putnam has done well to reprint them in the present volume, but for the moment Mr. Putnam's Analysis of the Chase—Breckinridge—Adams—Simonds—Piatt— Copyright Act of 1891 possesses a paramount interest, explaining as it does the conditions of that remarkable measure. Mr. Putnam believes that no material difficulty will be experienced in securing the assistance of American publishers in procuring for less-known British authors their American Copyright. A point of importance which Mr. Putnam makes clear is the position of foreign artisans and designers. "The condition of American manufacture is attached to the Copyright of repro- ductions in the form of chromos, lithographs, and photographs, only it was not made a condition of the more artistic forms of reproduction, and foreign artists therefore are now in a position to control the copyright of their engravings or photogravures of their productions, whether these engravings are manufactured in Europe or the United States." The importance of this is obvious. IV. Fito.M the New Yobk Critic. In his forecast of the working of " Our Inter- national Copyright Law," in the June Forum, Mr. Henry Holt predicts, among other things, that, the habit of paying foreign authors for their work once established, royalties will be freely paid them, in many cases, without copyright. Books which will not at first seem likely to pay for the American type-setting which the law requires, but which, like Mr. Bryce's "American Common- wealth," may become unexpectedly popular, will continue to offer a temptation to pirates, but will be too few to support them, and when the pirates are starved out, respectable American houses will either abstain from competing or will make proper terms with the foreign publisher or author. Another result of the law will be an improvement in the make-up of many new books, which in previously existing circumstances would have to be brought out very cheaply. Since a price must now be demanded which will cover the author's royalty, it will l>e found better to add a little more for good paper and presswork, and to seek a new class of buyers for limited first editions, than to depend wholly on the rare chance of a very wide sale. When a book becomes popular, a cheap edition can always l>e brought out to meet the demand. We may hope, on this account, to compete more extensively than we have hitherto done with French and English editions dc luxe. Our printers, no longer obliged to work for quantity merely, will have a chance to take the lead in artistic printing.  ## p. 40 (#444) ############################################# 40 THE AUTHOR. v. In answer to your invitation for comments on the American Copyright Bill, I beg to note the following point:— ■Sec. 4906 requires the deposit with the Librarian of Congress of "two copies of every such copyright booh, map, chart, dramatic or musical composition, engraving," fyc. The proviso requiring such two copies to be printed, &c. within the United States applies only to a "book, photograph, chromo, or lithograph." Is it then the law— 1. That a book containing only a dramatic com- position need not be printed from American type? 2. That to receive the right of performing a dramatic composition the author has only to register the title, and deposit two copies, which may be in MS., type-written, or printed elsewhere than in the United States? The letter of the Bill seems on these two points to belie its spirit. Julian Cobbett. VI. 1. In what ways is a book published in England now, after the passing of the Act, open to piracy and under-selling from America? 2. Taking all things into consideration (cost of printing and publishing, question of piracy, &c), on which side of the Atlantic is it best to publish, England or America? 3. Supposing an author gave a copy of MS. of an unpublished work to a public library (as British Museum in England, Library of Congress in United States of America, &c.)—notice of intention to copyright being given at the same time—what effect such gift would have on the subsequent copyright of that work? SOME NOTES ON A BILL. 0PERUSE a simple Story—read a parable detached From the vice of vending pullets ere the little beasts arc hatched; A weird, bi-lingual prophecy, with Hying footnotes shored, On the means of slipping sideways from the, World's je-jogglc-board. (') 'Twas (he Broncho (-) among Nations—a severely cultured race, Though their mode of spelling centre proved them clearly off their base— (;)) Passed a Bill of three dimensions—two of which concerned the trade— And one, but this was fiction, books the British Author made. Softly sang the British Author, for a dream was in his brain Of Landaus from Longacre and of houses in Park Lane; But ere he went to Tnttersalls' or changed his modest dwelling He explained, per Western Union, his objections to their spelling. "Oh, my Largest Reading Public," thus the coded cable came, "You drop one (hell) in ' travelling ' and—get there just the same : (') "If to Webster and to Worcester, and your sauce at large I grovel, "It will vulgarize our fiction—taint the Holy British Novel. (') (') An elastic Heat, found in the verandahs of Southern houses. (■) An underbred animal with u swelled head, (riven to jumping nervously 011 inspection. Anglice: "Bounder." (') They are very like tlieir babies, if you notice 'em they cry; If you don't they steal your candy and their teachers call 'em " Spry ;" Their father's name was Washington—mis-statements made him wince— Hut his sons declare on " honor "—there's been no one like him since. (') V. 1. Suppressed by Western I'nion as a casus belli. "Your views of spelling ' honour ' match your notions on the same." (') Now the Holy British Novel—from this verdict none shall warp us— Is the Maiden's Magna Charta and the Matron's Habeas Corpus: For when Maid and Wife have finished with the volume Father paid for— You can read it to the Bahy, This is what all books are made for.  ## p. 41 (#445) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 4i "Yet I'll vitiate the spelling of the Children of my friends, "If you pay me something extra for my labor." (Message ends.) And it filled that Author's system with severe electric shocks When his Largest Heading Public cabled back: "You're on the box. (6) "The fact of being shouted for a dime along the cars "Does not fix you for a planet among Literary Stars; "Nor is it a safe assumption you can tetur continents "When our high-toned Mister H-rp-r (7) sews you up for fiftyleents. "British parsons make us tired—British dukes, our (laughters doubt 'em— "Cuss-words of the British Army, we can mosey on without 'em; "Take a walk and get your hair cut (8)—sit on Mister M-d-e-'s shelves, "If we've got to pay for reading, guess we'll read about ourselves." So they read by free selection on a principle their own— 'Twas the most exhaustive weeding that an inkstained earth had known; And the palpitating cable sizzled madly under sea, "Honour without ' u' I'll stomach; what is Honor without me '?" No, the fame the newsboys give you when they board the C.B.Q. Does not predicate your kiting into honour without u. If you cannot bang the big drum, vou must twang the harp of Tarn (9) With McGinty (ln) and O'Grady (») and the man that struck O'Hara. It was good for Zenas Mather, Independence Psickafoos, Adah Isaacs Menken, Shuswap, Janet, Thackeray, Van Dewze,— They stood pat as home-grown produce, with some seven thousand more They were paid at full face-value—they came in on the ground floor. (,:)) For they wove their country's fiction, triple-ply, of many shades, From the big blue bergs at Sitka to the rotting Everglades; And never since the Pilgrims furled the Mayflower's sea-worn sail, Hail the Bounder among Nations seen herself done out to scale. It was woolly—wild and woolly—it was more than three feet wide, For it ran from Maine to Oregon and out the other side. With one nasal Hallelujah, like a giant Jews' harp drone, The Bounder among Nations claimed a bookcase of her own. (u) Now they're running ninety Shakespeares—all with variegated dictions, They have put the growth of Miltons under interstate restrictions, They brake the CP. freight-cars with the Laureates of the West, And a vigilance committee is sub-editing the rest. They are writing of Proportion, and Reserve, and Racial Feeling, Like an introspective sneak-thief who has just abandoned stealing, And we can't attend to baby, and we can't lie down at night, For those queer self-conscious schoolboys howl: "Git up and see us write." (r') V. 1. "Come off the rocks." Anglice: "You labour under a misapprehension." (') The leading sporting bookmaker of the United States. He does not bet on outsiders. C) Mutilated in transmission. Supposed to indicate esteem and personal interest. (,J) This instrument is distinguished for its enduring silences. ("') Famous for his exploration of the depths of the Ocean. (") He was owed ten dollars—presumably on account of American royalties, for the money was never paid. (''-) The remains of this gentleman would not furnish a biography. i.e.. There was no necessity in their case for abasement. ('') They abandoned watered Herrick, and Elizabethan echoes, They were not stuck on Browning like a horde of homeless geckoes, Twas a second Boston bust-up, but it cost us more than tea, Yot the alphabet of authors they discarded—a to zee. VOL. 11. I)  ## p. 42 (#446) ############################################# 42 THE AUTHOR. But they're learning not to "wiggle " when you photograph their manners; They are guessing at a medium 'twixt "yon skunk !" and matl Hosannas; And the men who know 'em fancy—if the measure they have made lasts— That some day they'll he a Public—not a girl's school swapping Trade-lasts." (ls) Ends my lurid lucid legend, halts my parable divorced From the blame of hunting Navajhoes before your scouts are horsed; Oh, the Author 'a in the puree (l8), and the deuce is in the Bill, But the Holy British Novel—yes—it's wholly British still. Rudyabd Kipling. (1S) Saidie tells Maimie that Huttie's now frock is pretty. Maimie repeats the compliment to Hattie, who tells Maimie that Saidie is "just too sweet to live." This is a trade-last. It is also called criticism. (""') This is the position formerly occupied by the oyster. AN ANTIQUARTS REMONSTRANCE. IVENTURE to think that the Authors' Society is, without intending it, bringing about a great and very mischievous change in the way in which the literary profession lias hitherto been regarded in this country and everywhere else. For instance, the general conception of the author is of a man—or woman—full of ideas, a crank in his views, a fool in business, hasty, unpractical, and liable to be cheated by the first who chooses to undertake that easy job. He has therefore met with universal commiseration, except from those who live upon him. Next, he is regarded as a dependant, a person with no rights at all, obliged to take whatever the "generosity" of the publisher allowed him, subsisting on doles. A Royal Literary Fund has been established for him, and at a great dinner held every year charity is asked for this unfortunate pauper. , He is .there- lore an object of universal contempt. Thirdly, he is supposed to be wholly unable to combine or to act with other persons of the same profession for his own interests. And it is known that he takes the greatest possible joy in jumping upon his brother authors, trampling upon them, and sticking knives into them. He is therefore a by-word and a proverb, and children are taught not to hate each other like authors. Fourthly, if he is a good author, he instructs, amuses, and delights the whole world, so that every- body loves him and admires him and begs him to keep on making the world laugh and cry. In short, the world at the same time loves, reproaches, despises, and commiserates the author. But the Society is changing all that. It persuades authors to act. together for their common interest; it exhorts them to demand justice, not to whine for "generosity"; it exhorts them not to slash and bludgeon each other, but to observe the common rules of good breeding towards each other. If this goes on, the next generation will see the followers of literature as sober in business matters as City men; as respectful (outwardly) to each other as physicians and lawyers; and as much filled with self-respect as either. What will then be the feelings of the world towards the author? Love and admiration may be left, it is true. Respect will have grown up. But contempt, commiseration, and reproach—these will have gone. Now, tin; combination of all these emotions together formed the romantic side of the pro- fession. In this respect—and in this respect alone—the author was like the highway robber. If the romance goes out of literature, may it not become, as some of your correspondents suggest, a simple trade? What is Art without romance? What is romance without illusion? Does not the author feel, while he holds out his hand for the doles of the Literarv Fund and the " generous" . « . . * <• guineas of his publisher, that he is carrying on the best traditions of the profession? While he squirms under "generosity," and writhes under charity, is it not a sufficient balm for him to know that poverty and writhing have been the lot of nearly all who have written? This is one aspect of the ease, which I think the managers of the Society would do well to consider. If the old traditions are to be swept away, let them at least maintain, even at their own expense, a publisher of the old school. Let him continue to cheat in the cost, of production and in the advertise- ments; let him advertise in none but his own publications, and put all the money under that head into Lis own pocket. Let him refuse the author any rights, and exercise a noble "generosity" towards him. An old-fashioned author ought also to be kept at the same time its an illustration— without him the publisher alone would be incom- plete—one l>elonging to the good old times from which we seem now to lie emerging. F. S. A.  ## p. 43 (#447) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. REALISM IN GRUB STREET. GRUB Street is the mother of all of us "(1 (1 literary fellows," whether we dwell on the first floor or in the attics. Even these eminences were not disenchanted, when we were twenty, M. Beranger says; and why should Mr. Gissing try to disenchant the whole eligible district? I woidd be understood to speak with all respect of Mr. Gissing's "New Grub Street"; it is not his fault, but his misfortune, that he sees everything in black. This is the burden of what is queerly called " Realism." One reads in reviews about Mr. Gissing's "poignant realism," but is it real at all? To myself it seems a perverted idealism, idealism on the seamy side. In Grub Street there are many mansions; they are not all full of failure, and envy, and low cunning, and love of money, and hatred of success. In the Author of June, a writer says that he "can testify to the truth" of the "New Grub Street." He is unlucky enough to know people like Mr. Gissing's characters, and the fidelity of the portraits makes him shudder. I also am a dweller in Grub Street, but am so fortunate as not to know anybody who resembles these unhappy rates. I do not know the man of comparative genius, with no health, and with an unsympathetic wife. I do not know the impudent and half-educated speculator in " literature." I do not know—I wish I did—the gentleman who wants to write on Diogenes Laertius, a delightful subject, and I hope, when he does writ** that essay, he will clear up the passage about the Megarian historian and Homer. Willamowitz is too speculative, though decidedly ingenious; but Mr. Yule is not here. I want to talk Diogenes Laertius and kindred pedantries with him in vain. However, it is not to be questioned that persons like Jasper and Mr. Yule and Edwin may exist, or may have existed; so may Lucien de Rul)empre. They may be "real," but then they are not everybody. They are not the whole population of Grub Street. There are good fellows there, poor, plucky, contented. Them, at least, I have known, and no picture of Grub Street is real which leaves them out. In Miss Braddon's excellent story, "The Doctor's Wife," there is a line denizen of Grub Street, Mr. Sigismund Smith, a penny novelist. He has humour, and good humour; he likes his trade, and there are many worse trades. The Muses have not given it to me to write a good penny novel; would that they had. It is an enviable art. What is much of Balzac, but glorified penny novel? Well, nobody calls Miss Braddon a realist, but Sigismund Smith is as "real" as these envious failures, these evil suc- cesses. He is not recognised as real, because he is jolly. There are plenty of jolly people in Grub Street, only Realism averts her blue spectacles from them. As to "scarifying," what nonsense is talked about it! It is only a battle with snowballs at most. Let some gentleman have his fling at me, let me have my fling at him, if I like; "it is such easy writing." Who is a penny the worse? In some paper I read, for example, that Mr. Robert Buchanan has been calling me a Cockney some- where. That, surely, is "scarifying "? Perhaps the snowball would hurt if it hit. But it seems to go a little wide; and, if I choose, I can bowl at Mr. Buchanan's manly legs. Does he plav cricket in a kilt? It seems to me that, in Grab Street, we cry out a great deal for very little hurt. This "scarifying " is not so bad as what Apollo did to Marsyas. Our skins, however thin, are left to decorate our persons. In real life, the unlucky hero of Mr. Gissing would have had a devoted wife, who believed in her husband's genius; but to give him such a wife would not be Realism. It would be romance, or something improper of that kind. There are depths a good deal deeper in Grub Street than Mr. Gis- sing has chosen to sound. He might have been much more realistic, and yet have lieen not untrue, except by the suppression of the other side of the truth. M. Grimaudet, in M. Paul Bourget's new book, is excessively " realistic," but then M. Bourget has introduced lights as well as shadows. Light is quite as real as darkness; sun as shade. La Vic de Boheme is as real as " The New Grab Street," but it has the unpardonable defect of humour, and so it is not realistic. Captain Shandon and Archer are true to life; but they are humorous, so they are not realistic. Again, is it real to say, Mr. A uthor, that literature has "no unwritten laws of decency and politeness "? It has such laws; I hope that we try to obey them; there would be no fun in the game if we did not. They are not uni- versally obeyed. There are Bounders in the land, but we are not all Bounders in Grab Street. Our adverse criticism—the slating with slates—is not all envy. We think things should be done diffe- rently, and say so, with more or less urbanity; usually, perhaps, with less. Urbanity is what we all need. It would be l>etter to fight, like Jem Crawley, " with the gloves." I confess that, some- how, this method seems to irritate the enemy even much more, but that is his fault. He should learn to keep his temper, and to take things in less furious earnest; to remember that, after all, Mr. Toots was right, and "it does not signify." Literary rivalries and hatreds, nbout which so much is said, will lose all that is enjoyable if we do not keep our tempers, and remember that I) 2  ## p. 44 (#448) ############################################# 44 THE AUTHOR. we are only children playing at the game which was old in Hesiod'.s time, at the game in which Callimachus and Apollonius were performers. When one sees the blind ferocity of some players, one is reminded of the Maoris, who were so dis- gusted with a manoeuvre of ours, that they declined to light any more. They made peace; they said we were not the men they took us for. Now here is a view of the "scarifying" business which is just as true as some other excited theories. But you shall not find it in a realistic novel of Grub Street, because it is not grimy. A. Lang. - ——♦■•■» THE TURNING OF THE WORM.-A Fable. "rTTHEN the Worm turned, the bystanders VV laughed and derided the presumption of the creature. This helpless, wretched thing had hitherto been allowed to live on sufferance; he was unprovided with the least means of attack or defence; he would not have been tolerated—for he really was wretchedly shabby to look at—except for the purpose of enriching the soil for his Master, which he did very cleverly, wriggling in and about the clods, converting them into a light and fertile earth, turning them now this side up, now that, for the sun to warm them, insomuch that the most beautiful crops of grain, the choicest fruit in vast quantities, grapes for wine in abundance, grass for cattle, trees for shade, and gardens for flowers were all produced out of the ground by the industry and cleverness of the Worm. Now and then the Master tossed him an apple, or a raw turnip, or something else light and inexpensive. "Oh! most generous patron!" cried the Worm, the tears of gratitude rolling over his brown skin, "How can I thank thee? How serve thee with suflicient zeal? Take all—all—all that I produce." "Such, Worm, is my intention," said the Master. Now, one clay the Worm discovered that he had grown; he had without knowing it, grown quite large; he was no longer a little brown thing, wriggling among the clods; he was quite three feet long, and of a very beautiful variegated colour, and he was conscious that he was possessed of a weapon in the shape of a pair of front teeth very sharp, and poisoned. He pondered over this dis- covery; he even conferred with his brethren, who had undergone a similar transformation, on the subject. But, as yet, they hardly understood the extent of the change or their own power, and went on, although now far more subtle than all the creatures of the held, contentedly on the whole, though not without a question or a growl, slaving for the Master and taking with gratitude, though that was now somewhat modified, whatever apples he chose to bestow upon them. He was now also become so rich through their labours, that he gave them many more apples, but yet their gratitude did not increase; so that it became a proverb with the Masters that the more you give a Worm, the more he wants, and that he would like to take the whole earth. Now, one day, when the time came for a certain Worm to be fed, the Master tossed him, for all his reward, a single apple, and that half rotten. So this Worm lifted his head. Never before had a worm so much as dared to lift his head. And the Master marvelled. "Sir," said the Worm, " who has made all this wealth for you and your family? Who has created this orchard?" "You have, Worm. Hold your tongue, and go on working," said the Master. With that the ungrateful creature sprang upon his Master, and bit him on the ankle, and the bite was like unto a red-hot wire applied to the foot, or like the raging fiery gout in the great toe, or like the accursed twinge of a tooth in mortal pain. So the Master lied, howling. Then the Worm called together all the other Worms who were, like himself, grown into serpents, all long and strong and swift, and each armed with sharp front teeth, and all able and ready to use them. Then the Worms took possession of the orchards, and the gardens, and the fields, and when a Master—now called the Usurper—ventured near the place, he was assailed in such a manner that he was fain to flee. Then there was great agitation among the Masters, and they trembled excessively. But. first they said that the Worm was no Serpent at all, but only a Worm still, and harmless. Yet those who had been bitten shook their heads. Then they said that the Worms were ungrateful. But the world laughed. Then they said that the Worms already devoured the whole produce. But they were themselves so fat that nobody believed them. Long time the struggle lasted between the Master and the Worms. At last the Master sent swine into the. orchard. Everybody knows that serpents cannot hurt, pigs, though they throw all their poison into their bites, but that pigs can, and do, hurt serpents, taking them by the tail, and slowly munching them, ribs and skin and all, till there is nothing left. But the Master made in this case a mistake, because, although his pigs were as swinish in all other respects as any other pigs, and could befoul anything placed before them, they could not eat, destroy, or hurt this kind of serpent. They could only trample the orchard and  ## p. 45 (#449) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 45 the gardens, and they could cover with foul abuse and fouler lies the names of the Serpents, so that, for a time, some people were led to ln-lieve that they were nothing but u wicked and a mischievous crew instead of a most harmless folk, seeking nothing hut common justice and protection for their own. Now, after a long struggle, the Serpent—subtle, wise, and clever — possesses his own. Gardens, orchards, fields—all are his own because he created them. The former Master now looks over the garden wall; and as for the pigs which were to have slain and devoured the Serpents, they are now themselves slain and partly devoured. What is left of them is hanging on the rafters, in shape of fat and brown sides of bacon, large hams, and goodly gammons. ♦•♦*♦— ME. GLADSTONE ON THE AUTHOR AND THE PUBLISHER. WE are indebted to the Critic (New York) for the following. It is extracted from the Xew York Herald, and it is an indication of the growing power of the Press that such a man as Mr. Gladstone should contribute to a foreign paper an article on such a subject, and that such a communication should not even be noticed by our own Press. The remarks about the necessity of taking a partner into the enterprise of publishing a lnjok are perfectly just. Unfortunately they are not new, and they stop at the threshold. They lay down a definition or an axiom and leave it there. Also Mr. Gladstone is a few years behind the time when he speaks of the extremely small numl>cr of publishers. In London alone there are more than 384. This is what he has written for the New York Herald:— "Books are, after all, a product of manufacturing industry; but, among manufactures, theirs is surely the most interesting, and the most peculiar, because it is based upon the reduction of a mental product to a material form, and what was originally intangible and ethereal, in this way, without losing its earlier character, comes to be embraced within the same category as a yard of calico or a bushel of wheat. "But while these have no value except what is exhibited by their outward form, so that the inde- pendent producers of other bushels of wheat or yards of calico meet them in 1 the market' upon equal terms, the producer of the l>ook exhibits to the world a double entity, one material, the other mental; and the author pleads that, as the material thing which we call a l>ook is protected by the law against abstraction, so the thoughts contained in it and wrought by him into a structure more or less elaborate should in like manner be protected from reproduction. For reproduction, from his point of view, is theft. It is offering to the world, for such price as the world lie willing to give, not. only the paper and print which the producer has to buy and pay for, but the composition contained in them, which represents the time and labour, and, there- fore, the food and raiment and lodging and all the lawful expenditure of the author. "On this basis has been erected that curious formation which we call the law of copyright. The conditions of its birth and history have lxjen chequered and abnormal; but the reasonableness of the proposition that mental toil, on taking literary form, should not be deprived of the re- muneration enjoyed by bodily labour, has brought it out into the light of day, and so secured its acceptance .... "But the author, when he has obtained an ack- nowledgment of his right to protection, has not yet surmounted his difficulties. The grower of wheat and the manufacturer of calico produce articles complete in themselves, and only require certain manipulations before reaching the ultimate con- sumer. These processes are performed by a multitude of persons; and the function of the intermediate! distributors, being simple, is performed by large numbers of persons. But the author has given birth to a commodity which is perfectly un- available for the purpose of yielding him support, until he has contracted, as it were, a marriage with a capitalist who will agree to become joint partner of the book, giving it a body where the author has supplied the soul, and thus at length constituting it a marketable and productive commodity. The author cannot himself, as a rule, 1m> the publisher, and publishers are extremely few, so few that, until a very recent date, they might be counted on the lingers. Practically, and as a general rule, the author in relation to his customer is nobody until his initial performance has been capped by the accession of the publisher. Better would be the position of a man who should offer for sale the stock and lock of a rifle without the barrel to complete.''^ A Practical Note. "I have just read your wail over the dust on the rough tops of uncut books. If you wish to clean them, and also to leave them a little rough, take the finest grade of sand-paper and rub them with it. If a piece is tacked on a bit of wood about an inch square at the, end anil three or four inches long, the work can l>e done very rapidly. I have treated uncut books in that way, and find it works admirably." A (JoliliESl'ONI)ENT TO THE New YoRK Critic. +-+~*  ## p. 46 (#450) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. THE AUTHORS' CLUB. AS a large number of your readers are interested in the formation of the Authors' Club, it may be of some service if I give a few particulars of the Authors' Club of New York, gleaned from the beautifully-printed and quaintly-bound little book which that Club issues. Such particulars may be suggestive partly of what to imitate, and partly, owing to your different circumstances, of what it may be necessary to avoid. I should like to state that I am indebted to the courtesy of Mr. J. B. Gilder, of the New York Critic, who has been good enough to procure and send me this interesting little book. I first of all gather that the Authors' Club of New York is what we call, a members' club, and that it is incorporated pursuant to the provisions of an Act of the Legislature of the State of New York. On this side we should find a parallel in a limited liability company. In the certificate of incorporation the particular business of the Club is set out as for literary and library purposes, and for the promotion of social intercourse among authors; and in the "Constitu- tion," under section 2, I find that "the object of the Club shall be the promotion of social intercourse among authors." The membership of the Club is limited to a smaller number than would be desirable, perhaps, in the case of the London Club; the New York maximum lwing 3oo, more than 5o per cent, of which number are required to reside in or within z5 miles of New York city. For the London Club it has, I believe, been suggested that journalism should be a qualification: for the New York Club, on the other hand, "technical books of journalism as such shall not be accounted literature," and " no person shall be eligible to membership who is not the author of a published book proper to literature, or who has not a recognised position in other kinds of distinctively literary work." Thus it will be seen that a large and useful body of literary men—the writers of technical manuals and dictionaries, and those journalists who from day to day or from week to week turn out really sound literary work, would be disqualified if the New York rule were adopted in the case of the London Club. But this, I take it, is not likely to be done. The government of the New York Club is vested in an executive council of nine "trustees," who are chosen by ballot, three of whom annually retire. The trustees elect from their own number a secretary and treasurer, and a librarian; and they appoint all committees except a portion of the Committee on Membership. This Committee on Membership consists of twelve members, and the trustees are disqualified from joining it. The committee fix their own time and place of meeting, and seven members constitute a quorum. Any member who absents himself from three consecutive regularly-called meetings is deemed to have resigned. The committee elects "by ballot, three adverse ballots excluding." Each candidate for membership has to be pro- posed by two members, who are required to present to the committee in writing, and through the secretary, his claims to election. The name of each candidate for election, together with those of his proposer and seconder, is posted for two weeks before he can be balloted for. Here is rather a curious rule: "No member of the Committee on Membership shall propose a candidate." Election to honorary membership of distinguished men of letters of other nations is provided for, but not more than one honorary member resident in the United States can be elected in any one year. Members may introduce one friend to the Club, and the hospitality of the Club may be offered to distinguished gentlemen of any profession. The entrance! fee is §25 = £5, and the annual subscription for those resident in or within 20 miles of New York city is S20 - £4 ; and of those not so resident (onr " country members ") £2. It should be noted that these sums do not represent in the United States anything like the amount they re- present here, but at the same time the expenses of the New York Club are probably not so heavy as those of a London Club would be. In conclusion, I hope that these few notes may be found of interest and use to those who contem- plate with some degree of pleasure and hopefulness, the foundation of an Authors' Club in London for the promotion of social intercourse among those engaged in literary work. Akthub Montefiobe. REVIEWS AND REVIEWERS. I. ALTHOUGH I am an occasional Reviewer as well as Author, I hope you will uot consider the incident I am about to relate a case of "dog biting dog." I may commence by saving I am a scientific writer—or one of those who often try to explain what thev themselves do not understand, as some- one has truly said—and author of a number of  ## p. 47 (#451) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 47 successful books—italics, please Mr. Printer—my vanity lias therefore l>een satiated some time since, and I do not write from the standpoint of a disappointed Author from which Critics are popularly supposed to be made. A few years back, when I published my well- known work on "The Extraction of Caloric from Cucumbers," my publisher sent a copy for review to a paj>er with which we are all well acquainted, viz., the Weekly Mastodon. Shortly after its receipt I was gratified by a very favourable review containing such remarks as the following: "Mr. Jones's book will be found of much value to those interested in cucumbers," "A book we have much pleasure in recommending," <fcc, &e. The success of this book was such that my publisher advised the reprint of the more popular part of it, and its re-issue at a cheaper price. This was done, and it appeared under the title, " Cucum- bers, sliced and otherwise; with Notes on their Affinity for Salmon," by Thomas Cwmrag Jones, Author of, &c, which you may remember made a considerable sensation at the time amongst cucum- ber eaters. A copy of this was also sent to the Mastodon, and you may imagine my horror when a few weeks afterwards I read a review in which the. book was thoroughly well slated, and I was called over the coals in all directions, the notice being fidl of such remarks as the following: "We are astonished that Mr. Jones can recommend eating cucumber with salmon, as he ought to be aware that it is most indigestible," and " Mr. Jones says nothing whatever about oil and vinegar with cucumber, which we consider a very grave omission," &c, &c. In case you should imagine that the above account is " writ sarkastic," as Artemus Ward \ised to say, I beg to assure you the incident absolutely occurred, and is a fair example of a critical journal eating its own words, and damning and praising the same matter. I enclose you the name of the journal, and also of the books con- cerned, not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith, as the newspaper legend has it. Thomas Cwmrag Jones. II. A novel of mine—my first novel—was reviewed by the on its first appearance. The review was the first notice that appeared of the work. To say that they "slated " it is to put the case with ridiculous mildness. It was torn to bits, and a frantic war dance was executed on the muti- lated remains. Imagine my feelings! My first book! My first review! What a beginning! In course of time my publisher produced a cheap edition of the book. I could only pray that the would pass it by in the silence and contempt such a worthless book deserved. Not at all! They renewed it again, but this time they spoke of the work in terms of the highest praise!!! I assure; you that in my opinion that second review of the book was a "thing of beauty and a joy for ever." E. III. "Formerly I hail to do, among other work, the 'reviewing' of the novels for a certain paper. I was allowed a single column, or perhaps a little over. I was paid one guinea for this column. I had to 'review' from eight to a dozen novels in this space. You may imagine the individual attention and the amount of muling I could afford to bestow on each!" P. In other words, this writer, to put his necessities at a very low rate, had to make at least £3oo a year, or six guineas a week. He got his batch of novels every fortnight or so. How long could he afford to give towards the earning of one guinea? One day. One day of, say, eight hours for an average of ten books! Less than one hour each. What judgment, even in a single sentence, could he pass—and write—upon a book in such a space of time? This is an extreme case, but we must take extreme cases into consideration. They are, indeed, the most important as test cases. It may l>c argued that no one has a right to accept work of this kind unless he can perform it properly. Quite so; but this is not an argument calculated to carry weight with the ordinary breadwinner. IV. The following is a collection of judgments on a single book which seem almost unique. The names of the papers were given by the author concerned, but they are suppressed for obvious reasons. An interesting problem arises. Given i5 opinions by as many critics, all different, on a little book, and, remembering that each sentence is the judgment of a truly competent critic, construct the true character of the book. 1." . . . The story is not a clever one, and the writer lacks the gift of making his readers accept the impossible as at least plausible. . . ." 2." . . . Certainly ... a very clever book, one of the cleverest of its kind that has recently appeared." 3." The book is madness run riot, and why the publishers should have endangered  ## p. 48 (#452) ############################################# 48 THE AUTHOR. their reputation by issuing it is as inexplicable as the pages themselves. . . ." 4. "... A tale of absorbing interest. . ." 5." . . . As a story the book is profoundly metaphysical and very dull." 6. " This is a weird and fascinating novel. . . . The story abounds with thrilling enigmas, and a tragedy and a love romance are skilfully interwoven." 7." . . . Metaphysical balderdash. . . ." 8. "A shilling shocker of the most robust tvpc . . . Defects are compensated for by an unlimited flow of blood, curses, and spasmodic ejaculations." g. "... It may l>e summed up in a quota- tion from his own pages: 'In the name of science —bosh ! *" 10." . . . For those fond of the mysterious the book should lie acceptable reading." 11. "After some hours' earnest wrestling with the extraordinary philosophy propounded herein we have 'given it up' just in time to save our reason. . . ." 12. "It has an ingenious, if somewhat extra- vagant, plot of mystery and murder, and though it never takes any very strong hold on the attention —it deals too largely in pure philosophy for that— the mild interest which it does excite is well sustained to the end." 13." . . . Quite out of the usual run of shilling shockers. . . . The writer has talent, but it might l>e better employed." 14." . . . A praiseworthy attempt to make the matter of a shilling shocker less rude—in the old sense of the word—and to give even the railway reader a few sentences which may make him take the trouble of thinking. . . . The writer is evidently a clever student who has drunk deep, if not wisely, at the well of contemporary fiction." 15. "This book is very readable." NOTES AND NEWS. Jf^HE Annual Gathering of the Society will this I year l>egiven in recognition of the International Copyright Bill. It will be held at the White- hall Rooms of the Hotel Metropole on the 16th. Long before the dinner it will be known whether the President has, or lias not, acknowledged that Americans have equal rights with our own people in this country. The function of the 16th, however, will mark our sense of what has been done by Americans. And as for ourselves, we shall very shortly put the position of Americans l>eyond any doubt. The Chairman will be Lord Monkswell, who has done such great, service to the cause of International Copyright by his conduct of the Bill for the Amendment and Consolidation of Copyright. The principal guest will be Mr. Lincoln, the United States Minister to this country. It is greatly hoped that we may have a.s guests a good nunil>er of American men and women of letters, and that we may have to receive them as brilliant a company as can be gathered together. The communication of Mr. Arthur Montefiore will cause inquiries to be made as to the progress of the Authors' Club. We have advanced to this stage: we had got together a provisional com- mittee; we had found a man ready to act as honorary secretary. Then he fell ill, and could do nothing; nor could, for a long time, another man he found. Now we have a candidate for the post, and we hope to begin. If the project proves a success, the club should open about the end of the year. I think I have found out the reason of the astonishing little paragraphs which, from time to time, appear in the papers concerning this Society. Some of them, of course, contain designed and deliberately invented falsehoods. They are inspired by certain friends of ours who find their old games becoming difficult. There is, however, another kind—sometimes they take the form of long articles—which are not malevolent, but ignorant. These are written by men who simply cannot understand that there is any property in Literature. To them the maintenance or defence of literary proj>erty seems a fussy attempt to protect a five- pound note at most—they call it squabbling for guineas; they either believe in the old superstition that authors must be beggars, or they have their own experiences to quote, for they have themselves written books which have brought in nothing—or this five-pound note. Very likely their book was good, but not popular. This kind of writer cannot believe that a book may be both good and popular; and his ignorance makes him a greater enemy of the Society even than the mischievous liar. He has in his mind a round half-dozen of deeply- rooted prejudices. Thus— 1. There is no money in a book, and the publisher must lose by most of his books, and the more he loses the richer he gets. 2. The publisher is constantly playing a kind of baccarat, in which he is always staking immense sums of money, and always losing.  ## p. 49 (#453) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 49 3. The publisher does not care in the least how much he loses. 4. Poetry and Fiction come by nature, and require no training. 5. True self-respect consists in throwing a MS. at the publisher and never afterwards asking what has been done with it in book form. 6. If money is wanted, the author must go hat in blind, and humbly ask for it. Whatever he gets is due to the " generosity " of the publisher. He is not entitled to anything at all. He has no rights; he has no property. How can a guinea or two be called property? Several correspondents have sent me a prospectus entitled "The Authors' Advice Bureau," and have asked advice upon it. We know, at the Society, nothing at all about the name at the end of the prospectus, Mr. H. Douglas Vincent—nothing at all, either for good or ill. He undertakes to read MSS., and to suggest a suitable publisher at the following rates :—is. for 10 pages of foolscap, and 2.v. for 20 pages. For every additional 20 pages, 6d. extra. If he gives, in addition, literary criticism he charges 2s. 6d. for 10 pages, and 3s. 6d. for 20 pages, with is. for every additional 20 pages. Reckoning 35o words to a page of foolscap, this wntleman would give a literary opinion on, and suggt.-'t a publisher for, a three-volume novel of average Ifssgth for the sum of 19s. This might be what advertisers call getting "good value." What advice can be given in such a case? This :— If Mr. H. Douglas Vincent has such experience of publishers as would enable him to advise as to the lx^st house for any particular work, his advice to an ignorant person might be useful. The first thing, therefore, is for him to show that he has Mich experience. If Mr. H. Douglas Vincent is a person of proved lite.-ary ability, an author of repute, a critic of posit'on, his literary opinion might be of the greatest value to a beginner. Let him, therefore, state his qualifications and give references. And let anylnxly who proposes to give him 2S. first ask him for information on these two points. If the replies are satisfactory, we wish Mr. Douglas Vincent every success. Here is a suggested difficulty. "I should like to join your Society, but at the present moment my work is principally taken by Messrs. A. and B. and by a certain religious society. Suppose that they resent my Incoming a Member, and refuse, in consequence, to take my work : what am I to do?" Well, first of all, it is rapidly becoming thoroughly suspected that a publisher who objects to the Society can only belong to the dishonourable Fringe, because the Society aims at nothing but fair agree- ments, fairly carried out; and all that has been done, said, or published by the Society lias been in the advance of that aim; for instance, the Cost of Production and the Methods of Publication. If, then, any publisher should so attempt to punish any such author, let us learn the fact, and we will "govern ourselves accordingly." We are now, as has been already stated more than once, in a position to keep a vast quantity of work out of the hands of persons whose methods will not bear the light of day. This power is a very useful weapon, and is ('very day becoming more powerful. A great deal of wrath lias lieen aroused by a bumble remonstrance made in these columns on certain practices of reviewers. Bludgeons have been waved over the head of the offender; rapiers, flashing horribly, have been stuck into his vital parts. Fortunately, this kind of bludgeon breaks no head, and this kind of rapier does not kill. Therefore, one still lives to repeat the remonstrance as an abstract proposition or two without any names. Tims, our contention was, and is, as follows :— 1. Should such a thing as a good novel ever appear, it is worth at least as much attention, and should command as much separate space as is allotted to, say, the smallest of the many biographies or books of essays to which is now accorded the respect of in- dividual consideration. 2. When a man, holding a great and acknow- ledged position in the world of letters, produces a new book, its apjiearance is a literary event. In any other country this proposition would be commonplace. In ours, unfortunately, it is not. The book, whether good or bad, whether judged unfavourably or not, should be at least treated with the respect due to the literary rank, and the previous work of the author. There are three critics of every book. The author himself, who may be presumed at least to know what he intended; the reviewer, who ought to take the trouble at least to find out so much; and the reading public, who very soon finds out whether it likes the book or not. Whether this third party does or docs not like it, he says so without much searching into the reason why. And the real cause of thu l>ook's success, when it  ## p. 50 (#454) ############################################# 5° THE AUTHOR. docs succeed, is not so much the review, or the inline of the author, but the way in which people talk to each other about the books they read. The free libraries, for instance, are rapidly be- coming in this way, rough-and-ready reviewers; they push the book around; they create the demand. Perhaps they are too often like the gallery at the theatre. Well, the gallery of some houses is now very much what the pit was for- merly: its taste is chastened. Certainly it must be admitted that there are authors who are not greatly asked for by the free libraries—Landor, for instance, De Quineey, Leigh Hunt, Pater, Meredith, Symonds, Lang—to name only a few, and these greatly dissimilar—are seldom read at free libraries. At the same time Marrvat—first favourite—Scott, Dickens, Kingslcy, George Hentv, Kingston, Charlotte Yonge—to name others also greatly dissimilar, yet all wholesome and good—are in very great demand. Of one thing we may be very sure, that if a book is dull, if it treats of unin- teresting subjects, unless it has "grip "—a thing which an essay, or a history, or a treatise may have, as well as a novel or a drama—the readers at the free libraries will have none of it. What part, then, does the reviewer play? It is impossible to estimate too highly the enormous advantage to literature of criticism, compe- tent, free, and unbiassed, such as we might be able to show under happier conditions. Every- one knows critics who thoroughly realize the responsibilities of their work. Everyone knows papers where the work is at least taken in hand seriously, even though the performance is not always up to the editor's own standard. It is, however, absurd to pretend that literature is advanced by the common mass of criticism. I refer the wider to Mr. Saintsbury's pupers on the "Kinds of Criticism" in his "Essays on English Literature" (Percival, 1891) for a state- ment of the. case put at greater length and with more fulness than we can command in these pages. I have quoted already (Author for April 1891) some of the following. It is quoted again because it exactly expresses our case, and exactly justifies our remonstrance. He says (Introduction, p. xxiii) :— "Reviewing is, on the whole, the most difficult kind of newspaper writing, and it is, 011 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 for a time on the shelf, or being considered not up to other work; of others, though this I own is scarcely credible, where the whole reviewing was farmed out to a manager, to be allotted to such 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." He goes on to say that he knows papers where the best work possible is given to one of the most important kinds of work. Quite so. We also know such papers. Again, Mr. Henry James in the May number of the New Review draws with masterly hand a portrait of the Ideal Critic. Here it is :— "Not only do I not question in literature the high utility of criticism, but I should be tempted to say that the part it plays may l>e the supremely bene- ficent one when it proceeds from deep sources, from the efficient combination of experience and per- ception. In this light one sees the critic as a real helper of mankind, a torch-bearing outrider, the interpreter par excellence. The more we have of such the better, though there will surely always be obstacles enough to our having many. When one thinks of the outfit required for fine work in this spirit, one is ready to pay almost any homage to the intelligence tlnit has put it on; and when one considers the noble figure completely equipped—- armed cap d pie in curiosity and sympathy—one falls in love with one's conception. It certainly represents the knight who has knelt through his long vigil, and who has the piety of his office. For there is something sacrificial in his function, inas- much as he offers himself as a touchstone. To lend himself, to project himself and steep himself, to feel and feel till he understands, and to understand so well that he can say, to have perception at the pitch of passion and expression in the form of talent, to be infinitely curious and incorrigibly patient, with the intensely fixed idea of turning character and genius and history inside out—these are ideas to give an active mind a higher programme and to add the element of artistic beauty to the conception of success. Just in proportion as he is sentient and restless, just in proportion as he vibrates with intellectual experience is the critic a valuable instrument; for in literature, assuredly, criticism is the critic, just as art is the artist; it being assuredly the artist who invented art and the critic who invented criticism, and not the other way round." To draw a practical conclusion from these remarks. The author, through his publisher, presents certain journals with a copy of his book.  ## p. 51 (#455) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 5« He says: "Gentlemen, here is my work. I shall be grently obliged if your reviewer will give the public his opinion on the book. If that opinion is favourable, it will serve me by advancing my name, and by promoting the demand for the volume. If it is unfavourable—although an adverse verdict will afflict me more than words can say—I cannot complain if it is the opinion of a competent critic, not a broken-down hack, or a novice, or an in- valid, or a brutal scarifier, or one whose blackguard and ill-bird delight it is to bludgeon a writer. And if the opinion is that of a competent critic, every word that he says ought to furnish some suggestion or instruction for me in future efforts." If, after this, he finds that his critics are the hacks, the invalids, the novices, and the bludgeon brandishers, is he not, out of self-respect alone, justified in withholding his next book, and all his future books, from papers where these gentry are allowed to prance? This is our conclusion. Journals have no pre- scriptive right to have books sent to them for review. A bad and incomplete review may do a book most serious injury, and can do it no good. Every new weekly journal thinks itself entitled lo copies of every new book. The thing is a tax, which, though lightly felt by the individual author, is very serious to a great publisher, who has to expend many hundreds a year in these presents. Every present should be received as conditional on the execution of a trust, namely, that the book shall be fairly and adequately reviewed. When that trust is broken, the presentation copies should cease. This is our case, and our conclusion. Editors of papers cannot but approve of this jealousy. It may be argued that every author who received an unfavourable verdict would withdraw his books from the journal where it appeared, in a rage. Not so. But even if he did, it would make no difference, because a lmd writer left to silence perishes, and that quite as quickly as a bad writer who is tried at the Court of the Critic and condemned. On the other hand, it will be most useful for reviewers to understand that, like the Judges in the High Court of Justice, they hold their places only during good behaviour; and that their work is itself as liable to criticism as the works of the authors. Our case is in our own hands. In stilting it in the pages of the Author month after month, the volume of correspondence has shown that it is a case in which writers of every kind—not novels only, by any means—are most deeply concerned. The case, I repeat, again and again, is in our own hands. It is a business in which authors may take counsel together, and, I hope, will. Let anyone who has suggestions to offer send them here. One cannot publish everything in our narrow space, but we can read everything. The vacation cometh, and is close at hand. In that holy season we live like gods, anil feel neither wrath nor pity. When that is over, let us take counsel together. In another part of this paper Mr. Andrew Lang offers a few remarks on Mr. Gissing's " Grub Street." So much the better for Mr. Gissing's book, which should become in greater demand, even though the writer says he knows no such residents in Grub Street. He touches also on sundry questions rising out of the book, especially on the great Ai t of Scarifying. "It is only," he says, " a battle with snowballs at most." The ordinary fellow who writes, thin skinned, morbid, sensitive, fails to rise to the height of caring no more for the Scarifier than for the boy who throws a snowball. It is, however, pleasant for him to feel that he ought to receive the blows of the bludgeon, or the rasping of the harrow with so much tranquility. He envies the man who can: for himself, it is beyond him, even if he knows that he shall get the chance of hitting back again—which does not too often happen; he writhes, he groans, he swears. And it is small comfort to him that another man stalks in silent dignity as careless of bludgeon, and nike, and harrow, as if they were no more than light and feathery snowballs. A Game of Snowball. Unmoved he holds his tranquil way, The Philosophic Sage: No whit the worse, though the critics curse, And though the heathen rage. And when they rolled the snowballs round, And hurled them swift and strong, "A merry game !" he said, "The same I could play the whole day long." They lodged a snowball in his neck; One in his left ear lay; As one who shakes the falling flukes He brushed those balls away. And larger rolled those snowballs still And faster still they flew. He only cried: "That ball's a wide! Wait till I shy at you."  ## p. 52 (#456) ############################################# 52 THE AUTHOR. He chose n drift beneath a hedge With icicles fringed and bound: He made a ball of the ice and all And rolled it round and round. The white snow wrapped its icy points And hid its icy heart. He smiled, "For fun, no game is done Till each has played his part." The other laughed and the other cried; He laughed and he cried, and he ran; Until the Sage his snowball shied, Which hit that merry man. Like David's pebble it smote him full: He stopped, he fell—he lav— [said, "Dear Heart! He's dead !" the Philosopher "And all at a game of play!" Mr. Thomas Hardy's " Group of Noble Dames" reads exactly as if the ten stories had l>een taken bodily from the "Cent Nouvellos Nouvelles," and had formed one di.rain in that eolleetion. There is the same simplicity of motive, the same directness in the narrative; no rhetoric is here, no fine description, no subtle analysis. They are not society stories, although the Dames are noble. They deal with men and women living in the country, who belong to no time and all time; and they deal with the simple theme of love, and its complications, and its consequences. Perhaps the most remarkable of the stories is that of the girl who was married at thirteen. I believe there are many—I have long since joined their ranks —who consider Mr. Hardy in many respects the most remarkable of English-speaking novelists. The "Group of Noble Dames" will certainly not diminish that number of disciples, though it is food for men and women rather than for school girls. The book appears to me, in fact, to be what we have elsewhere called a literary event. It ought to be added, that in type, binding, and adornment, the book is admirably presented by Messrs. Osgood & Go. It is rather late to notice on the 1st of July a paper which appeared on the ist of June. But, though in the next generation the Author will l>c a great daily paper, entirely devoted to Art and Letters, and everything of importance will naturally appear in our own columns first, to be humbly copied by the news- papers of general interest afterwards, at present the interval of a month is imposed upon us by the exigency of existing arrangements. The paper I wish to notice is that in the June Fortnightly called "An Election at the English Academy." Apparently we have among us a new satirist, one with a gentle touch and a light hand. Nothing lighter or more certainly imbued with the true satiric vein has appeared for a long time. The supposed English Academicians are actually capable of electing the Archbishop of Canterbury, because he is Archbishop, over the heads of Samuel Bawson Gardiner and Thomas Hardy. That is all. It might be said in one sentence. That the Academy should, or could, do such a thing would be accepted as its final condemnation. But to say so in one sentence would be to imitate the bludgeon practice of certain well-known literary friends. We have been so long accustomed to the exhibition of the bludgeon that we have been in danger of forgetting the rapier. We have been so brutalized by the heavy blows of the common weapon that we have well-nigh forgotten the bright and dexterous play of the nobler steel. May one venture to express a hope that more, a great deal more, may be heard of this new satirist—who comes with a smile in his eyes instead of a frown and a scowl, and bears garlands instead of brickbats, and poises a rapier instead of a cudgel? I observe that one of the critics, in his infinite wisdom, suggests Budvard Kipliug as the author. That seems to me hardly felicitous. John Milton, from internal evidence, would be as likely a name—perhaps more likely. As Charles Lamb would say: "There's a d.. d .. d.. deal of fun in John Milton." Grant Allen, in the same number of the same paper, lifts up his voice on the decadence of English literature and on the limitations of English novel-writing. We are very often reminded of these limitations. Of course they exist; no one can possibly deny that As Mr. Grant Allen truly states, if a man writes for a paper which goes into the middle-class family, the editor will not let him write about things which may be considered immoral by the ordinary paterfamilias—not, how ever, the "dissenting grocer" because that worthy person takes in no such paper. The simple answer is that the novelist who does not like this limitation may go elsewhere. Mr. Grant Allen says it means starvation. Nonsense! Let him try. Let him produce a novel dealing with any and every passion or emotion that he may choose, any problem he pleases to set before his readers of morals, religion, human life, or social relations. One may safely predict, from a writer of his power, that if he dares to lay aside his fears, and to write with freedom, he will obtain a success which will astonish him. Let him forget the dissenting grocer and the sentimental maiden of seventeen—that sweet young thing, indeed, under the awakening influence of Ne.wnham, is so changed that her own mother knows  ## p. 53 (#457) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 53 her no longer. Let him forget Mudie and the e-ditor of the Family Teapot, and let him write fearlessly such a work as he desires to write. Surely the time has come when men should leave off complaining that they are not allowed, and should just dare to do what they think ought to Ik; allowed. In one point, I agree altogether with Mr. Grant Allen. English literature is too much tainted with London fog; it is tilled with London fog. But the same thing might l>e said of French literature and of Paris. The reason, I suppose, is that most writers are attracted to London, and become saturated with its atmosphere, so that all the scenes of the Human Comedy take place on the stage of London. And the actors and actresses are Londoners, and the background is always a London street. If we consider, however, that men and women are mostly much the same whatever their conditions and setting, nothing would be gained, except a little freshness and change of air, by transferring the at tors elsewhere. Is there a new Poet? Is the reproach that- there are no longer any poets under forty years of age, to be at last removed? There is before me a most dainty little volume called "Wordsworth's Grave." It is written by William Watson, and is published by Mr. Fisher Unwin. I venture to think that the contents of this book have in them such a ring of poetry as we have not heard for a long time—the true ring of noble thought embedded in noble rhyme. I believe that this book has been out for some time; the excuse for noticing it here—that I only saw it yesterday—may pass. Let us copy one page :— I hear it vouched the Muse is with us still; If less divinely frenzied than of yore, In lieu of feelings she has wondrous skill To simulate emotion felt no more. Not such the authentic Presence pure that made This valley vocal in the great days gone! In his great days while yet the springtime played About him, and the mighty morning shone. No word-mosaic artificer, he sang A lofty song of lowly weal and dole. Itight from the heart, right to the heart it sprang, Or from the soul leaped instant to the soul. He felt the charm of childhood, grace of youth, Grandeur of age, insisting to be snug. The impassioned argument was simple truth Half wondering at its own melodious tongue. Impassioned? Ay, to the song's ecstatic core! Not far removed were clangour, storm, and fiend: For plenteous health was his, exceeding store Of joy, and an impassioned quietude. Surely we shall bear more of this singer. Someone has lieen proposing in an American paper that authors should pay a little personal attention to the advertising of their books. He proposes that the author should himself prepare his advertisement just as he now writes his preface. Well, that the author should condescend to pay a little attention to the way in which his business is conducted is a proposition in which we may all agree. He should have a voice, and he should exercise that voice, in the selection of the papers in which his book is to be advertised, and the money that may lie judiciously expended in adver- tisements. In the same way he should claim a voice, and should exercise that voice, in every other part of the work. This right, once claimed and exercised, would make publishing a far more careful business than it is at present. It would certainly lead to the restriction of the output, and to a much more careful selection of works to be pub- lished. And this would lie clear gain to literature. But suppose authors were allowed their own way in advertising. They ore not all, it must lie confessed, remarkable for good taste. How would it advance literature, for instance, to see the streets placarded with such advertisements as this? "The Empire Belle! Remember! The Empire Belle does not clean the grates! The Empire Beli.e does not whitewash the ceiling! The Empire Bei.t.e does not fry bacon and eggs! The Empire Belle. By the New Shakespeare! The Empire Belle. By the second Dickens! Now rendv! Price One Shilling only! The Empire Belle for the Million!!!" One or two complaints have been received apropos of a certain paragraph in the June number. The editor has lieen asked whether this paper has religious views to advance. Certainly not. It has none—none whatever—not even a leaning in the direction of a kind of a sort of a something. Therefore the editor hastens to take the sole blame to himself of that paragraph, and begs to express his regret that it passed his short-sighted eyes without being shorn of its adjectives. These adjectives! They are like women, because they make or mar our happiness. Those used in this paragraph may or may not lie true, but they were quite out of place in these columns. If the editor offers to insert a Member's grievance, provided it is not libellous: if the Member semis him a statement, names and all, set forth plainly for everybody to read, and if that statement, sub- mitted to the opinion of a lawyer, is pronounced to be libellous in every paragraph, has that editor any  ## p. 54 (#458) ############################################# 54 THE AUTHOR. right to complain it' that Member sends him letter utter letter crammed with personal abuse? Perhaps not. lie should possess his soul in patience. A Boston firm, Messrs. Ester and Lauriat, are going to produce a phenomenal edition of Scott's novels. A thousand copies will be issued at a price of £24 a set. The illustnitions will consist partly of etchings) by French artists, and partly of photo- graphic views of places made historical by the events of the stories. The street boys of Chicago are become students of Browning. The Boston letter in the Critic says so. A clergyman of that city had been giving, in the basement of his Church, readings to the street gamins who could be induced to enter the doors. He read Uncle Remus and Hans Breitmann, and then ventured on a poem by Browning—one might surmise from the result that it was " The Bide from Ghent to Aix." At the very next meeting the Arabs of the Windy City with one accord, when asked what they wanted to hear, pointed to the works of the classical Browning and exclaimed: "Read more out of that fellow that wrote about the horse-race. He knows some- thing!" Walter Bksant. — — THE RED MOUSE. MANY readers of Goethe's Faust have doubt- less been startled or puzzled at the passage in which the hero while dancing with "a fair girl " leaves her abruptly because— "A red mouse sprang from her mouth." To which Mephistopheles replies by bidding him be thankful that it was not a black one. Not long ago, while reading that most eccentric of works the "Anthropodeintis Plutonicus" of Johannes Praetorius (1666-8), I met with a story which easts some light on the origin of this idea. Tt happened in the time of Praetorius that in a certain castle in Saxony the maids were having what is culled in America "a paring bee," that is, they were paring and cutting up apples for drying. One girl, seated apart from the others, fell asleep with her mouth open, and what was the amazement of all present to see a red mouse creep from her mouth, which made its way to the window whence it went forth. There was present a certain Zoofe, a silly conceited girl, who against the will of all present insisted on rolling over and playing tricks on the sleeping mnid, for the latter was put out of the position in which she fell asleep. After a time the mouse returned, and tried to find the sleeper's mouth but could not, and so it vanished and never returned, nor did the girl, indeed, return to life or waken again. However, it was observed that a certain man in the castle had been greviously tormented with nightmares, and that after this girl's death they came to him no more. There is in South Germany a very widely spread superstition to the effect that the liccr- miitt.er or Gebarmutter (womb or matrix) is an independent being of itself, that is, the life of the body, and that very often when a girl is asleep it leaves her mouth in the form of a crab or toad, goes to some stream, or nibbles a certain plant, and then returns to the mouth of the sleeper who, if she has been ill, is always restored by this singular occurrence. In more than one Icelandic or Norse saga the soul is seen to go as a little smoke or vapour from the mouth of the sleeper and then return. On one occasion the friend of a sleeping hero sees the vapour go down to his feet, cross on a straw a tiny rivulet, and enter the bleached and polished skull of a horse which lay in the grass, in and about which many bluebottle flies were buzzing. After a time the vapour returned and entered the mouth of the sleeper who, awaking, declared that he had had a marvellous dream. For he had crossed on a golden bridge a mighty river, till he came to a marvellous green forest, the trees of which were like giant sword blades; and in the forest was ,1 stupendous palace, all of ivory, which he entered, and there were many knights all clad in burnished blue steel armour, who danced and sang exquisitely; he had never in all his life heard ought like it. And after this he had returned over the golden bridge and the sword-blade forest to his home. Nearly connected with all this is the artistic treatment during the Middle Age of death, and in which the soul is represented as flying out of the mouth sometimes as a dove and sometimes like a little devil. As regards the former, I once had related to me by a Bavarian young lady of good family, a girl of singular and exceptional truth- fulness, allied to common sense and good education, the following :— "I had a younger sister who had been ill for a long time, and who predicted that she would soon die, yet no one would witness her death. And one day as I sat by her, the window being open, some- thing like a white bird or a dove whirred up from her mouth toward the open window and out of it. I followed to look, and saw it soar far away and vanish. When I went back to my sister I found her dead. Her words had lieen fulfilled. No one had seen her die."  ## p. 55 (#459) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 55 That the young ladv absolutely and honestly lielieved she had seen this, I most seriously believe. But what was it. I think in all probability some bird or large white moth by chance in the room, which disturbed, had flown through the window. Excitement, a mind prone to poetry and supersti- tion—and this lady's family were to a very high degree superstitious—and finally the frequent telling the story had all led it to the form in which I have given it. Chaki.es G. Leland. Florence, June 6th, 1891. THE BOOS OP THE MONTH. Mrs. Orr's "Life of Robert Browning."* MRS. Sutherland Orr's "Life of Browning" is pre-eminently judicious. It contains none of that worthless tittle-tattle for which the public have of late years been taught to clamour. We do not learn from it that on such-and-such a day Mr. Browning dined at the house of Mr. So-and-So, where he met Lord , another distinguished jwet, who drank nothing but claret throughout the whole of the dinner. This welcome reticence on the part of Mrs. Orr is partly intentional and partly accidental. While, on the one hand, she lias not failed to keep up the most perfect regard for the subject of her memoir, she has never forgotten that— "He did but sing A song that pleased us from its worth; No public life was bis on earth, Xo blazon'd statesman he, nor king." Petty nnd useless details are carefully avoided throughout the whole of the book. Only the salient facts of the poet's life are given, together with a selection from his letters, and some acute and helpful criticism of his poems. The whole story of Mr. Browning's life is contained in less than 460 octavo j>ages. Mrs. Orr's reticence is, as we have said, partly accidental. She has not l>een able to command so large n mass of materials as is usually placed in the hands of the biographer. In the first place, Browning destroyed a few years before his death, all the letters he wrote to his sister during the time he was in Italy (an intensely interesting collection covering fifty years of his life); and in the next place, he did not, so far as can be ascer- tained, keep any diary. Lastly, it must l>e reineiul>crcd, that there were by no means so many * " Life and Letters of Robert Browning." By Mrs. Sutherland Orr. (London: Smith, Elder, & Co.) reminiscences of him forthcoming as might have been expected. A biography like Fronde's "Carl vie "—to cite the most popular of modern lives—was, under these circumstances, entirely out. of the question. Such biographies are like the gossip of the New Journalism: interesting, but damaging to those discussed. Our readers may remember that it was a remark in Fitzgerald's Memoirs which drew from Mr. Browning the most indignant piece of verse which he ever wrote. But in fairness to Mrs. Orr, it should he said that, however extensive the materials placed in her hands might have been, there need have been no fear of her putting them to any improper use. Every- thing that could possibly be of interest and value would have been given in the book—no more and no less. The work has l>cen blamed on other grounds than that of reticence. Mrs. Orr has been accused of deliberately minimizing the importance of the poet's early connexion in Dissent, This is a point upon which she herself will, no doubt, say something when the fitting moment arrives. Meantime, it may be useful to point out that Mrs. Orr had not the slightest intention of doing anything of the kind suggested. A good many of the facts concerning Browning's early days were obtained by her from his sister, Miss Browning—the facts concerning his religion among them. It is natural, of course, that the Nonconformist papers should desire to make as much as possible of the fact that Browning once attended a dissenting chapel in Camberwell; but, on the other hand, it is equally natural that Mrs. Orr, who had to tell the story of his whole life, and preserve a due sense of literary perspective, should not attach such supreme importance to it. If Nonconformity had anything to do with moulding the poet's mind or his character, the author of his biography ought obviously to have laid stress upon it. But this remains to be proved. Meantime, it will doubtless interest Ur. Robertson Nicoll and other Noncon- formist critics of the book to learn that Browning never lost an opportunity of recommending Mrs. Orr's "Handbook" to his poems, and that he alwavs expressed particular approbation of the manner in which his religious views wire dealt with in that book. Her discussion of these views, whether in the ''Handbook," or in the biography now under consideration, is distinctly non-sectarian in standpoint, but, at the same time, is not " bitterly Agnostic," as has been alleged. Mrs. Orr is not a "bitter Agnostic "; nor, indeed, in the sense usually attached to the word is she on Agnostic at all. Having said thus much by way of introduction, we had l)est at once proceed briefly to sketch Mr. Browning's career as revealed to us in the interesting pages of Mrs. Sutherland Orr's book.  ## p. 56 (#460) ############################################# 56 THE AUTHOR. Bikth and Childhood of the Poet. Robert Browning was born at Camberwell on May 7th, 1812. "He was (says Mrs. On ) a handsome, vigorous, fearless child, and soon developed an unresting activity and fiery temper. He clamoured for occupation from the moment lie could speak. His mother could only keep him quiet when once he had emerged from infancy hy telling him stories— doubtless Hihle stories—while holding him on her knee. . . . . It has often been told how he extemporized verse aloud while walking round and round the dining-room table, supporting himself by his hands, when he was still so small that his head was scarcely above it. He remembered having entertained his mother in the very first walk he was considered old enough to take with her, by a fantastic account of his possessions in houses, &c, of which the topographical details elicited from her the remark, ' Why, sir, you are quite a geographer.' . . . This seems to have been a first real flight of dramatic fancy, confusing his identity for the time being." Earliest Poetical Efforts. Browning wont to several private schools, at every one of which he seems to have distinguished himself. Of course, he l>egnn to write verses at an early age. He also read a great deal. His first volume of poems was entitled " Incondita "—a title which (us Mrs. Orr points out) "conveyed a certain idea of depreciation." He was naturally very anxious to see these verses in print, and his father and mother, "poetry-lovers of the old school," also found in them sufficient merit to justify their publication. No publisher, however, could be found. Happily, both for the poet and for his fond parents, the bogus publisher, with whom we are now so familiar, was in those days non-existent. The only result of their failure to find someone who would issue the volume was that Browning "destroyed the little manuscript in some mingled reaction of disappointment and disgust." In this he acted most wisely. He proved not only that he could write verses, but that he could do what is infinitely more difficult—destroy them when it became necessary to do so. Influence of Keats and Shelley. Browning left school soon after the completion of his fourteenth year, and there came to him almost immediately an influence which moulded to no small extent the whole of his future career. He was passing a bookstall one day, when he saw in a box of second-hand volumes, a little book adver- tised as "Mr. Shelley's Atheistical Poem: very scarce." He went home, and begged his mother to procure liim Shelley's works—a request which she eventually complied with. He next obtained Keats' poems, and the influence of these two writers u|>on his life and poetry soon became very marked. For a time, at any rate, he professed Atheism, and was an ardent vegetarian. He soon grew dissatisfied with his narrow home circle, and yearned for a career. "The fact was," says his sister, in <om- menting upon this period of unrest, "he had outgrown his social surroundings. They were absolutely good, but they were narrow; it could not be otherwise. He chafed under them." All this was, no doubt, necessary to the making of the man and to the shaping of the poet. Literature as a Profession. The time at last came when young Browning definitely decided to adopt literature its a profession. He qualified himself for it by reading and digesting the whole of "Johnson's Dictionary"; a course of preparation which may l>o confidently recommended to every young gentleman about to embark upon a similar career. "Pauline: A Fragment of a Con- fession," was written and published before the poet was 21 years of age. He had an early friend in the Rev. Mr. Fox, a Unitarian Minister, who read his poetical effusions with interest, anil who reviewed them in all the papers and periodicals which could lx* said to be at his command. Most literary men have kindly memories of some such early friend, and by them—if by nobody else—the fol- lowing letter from Browning to Mr. Fox will be read with interest:— "Perhaps, by the aid of the subjoined initials and a little reflection, you may recollect an oddish sort of boy, who had the honour of being introduced to you at Hackney some years back—at that time a sayer of verse and a doer of it, and whose doings you had a little previously commended after a fashion—(whether in earnest or not, God knows): that individual it is who takes the liberty of addressing one whose slight commendation then was more thought of than all the gun, drum, and trumpet of praise would be now, and to submit to you a free-and-easy sort of thing which he wrote some months ago 'On one leg,' and which conies out this week—having either heard or dreamed that you con- tribute to the Westminster." Another "spontaneous appreciatior" of Mr. Browning's genius was John Forster, the accom- plished biographer of Goldsmith and of Charles Dickens. Publication of "Paracelsus." Mr. Browning's next published work was "Paracelsus," which did not give the young poet his just place in popular judgment and public esteem. "But " (as Mrs. Orr remarks) "it compelled his recognition by the leading or rising literary men of the day : and a fuller and more varied social life now opened lx'fore him. The names of Sergeant Talfourd, Home, Leigh Hunt, Barry Cornwall, Monekton Milnes, Eliot Warburton, Dickens, Wordsworth, and Walter Savage Landor represent, with t hat of Forster, some of the acquaintances made, or friendships begun, at this period." It was about this time also, that he met Macready, who subse-  ## p. 57 (#461) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 57 quently produced several of Browning's plays. There was, however, a quarrel in the end, anil the friends became permanently estranged. "Graved inside of it, 'Italy.'" In 1838 Browning made his tirst visit to Italy. To what extent he loved the country may l>e gathered from the following couplet, which occurs in one of his poems :— "Opi'U my heart anil you will see Graved inside of it,' Italy.'" The lines fitly appear upon a tablet affixed to the Razzonico Palazzo at Venice—the house in which the poet died. The inspirations of Asolo and Venice appear in "Pippa Passes" nnd "In a Gondola." More important works followed these poems at a short interval. In 1840 "Sordello" appeaml; and soon afterwards "Bells and Pome- granates." The story of the publication of the latter is pleasantly told bv Mr. Edmund Gosse in his interesting "Personalia"—a work which Mrs. Orr occasionally quotes. "A Lost Leader." Browning next wrote " A Blot in the Scutcheon" —the last play, we fancy, that ever came from his pen —us well as a good deal of miscellaneous verse. Among the latter was " The Lost Leader." Every- one knows these vigorous and beautiful lines :— "Just for a handful of silver lie left us, Just for a riband to stick in his coat." Everyone also has heard at some time or another that they refer to Wordsworth. Browning was often asked the question in so many words. Here is one of his replies :— "I have been asked the question you put to me, I suppose, a score of times: and I can only answer with something of shame and contrition that I undoubtedly had Wordsworth in ray mind—but simply as a 'model'; you know an artist takes one or two striking traits in the features of his 'model,' and uses them to start his fane}' on a flight which may end fur enough from the good man or woman who happens to be 'sitting' for nose and eye. I thought of the great poet's abandonment of Liberalism at an unlucky juncture, and no repaying consequence that I could ever see. But—once call my fancy-portrait Wordsworth—anil how much more one ought to say—how much more would not 1 have attempted to say!" Makriaue with Miss Barrett. The story of Robert Browning's marriage to the greatest woman-poet which this country or this century lias produced forms one of the most fasci- nating chapters of Mrs. Orr's l>ook. Since, how- ever, it has already l)een very freely quoted from, we shall best consult the interests of our readers by passing over it lightly, so as to leave more room for other quotations, which the reviewers in their haste have forgotten to make. The marriage in question was a singularly happy one—indeed, we do not for the moment remember any biography of an English man of letters (except, perhaps, that of Charles Kingsley) which contains a more perfect picture of conjugal bliss. Browning was a devoted husband—during the ij years of his married life he never dined from home but once! — and Mrs. Browning, ill though she was, proved in her way to be an ideal wife. Mrs. Orr says that the poet used to commemorate his marriage by going to the church in which it. hail been solemnized, and kissing the paving-stones in front of the door. He certainly retained his jiassionate devotion for ElizalK'th Barrett up to the day of his death. "() thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be tin- rest'." he sings in "Prospice." And just towards the close of his life a stray reference to the woman he had so tenderly loved in the "Memoirs of Edward Fitzgerald "—an unkind reference—raised his indignation to a white heat, and drew from him the most vehement piece of invective that he ever wrote. "There was a moment," says Mrs. Orr, "in which he regretted these lines, and would willingly have withdrawn them. This was the period, unfortunately short, which intervened between his sending them to the Athenaum and their appearance there." That Fitzgerald's remark deeply pained Mr. Browning there can be no doubt. "It affected him with the directness of a sharp physical blow. lie spoke of it, and for hours, even days, was known to feel it as such He only recovered his lwilance in striking the counter-blow." The Brownings is Italy. But we must get on with our story. Browning and his wife s]>cnt the greater portion of their married life in Italy. These years must have been the happiest of the poet's life. He was in a country which he dearly loved: wife and child were by his side: the most congenial company was close at hand. Take the year 1804 for example— the year in which the Brownings spent their first winter in Rome. At this time the Eternal City contained Thackeray, Lockhart, and Frederic Leigh ton. Of Thackeray Mrs. Browning writes as follows :— "If anybody wants small talk by bandfuls, of glittering dust swept out of salons, here's Mr. Thackeray!" And of Lockhart :— "My husband sees a good deal of him—more than I do —because of the access of cold weather lately, which has kept me at home chiefly. Robert went down to the seaside on a day's excursion with him and the Sartorises—and, I hear, found favour in his sight. Said the critic: 11 like Browning—he isn't at all like a damned literary man.' That's a compliment, 1 believe, according to your dic- tionary."  ## p. 58 (#462) ############################################# 58 THE AUTHOR. The Brownings in England. In 1855 the Brownings were in London; and it was at their house—i3, Dorset Street, Portman Square—that Tennyson first read the manuscript of his new poem, " Maud." It was at this time that they first met Buskin. Here is Mrs. Browning's allusion to him :— "We went to Denmark Hill yesterday to have luncheon with them, and see the Turners, which, by the way, are divine. I like Mr. ltuskiii much, and so does ltobert. Very gentle, yet earnest—refined and truthful. I like him very much. We count him one among the valuable acquaintances made this year in England." Mrs. Browning had a hope that her father, who would not forgive her for her marriage, would at least so far relent towards his daughter as to kiss her child. Her prayer to this effect remained, however, unanswered. Death of Mrs. Browning. All earthly happiness has an end. Mrs. Browning died at Casa Guidi, Florence, on the 29th of June 1861, and, for a time at any rate, the light of the poet's life was extinguished. What he felt may he inferred from the following letter to his much-esteemed friend Mr.—now Sir—Frederic Leighton. "It is like your old kindness to write to me, and to say what you do—1 know you feel for me. I can't write about it—but there were many alleviating circumstances that yon shall know one day—there seemed no pain, and (what she would have felt most) the knowledge of separation from us was spared her. I find these things a eomfort indeed. . . Don't fancy I am 'prostrated '; I have enough to do for the boy and myself in carrying out her wishes. He is better than one would have thought, and behaves dearly to me. Everybody has been very kind." The blow was a terrible one; but, as Mrs. Orr truthfully remarks, "Life conquers Death for most of us; whether or not, 'Nature, Art, and Beauty' assist in the conquest. It was bound to conquer in Mr. Browning's case; first, through his many-sided vitality; and, secondly, through the special motive of [living and striving which remained to him in his son." Browning and Carlyle. The limits of our space will not permit us to tell the story of Browning's later years with the fulness which it deserves. But we must not fail to quote Mrs. Orr's reference to Carlyle. Curiously enough, Browning's name does not once appear in Mr. Fronde's Life of the Chelsea Sage. "Yet," as Mrs. Orr tells us,— "He visited him at Chelsea in the last weary days of his long life, as often as their distance from each other and his own engagements allowed. He never ceased to defend him against the charge of unkindness to bis wife, or to believe that in the matter of their domestic nnhappiness, she was the more responsible of the two. Vet Carlyle had never rendered him that service, easy as it appears, which one man of letters most justly values from another: that of proclaiming the admiration which he privately expresses for his works." The closing years of Robert Browning's life had —to put the thing briefly—all that should accom- pany old age—" honour, love, obedience, troops of friends." He died at Venice on December 12th, 1889, and was buried in Westminster Abbey on the last day of the same year. Robert Browning: Some Characteristics. Our extended notice of this important " Book of the Month" will best conclude with some account of Robert Browning the man, founded upon Mrs. Orr's twentieth chapter—an excellent summary— obviously written by a very intimate friend. "The poet (says our author) was strangely constant to habit: what beloved once he loved always, from the dearest man or woman to whom his allegiance had been given, to the humblest piece of furniture with had served him." But his habits were not so strong that they could not be broken if occasion imperatively demanded the taking of such a course. For years he was a devoted follower of Mr. Glad- stone; but, when the time came, he did not hesitate to become a passionate Unionist; although (as Mrs. Orr points out) "the question of our political relations with Ireland weighed less with him than those considerations of law and order, of honesty and humanity, which had been trampled under foot in the name of Home Rule." Like every man who deserves Earth-room he worshipped genius— long years ago when he was in Paris he caused his little son to run up to and touch Beranger, in order that the boy might be able to say in after life that he had at least touched a great man. As a poet he finished his work very carefully; the most conscientious labour being always devoted to form. He never forget that most excellent saying, Nulla dies sine linea, and always counted a day lost on which he had not written something. Like Mr. George Meredith he could throw off impromptu verses, whether serious or comical, with the utmost ease. That he was a brilliant talker goes almost without saying; he was admittedly more a talker than a conversationalist. In a word, Robert Browning, as presented to us in the fascinating pages of Mrs. Sutherland Orr's "Life " is at once a great poet, and an interesting, widely-gifted, and intensely human man. Poetic gifts apart, his character is best described in the words of Hamlet :— "He was a man, take him for all in all, We shall not look upon his like again." Pendennis. ■  ## p. 59 (#463) ############################################# THE A UTHOR. 59 IF SHAKSPEARE HAD BEEN PRIEST. |HEEE is one event which—if it had hap- pened—might have changed the whole, rela- tions of this world to the unseen world. Let us consider what a difference it would have made to the cultured dwellers upon earth if William Shakspeare had elected, or had been called, to become a priest or theologian by preference and by profession. Think what the results must have been if such an intellect had been devoted specially to the service of God, and to the stewardship of the divine mysteries. As layman or as priest in his own day in Italy, in Spain, or France, he—a man of such genius, of such honesty, and one so near to God—would certainly have been burnt j but it is conceivable that he might have been led, it would be to consider too curiously if we should try to think how, to become a clergyman in the noble Church of England of his own great day. A youthful frolic of park-breaking, possibly of deer slaying, determined, mysteriously, Shakspeare's whole career; and what we call chance shaped the ends which he, at 18, had scarcely rough-hewn. Then came the sudden, enforced flight from Strat- ford-on-Avon to the London of Elizabeth, while with this flight was coupled the necessity of earning; and, in this wise, the steps of the glorious youth were directed, by some unseen Power, to the play- house; to acting upon, and then to writing for, the stage. Had Shakspeare been, by the same Power, directed to the priestly office, we should, no doubt, have lost his plays; though the examples of George Herbert and of Herrick show that a man may be at once priest and poet. In his dramas, Shakspeare proved himself to be a profound and lofty theo- logian; and yet we can hardly reconcile ourselves to the mere idea of wanting those plays which we possess so proudly and prize bo highly. On the other hand, we may weigh, with a certain regret, the certainty that, if Shakspeare had given all his powers to theology, the relations between God and man would have stood upon a clearer, nobler, firmer basis; so that the blank of agnosticism, or the sorrows of doubt, would have been the portion only of the ignoble, or the torment merely of the weak- ling. We cannot regret that Shakspeare was led and gifted to do that which he did do; and yet wi! may contemplate, not without a certain vague sorrow, the other thing which also he might have been, and the other services which also he might have rendered to our iufirm and erring race. Shakspeare, as a professed theologian, must have made his mark; and, in addition to ordinary preaching, would certainly, as we may well imagine, have written and have published writings which would have been a revelation of revelation, which would have linked man to his Creator, would have removed many doubts, would have rendered clear divine truth, and would have unfolded to mankind divine wisdom and divine love. But it was otherwise ordained. Our greatest man became poet and playwright. We enjoy and admire him, past all whooping, in that capacity; but, meanwhile, doubt spreads and sorrow deepens; and that revelation, which is but a hint and a glimpse, seems to want the help of his powers to render it full, clear, and dear to suffering, straining men, whose eyes are wasted with looking for the light behind the veil. Behind that veil Shakspeare, more than any other man, could see and could divine. He had insight into divine meanings; and to this man was granted under- standing to conceive, and ability to interpret the Wokd. He understood the relations between Creator and creature, and he could comprehend the supremacy of Good above all the transient shows of Evil. What he saw he could make others see. He could reconcile intellect with spiritualism; and the highest-mounted mind of man would have been the truest representative of the Most High. Priests, as they exist, seem to be generally unable to understand fully, and unworthy to reveal fitly, Him. They scarcely comprehend that God is divine; but Shakspeare, as a priest, would have been of more worth to us than all tin; churches. We bow to the inevitable; but we, the countrymen of Shakspeare, may legitimately speculate—a specu- lation which if fantastic is yet not idle—upon the higher and happier world which might now exist if William Shakspeare, with his almost superhuman intellect and with his infinite tenderness, had been elected to the office of Vatrs, of Prophet as of Poet, and had thus been enabled to unfold to man the mysteries of the universe and the nature of its Creator. H. Schutz Wilson. "CONTES CRUELS." YILLIERS de LTsle Adam represents the dis- tinctly aristocratic element in the school of "Les Poetes Maudits." In him is a com- bination rarely found: the union of satire and romance. The "Contes Cruels" are of three kinds: purely satirical studies, without plot; tales of mystery; and tales combining these characteristics in varying proportions. The volume is conspicuous for its variety, a merit further enhanced by very- great originality. The tales are cruel not in their detail but because of their tone of thought. Witli  ## p. 60 (#464) ############################################# 6o THE AUTHOR. very few exceptions they are full of scarcely con- cealed scorn. Others of the stories may excel in particular points, but the most perfectly pro- portioned, the most successful, arc those that analyse middle-class sentiment and weigh the resj>eetability of the bourgeoisie. The author possesses very strong imagination and great descriptive powers, but the two gifts do not run evenly. The most imaginative of the stories do not make so distinct, an impression as others which are less original. "LTntersigno," a ghost story of the most ordinary type, is perhaps the best-produced story in the collection, and, in spite of the familiarity of the main incidents, one of the most striking. The fact that it suggests com- parison with Thcophile Gautier's "La Morte Amoureuse," and can i>car the comparison, is further evidence of the author's skill. Such stories as "Vera," while they recall the tales of Edgar Allan Poe and are charming in form, are not quite definite enough in idea. Poe is always extra- ordinarily definite and direct in thought; Villiers de L'Isle Adam is vague. "L'Annonciateur" could scarcely be better in description, the im- pression it creates is superb, so superb that it obscures the idea which runs through it dimly glimmering only and scarcely defining impression into thought. For this reason I prefer " Souvenirs Occultes," which produces impressions no less vivid, and expresses a clear idea. The fact is that the more material theme of "Souvenirs Occultes" is more suited to the genius of the author. But these stories are not his most characteristic work, though they are excellent in themselves, and prove that he was capable of wholly divesting his mind of its habitual cynicism. He is most per- fectly represented by " Les Demoiselles de Bien- lilatre," "Deux Augures," and perhaps "Sombre recit conteur plus sombre," which show his different manners in his special field. "Les De- moiselles de Bienfilatre" is a masterpiece. No theme could be more suited to the author than the relativity of Good and Evil; he must have felt so himself, for he returns to it in another storv, "Maryelle." The two Demoiselles de Bienfilatre are engaged in a well-established business. Though somewhat laborious, it is not unlucrative, so that together they arc able to support their aged parents in comfort. Suddenly, as may happen even to the most considerable people, the younger Demoiselle is seized with a caprice, gives up her business, and leaves her unselfish sister to support their parents alone. The patience and shame of this devoted daughter, the heart-broken desolation of the worthy parents, plunged almost into poverty in their honourable old age; how delicately, how sympa- thetically these are described! The dutiful daughter, wearied by her fallen sister's obstinacy, at last takes the elite of her trade and her custom into her confidence. The scandal has spread too far to admit of reticence. Their respectable experience! may be able to suggest some means of reclaiming her to a healthier, a more practical, state of mind. As Mademoiselle de Bienfilatre axnee justly observes, "One is not put into this world only to amuse oneself." She has appealed to the " poor lost girl " by the "memories of her childhood," "by the ties of blood," all in vain. But soil watered witli parental prayers, bedewed by a sister's tears, cannot long nourish the weeds of selfish sentiment. At last the girl's own conscience, formed as it has been in such respect- able surroundings, revolts. She is dying of very shame, " Le moral tuait le physique, la lame usait le fourreau." The Priest arrives, and in the dying prodigal's confession wo learn her sin. "A lover—for pleasure—without payment." This is her crime: she has sold the wares which were her worthy parents' livelihood; she has left her sister to pursue their arduous, if lucrative, calling alone. She has deserted the beaten paths of the pavement, to err in the labyrinth of gratuitous love. It is true that the partner of her crime had desired to marry her. "I want my poor daughter," the old man had said between his sobs. "Monsieur," replied the young man, " I love her; I beg you to give me her hand." "Miserable'." exclaimed Bienfilatre, revolted by this "cynicism." But this folly is past, and she is now repentant, lying, waiting for death. At length her lover, a young artist, enters. He brings her the first-fruits of his talent, money to buy her some necessity in her sickness. She sees the glitter of gold between his fingers, now at last her love has received the imprimatur of society, " The guinea stamp," and she dies in peace. I doubt if the petticoat of that matron, whose1 skirts would envelop the world, has shadowed a more dutiful daughter than Mademoiselle de Bienfilatre uince. I doubt even if that conscience, so singular amongst us for delicacy, could wince at the Quixotic honour of this respectable family. Virginie ct Paul are, as their names imply, very young. And is not "very young" synono- mous with "very innocent," "very thoughtless," "very simple "? When they meet at night, there in the garden of Virginie's Seminaire, to discuss their future happiness, how can we help comparing them to the simple things of nature about them— the calculating ant, the economical bee? Their conversation is as irreproachable as the discussions that follow a lecture on "Courtship" in a British British School. And then when they part, we seem to hear the voices of nature re-echoing their  ## p. 61 (#465) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. 61 conversation: the breeze in the garden murmur of "Securities," and the nightingales warbling "Six per Cents." Compared with these two "barbarities," the "cruelty " of "Le plus beau diner du monde " and "Les Brigands" is mere salutary irony. "Lea Brigands" is a grim farce, told with great force and wit. The dead townsmen's logic is delightful. The author's power of satire is sometimes so delicate that it is almost credible that the irresis- tible funniness of "The Duke of Portland" is in- tentional. The peculiar vein of humour on which it touches is, however, unknown in France. Rather, it must be acknowledged, even to the slight detraction of the author's great power, that certain subjects on which the. tale touches are en- dowed with that faculty which draws upon them the blessings of the close of a century, the unfailing gift of In'ing ridiculous. Nevertheless, the secret of the story is revealed in one page with all the simple directness of true tragedy. "Deux Augures"' and " La machine a gloire'' are the most remarkable of the plotless satirieal studies. In "Deux Augures " the requisites for success in journalism are detailed with pitiless accuracy—the mediocrity which excites no envy, and the careless- ness which precludes all thought. "La machine a gloire" is a description of the logical mechanical extension of present dramatic criticism. "Sentimentalisme," "Sombre recit conteur plus sombre," and "Le desir d'etre un homnie," all harp in distinct fashions on the question whether the exercise of the artistic faculties blunt the natural. An incident of cruelty, unsurpassed in refinement, is alluded to in "Sentimentalisme"—the story of the man who made his wife laugh by the death-bed of her dying lover. In "Le desir d'etre un honnne" the author's cynicism rises almost into pathos when he describes the death-bed of the incendiary-actor in his lonely lighthouse, moaning for the sight of but one spectre before he dies," not compre- hending that he was himself the thing he sought." ♦••■» "AT THE AUTHOR'S HEAD." TI^DK biographers of Archbishop Tail have I made no indecent haste to give the details of his life to the world. If their eulogy is, as the Guardian hints, "laid on with a trowel," it must l>c remembered not only that they were the special disciples of the Archbishop, but that during his life he was abused by his own llock with more acrimony than any other man in England. One Church paper even gravely disputed as to whether he had ever been baptised, with the intention of implying that his consecration as Archbishop was invalid. The acrimony of the attacks upon him have created a feeling in his favour. It will be admitted that, as a statesmen, he excelled all the occupants of the See of Canterbury since the Reformation, with the exception of Parker and Laud. Indeed, it is doubtful whether any Arch- bishop, since those two, has had more practical effect in politics. It is remarkable that an event so important in the life of an Archbishop as his Ordination to the priesthood is not even mentioned by his ecclesiastical biographers. Mr. William Wilson has in the press a transla- tion of Ibsen's "Brand" (Methuen & Co.) Mr. Wilson's translations from Balzac formed one of the most interesting of the Camelot Series. "Brand" is, in the opinion of many (not Ibsenites), the Norwegian's finest work. It would l>e im- jKissible to have rendered satisfactorily the j>oetic drama into English verse, and the translator has wisely prepared a prose version. According to Mr. Swinburne, the "Childe Harold" is much better reading in Italian prose than in the original; perhaps "Brand," too, will benefit by the transition. Those who are interested in Italian Art and History should not fail to get the life of "Bartolomeo Colleoni" by Mr. Oscar Browning (printed for the Arundel Society). With so delightful a subject, it would be hard not to be interesting. But Mr. Oscar Browning, whose life of George Elliot proved him an ideal biographer for these days, when time is short, has turned his scholarship and knowledge to good account once more by making history attractive, and archaeology picturesque. A candidate for poetic laurels, is no more. We learn from France, that " the popular English poet MacMillan" has been found dead alone on his yacht, floating about somewhere off the coast of Calvados. Mr. Swinburne, Mr. Edmund Gosse, Sir Edwin Arnold, Mr. Oscar Wilde, Mr. Coventry Patmore, and Mr. Austin Dobson have now the lield to themselves. As for the great dead, if an ungrateful country could find no laurels for his brow, at least it is not too late to lav a wreath of cypress on his tomb. I invite the above brothers of the departed to join in a competition to produce the ode which will no doubt be chanted at his obsequies in Westminster Abbey shortly to be announced. The. Queen will be petitioned to appoint the successful poet heir-apparent to the Laureatcship.  ## p. 62 (#466) ############################################# 62 THE AUTHOR. Mr. Goodman is a bold man. He leaves the last chapter of his story untold and offers prizes to anyone who will write it. Of course the story must Ik! completed its the author intended. It would not he enough to complete it as the reader thinks it might be completed. The denouement of the plot must be such as to follow naturally and to explain every successive step of the history and the situation. The book entitled " What did She see ?" is on all the bookstalls. More attractive than any work of fiction to many readers, will be the Introductory Essay con- tributed by Mr. Andrew Lang to Dr. Oskar Sommer's " Studies on the Sources " of " Le Morte Darthin" by Sir Thomas Mallory, a colossal work now completed. We do not want to be told that Sir Thomas Mallory is a writer brimful of charm and interest and romance, but it is pleasant to have the charm translated into words for us. Thus Mr. Lang sums up pretty well all that we want to say, when he calls it the hook "of all jumbles the most poetic and the most pathetic." Mr. Lang is a critic wrho should lie retained for nothing but advocacy. He should stand perpetually before some great work to explain to those who feel but cannot speak why it is great. He used at one time to assume occasionally the character of the rapier and dagger man. The bludgeon, I believe, he has never condescended to handle. The Burlington Fine Arts has long been known for its delightful little exhibitions. At present there is a collection of book bindings from all the treasuries of the United Kingdom. No art has so improved of late years, but there is still much to reform, and more to sweep away. The catalogue of the present exhibition has two interesting prefaces from the pens of Mr. E. Gordon Duff and Mr. S. J. Prideaux. It is rather late in the day to recommend a work of reference that must already be in everyone's hand—the Annual Index of the Review of Itcvieics. If, however, any of the readers of that most wonderful of the English (I may say of the world's) magazines have not yet purchased the index, they should immediately do so. "The Directory of Secondhand Booksellers," edited by James Clegg, has reached a 3rd edition. The book deserves to be even better known than it is. It contains masses of useful information, con- cerning all matters of literary economy. I should suggest as improvements in subsequent editions, the alteration of the title to one more descriptive of the contents, and the omission of all poems and other useless, if "literary," matter. It is a great pity also that advertisements are bound at intervals into the middle of the book. This most objectionable practice at once suggests inferiority in any publi- cation, a suggestion seldom belied. We are bound to say the Directory is not an example of the truth of this self-evident truth. Mr. Powis Bale, author of "Wood-working Machinery," "Stone-working Machinery," Ac, has produced a new book on "Saw Mills: Their Arrangement and Management" (Crosby, Lock- wood, & Co.). Mr. J. Stanley Little contributes an article entitled, "A Conimonsense View of England's Imperial Destiny" to the current number of Greater Britain. Mr. Joseph Forster, author of "Four Great Teachers," has published a volume entitled, "Some French and Spanish Men of Genius" (Ellis and Elvey). It contains sketches of Marivaux, Voltaire, Bousseau, Diderot, Beaumarchais, Mirabeau, Dautin, Rol>espierre, Beranger, Victor Hugo, Eugene Sue, Zola, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, and Calderon. Good Bye. A Novel. By John Strange Winter, is., paper covers; cloth, I*. 6d. F. V.White & Co. Ready June 15th. A new serial story by John Strange Winter, entitled "Lumley, the Painter," begins in Mrs. Stannard's successful weekly magazine, Golden Gates, on July 25th. It has been written specially for her own paper, and will not appear in any other periodical in this country. Mr. Mackenzie Bell contributes to the Rural World a poem called "Two Lives," which indi- rectly refers to the "Old Age Pensions " scheme. In the Author for June, a case is mentioned where an author got nothing upon the smashing up of a magazine; and the remark is that the author left the MS. too long—a year. How long, asks a correspondent, is a reasonable time between ac- ceptance and appearance of an article? One of mine has been waiting o\ years; in print 8 months (the proofs). Again, how can one withdraw article No. i, which may have been waiting a  ## p. 63 (#467) ############################################# THE AUTHOR. year or more, when No. 2 (sent, later) has appeared in the magazine? One naturally imagines it is unavoidably shunted for a time. On Friday, June 5th, a complimentary dinner was given at the Criterion to Mr. P. W. Robinson, the novelist and editor of Home Chimes, by a number of personal friends and contributors. The chair was taken by Mr. J. K. Jerome, and Mr. J. M. Barrie was Vice-Chairman ; among those present were Mr. Mov Thomas, Mr. Kershaw, Mr. Rol>ert Barr (Luke Sharp), Mr. Theodore Watts, Mr. H. E. Clarke, and Mr. Charles F. Rideal. In the wilderness of the book world there are few wanderers that have not felt the want of a guide. Bibliographies there are in plenty, but most people who have to use them are anything but grateful to their learned and industrious compilers. It is to the ordinary student most helpful to lie presented with an elaborate analysis of the entire literature of a subject. This want promises to lie tilled by the "Guide Book to Books," which has lx>en edited bv Mr. E. B. Sargant and Mr. Bernhard Whishaw, and published by Mr. Frowde. The task of producing a work which shall within the compass of something less than 35o pages, supply a selected catalogue of the lxwks which are of value in each department of knowledge was certainly not an easy one; and the editors may be congratulated on having so capably discharged it. Largely contributed by specialists, the sections of the work possess an interest of their own, since they indicate something like " the best hundred books" in most directions of thought and action by those who are well qualified to express an opinion. The book, of course, tempts criticism. Anything of the character of a selection of the essential literature of each subject must inevitably contain omissions which it is not easy to understand. Still, the work as it stands may safely l>e recommended to the most omnivorous student. SIMILARITY OP PLOT. "TTAVING had occasion to make the ac- I I quaintance, at second hand, of a large nnmlier of novels," writes W. M. G., of Cambridge, Mass., "I have been struck by the want of originality in plot and situation, even in those which, at first glance, are noticeable for the presence of that quality. Of the plot of what work, for instance, docs the reader suppose the following to Ik: a summary :— "' A peculiar father is responsible for the peculiar infancy, education, and subsequent fortunes of the heroine. In despair at the loss of his wife, ho rushes from the worship of love to an opposite extreme, in which he discovers, declares, and would fain propagate a philosophy which shall exclude love, and herewith suffering, from the human race. He is mad enough to try the experiment in sober earnest on his only child.' "Doubtless of the same work as that described thus :— "'The tale is of a man whose whole interest, in existence is so centred in his wife that on her death he becomes a pessimist. Sidney is his only child, and from her infancy he makes it his care to rear her in his own beliefs: chief among them, that love is the most monstrous mistake and irony in the universe, and is to be shunned as the most dreadful pestilence of life.' "It is not, however. The latter quotation related to Mrs. Deland's 'Sidney,' which ran through the Atlantic, in 1890; the first to 'Margaret Jermine,' both novel and criticism having been published in 1886." New York Critic. SOME BOOKS OF THE MONTH. Donald Boss of Heimra. William Black. Sampson Low & Co. Canon Cheyne's Bampton Lectures. Kegan Paul. Sir Henry Thompson's Modern Cremation. Kegan Paid. The Little Manx Nation. Hall Caine. Heine- maun. Laurence Oliphant. Mrs. Oliphant. Blackwood. (Fifth Edition.) St. Katherinc's by the Tower. Walter Besant. Chatto & Windus. Tinkletop's Crime. George R. Sims. Chatto & Windus. Sunny Stories. James Payn. Chatto & Windus. A Leading Lady. Henry Hermann. Chatto & Windus. Robert Browning. Mrs. Sutherland Orr. Smith & Elder. (Second Edition.) London City. Rev. W. J. Loftie. Leadenhall Press. Ibsen's Prose Dramas. William Archer. Walter Scott. Footsteps of Fate. Heinemann. International Library.  ## p. 64 (#468) ############################################# 64 THE AUTHOR. CONDITIONS OP MEMBERSHIP. The Subscription is One Guinea annually, payable on the ist 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 membership. Those who desire to assist the Society but are not authors can be admitted as Associates, on the same subscription, but can have no voice in the government of the Society. Cheques and Postal Orders should be crossed "The Imperial Bank, Limited, Westminster Branch." Those who wish to be proposed as Members may send 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 ist of October 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 lie made by letter. The Author, the Organ of the Society, can lie procured through all newsagents, or from the publishers, Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode, East Harding Street, Fetter Lane. A copy will lie sent free to any Member of the Society for one twelvemonth, dating from May 1889. It is hoped, however, that most Members will subscribe to the paper. The yearly subscrip- tion is 6s. 6f/., including postage, which may l)e sent to the Secretary, 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 lie read and reported upon for others than Members, hut Members cannot have their works read for nothing. In all cases where an opinion is desired 14)011 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 necessarily assist the author towards publication. WARNINGS. 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.) Nevek sign any agreement of which the alleged cost of production forms an integral part, unless an opportunity of proving the correctness of the figures is given them. (2.) Never enter into any correspondence with publishers, especially with advertising publishers, who are not recommended by experienced friends or by this Society. (3.) Never, on any account whatever, bind yourself down for future work to any one firm of publishers. (4.) Never accept any proposal of royalty without consultation with the Society, or, at least, ascertaining exactly what the agreement gives to the author and what to the publisher. (5.) Never accept any offer of money for MSS., without previously taking advice of the Society. (6.) Never accept any pecuniary risk or respon- sibility whatever without advice. (7.) Never, when a MS. has been refused by respectable houses, pay others, whatever promises they may put forward, for the production of the work. (8.) Never 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. Society's Offices:— 4, Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields. London: Printed by Eyke and Spottiswoode, Printers to the Queen's most Excellent Majesty. 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. 02 Issue 02 (July 1891) Subject The topic of the resource <em>The Author</em>, Vol. 02 Issue 02 (July 1891) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015031017927&amp;view=1up&amp;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 1891-07-01-The-Author-2-2 publications The Author