partly a detective, partly an eavesdropper, doublefaced always. To get a "good story "is the only consideration. The American correspondent who listened outside a hotel bedroom door whilst an Italian count was beating his rich American bride with one of the lathes of the bed, and sent over a vivid column and a half, was a hero amongst his fellow correspondents for weeks after. I remember a long conversation with Mr. Blaine on the subject of this kind of American journalism, but he laughed and said nobody attached any importance to the papers over there, and there were ample laws for the protection of individuals. He told me that he was quite certain that as we were talking there was a certain X. outside the door. "He is always there," he said. "In fact, he took a room in this hotel in order to watch me, and whenever I have visitors he is out in the passage to try and hear what I am talking about." As a matter of fact, as I left the exsecretary's apartment I came upon the person in question in the passage. ROBERT H. SHERARD. P.S. The anonymous paragraphist of the Pall Mall Gazette, who is responsible for the column of so-called Literary Notes, in a recent attack on the Author and its editor, favours me with the following notice: "And really the editor of the Author should revise his proofs. Thus he has allowed an egregious person to perpetrate the following egregiosity: Three of the most prominent Parisienne journalists are now in Mazas prison.' Parisienne!" To hang a personal attack on a misprint is hardly worthy of a paper of the standing of the P. M. G. It was all the more unworthy that this anonymous writer must know very well, perhaps too well, that the said. egregious writer during the past ten years has given his best work to the P. M. G., that the quality of this work has often been most highly commended by the proprietors of that paper, and that it was mainly thanks to the quality of his work in that paper that he reached that pitch of egregiosity which so irritates his critic. Banter apart, it is only amongst English journalists that one finds such mauvais confréres, ready to vilify their colleague on a paper in that very paper. In France a person of that description would be scouted out of every salle de rédaction. But no French editor would allow one of his contributors to attack a man de la maison. VOL. VI. DIG T NOTES AND NEWS. HE return of MSS. smudged, scored with blue pencils, creased, and soiled, is a common cause of complaint. Here is an illustration of the practice which may be read with profit. It is extracted from the Authors' Journal of New York. The author speaks : It is a property question. you see; just as if I should send to some merchant for goods to examine. He sends them, but they prove unsuitable. Then I will wrinkle, deface, and mark them here and there, and return them with thanks, making him pay the postage. Or, suppose I want a tenement and go to an agent. He gives me access to his houses, and as I go through them and find one after the other unsatisfactory, I knock off the plastering here and there, or break a window. Thus emphasising my opinion. Well, I should be fined. But as for my MS. I put all my time and strength into it-it is my capital-and it comes back to me ruined, and I can do nothing! There are three articles in the Authors' Journal (New York) for February, which deal with the great difficulties encountered by the American author. Somehow, he does not get on. "Most authors are groping ever in the dark, with now and then a ray of light in the shape of popular or personal approval, and in the meanwhile great stretches of dulness and paralysis, so to say, like icy plateaus, in which hope seems to have finally spread her wings and sailed to other skies." Two or three magazines, it is said, are blocking the way against American writers. Mr. William Chisholm, however, seems to think that the reason why British novelists are more popular in America than native novelists lies in the single fact that the British novelist produces a superior article: I think one cause of the trouble with American authors is that, although novels pay best, the genius of the people is essentially political and philosophical rather than dramatic. There are no better reviews anywhere than the American, but I am compelled to say, for one, that in the line of the specifically dramatic-in novels and the like, we are still in our earlier stages. Something is lacking. The average American novel seems to die still-born, and those which are most popular do not seem to take permanent lodgment in literature. In poetry I hold that we are superior to the English and are gaining every day. But the intense realism and practical drift of the American people keeps poetry from attaining its true place in the affections of the people. They still read to be amused and entertained, and for this purpose they must have novels-there is no alternative. He tells us, in addition, that "too many people are resorting to literature as a means of livelihood, and too many are taking it up from a desire to be famous. It seems, indeed, an almost universal craze in good society." Miss Margaret D D Lee writes to the same ffect, and to the same effect is the editorial article. American authors, who, before the International Copyright Act, were ruined by the production of books which cost nothing, have still to face the British author, who costs something to the publisher, but nothing like what he should cost. The sale of the book is necessarily "forced" by the condition of by the condition of simultaneous publishing; it is got for comparatively little; the International Copyright Act came when Americans had become accustomed to books by British authors; the American position "in the opinion of a thinking world is that of a land without the world of letters." Miss Margaret Lee says: "We can thank our shortsighted Government to-day for our wealthy publishers, enriched for generations by the fruit of English brains, and our despicable position in the opinion of the thinking world as a land without its men of letters. Americans have no sympathy with Genius in rags. Genius must wear fine raiment and be heralded in rich in order to secure attention. So our pilgrims to Parnassus, being unable to feed Genius in her poetical and literary flights, turn the gifts into channels that produce an income." The report of the Clerkenwell Public Library for 1895 is before me. These reports are always extremely interesting. They would be more valuable if they would offer us some insight into the works read. The following is the classifica tion of 140,558 volumes issued during the year: -everything; not to desire any more to read the unattainable author and to get the book beyond one's purse- -this would have been a thing beyond the reach of dreams; no one could ever think it possible. Yet it is done. All the treasuries of literature are thrown open to all the world for nothing, to have and to use and to enjoy. There are, however, dangers. It may be, of course, an inestimable advantage that the treasures are there for anyone who values them and knows how to use them. The danger may be that those who use a library like this for nothing may cease to value the individual book and may not care to possess books. Perhaps; but it is the nature and one of the external signs of the true bookish boy that he will always desire to possess books; the possession of his treasure is dear to him. So that I do not think there is much danger under that head. As for the ordinary reader he could not afford to buy books if he wanted to. Now that he can read what he likes for nothing he will still less want to buy books. The enemies of the Free Library maintain that the people only go there to read "slush." I don't think they do; in the long run the taste of the people is not only wholesome but it is true. The real answer, however, to that objection is much simpler; it is this: that the Library does not, or ought not, to contain any literature which can properly be described by that juicy word. WALTER BESANT. The whole number of books is 14,882. We should like to know under each head (1) the number of authors; (2) a list of those most often called for; also one would like to see "juvenile fiction by itself. Boys and girls read "grown-up' books; we grown-up people do not read boys' and girls' books. For my own part I am never tired of admiring the change in our social system which places the whole of our literature in the hands of everybody for nothing. Formerly one read what one could get; all the pocket-money was saved for books; the greatest joy in winning a prize at school was the acquisition of another book; all the books in the family library-in the case I am recalling a very fair collection-were read and read over and over again. But to plunge into the ocean of literature; to reach out one's hands and take down everything LONDON LATE NIGHT. Chimes multitudinous tell midnight's hour, Now that the vast smoke-canopy no more Past swarthy banks freed from the fret and din Or shame dissolves its vassaldom to sin. Recreation, a magazine for blind adults, is published on the 15th of every month, its year beginning in January. The subscription is 9s. a year, postage free, for the United Kingdom, IOS. for abroad. Playtime, a magazine for blind children, is published on the first of every month, its year beginning in June. The subscription to Play The time is the same as that to Recreation. subscriptions cover the cost of the printing and paper; the metal plates being given. The publishers make no profit on the sale of the magazines. The serial running in Recreation for this year is "Cécile; a tale of the Kiffir War." The magazine also contains a short tale by Mr. R. D. Blackmore. The serial tale in Playtime is "A Toy Tragedy," by Mrs, Henry de la Pasture. The market is fortunately a small one. Recreation has seventy-one subscribers, besides many numbers selling from month to month. Playtime has forty subscribers, with also many single numbers selling. The magazines are printed from metal plates. In order to get the raised effect the paper has to be made very damp; in fact reduced almost to a pulp. The plates are warehoused, and reprints taken as required. The two magazines are gradually forming a library of raised type books for the blind. I need hardly point out that the blind have few pleasures. To brighten their lives by cheerful reading is surely doing to others as we would be done by; only, God save the mark, for I do not think any of us with good sight would wish to try the position of the blind even for a day. FLORENCE NEVILL, Editor of Recreation and Playtime. History will disastrously repeat herself so long as we are unwise enough to let her. War is oftener due to bad temper than to good judgment. Misunderstanding is as much a friend of war as misinterpretation is a foe of religion. So long as poverty and war are assumed to be perpetual they will be perpetuated. It is well to beware of the fool in power who fancies himself a genius. So long as cowardice passes for peace, war will pass for wisdom. The imperious is as often mistaken for the imperial, as the womanish for the womanly. The virtues of warriors are often popularly credited to the evils of war. So long as hot-headedness is mistaken for warm-heartedness, the weak will wish war-to prove themselves wise. Warlike virtues are best utilised in warring with vice and with other waste. Any fool may make eager war, but only the wise can make educative peace. So long as history remains a popular branch of mythology, war will beset human progress. It is generally far easier to make war from a private room than to make peace from a publi. platform. There are as many crimes committed in the name of honour as there are evils perpetrated in the name of freedom. Our native planet has never been over-peopled, and never under-fed. No true moral force has ever yet failed, but its counterfeits often may. Were there a higher sense of humour in the world, there would be more wisdom, and therefore less war. Obstinacy is one of the odious offspring of obtuseness. In communities as in individuals, two chief characteristics of youth are an enviable zeal and an amiable ignorance. I PHINLAY GLENELG. AN OLD WORLD OF LETTERS. HAVE before me a bundle of documents rescued, apparently, from the papers of the Dodsleys, father and son, publishers. They cover a period of about twenty years in the middle of the last century. They are fragmentary, but at the same time they throw a flood of light upon the material side of literature at that period. This was a time, Knight says, when the book market had become greatly extended; when publishers had ceased to carry books about to fairs or to hawk them at country sales; when authors were receiving 200 per cent. above the prices of the early years of the century; when the prices of books ranged from 10s. or 128. for a quarto to 28. 6d. or 38. for a duodecimo. It was also a time according to the same authority when 'large and certain fortunes" were made by publishers. The following extracts from these papers will furnish unexpected illustrations to the condition of author and publisher in the middle of the last century: I. The position of the author. It is generally believed that at this period the author simply sold his MS. to the publisher for what he could get. According to Dr. Johnson, "A man goes to a bookseller and gets what he can. We have done with patronage. In the infancy of learning we find some great man praised for it. This diffused it among others. When it becomes general an author leaves the Great and applies to the multitude." In another place, which I cannot for the moment find, he speaks of the public having become the author's patron. Yet, as the publisher who bought the copyright was not obliged to let the author know what it was worth, the public only concerned the former while the latter became the servant of the bookseller instead of the servant of the great. However, it was undoubtedly a step in advance. Literature had to pass through the purgatory of servitude and dependence out of which it is only now slowly emerging. In these papers, however, we have examples of other methods. I take them in order. There lies before me, first of all, an agreement between three firms-Andrew Millar, the two Dodsleys, and William Sandby. It is a very simple agreement. It just arranges for an equal division of risk and profit. But the interesting point is that we are still-Anno Domini 1755-in the time when a gentleman thought it derogatory to his dignity to take money for any kind of work, including authors' work. The author in this case was Sir George Lyttelton, Baronet, and the book was his well known "Life of Henry the Second." He gave" the three firms the "benefit" of printing and publishing the book on "certain conditions," which do not appear. They probably related to the form and date of publication. Now it is absurd to suppose that Sir George Lyttelton knew or cared anything about the business details of publication. He would not have gone to the three firms in question offering to the combined three the copyright of his work for nothing. What he did, most certainly, was to give his copyright to one-probably Robert Dodsley, who seems to have enjoyed the largest share of confidence. Dodsley, regarding the gift of doubtful value, risk being then a factor of very great importance, called in two others, with whose assistance he embarked on a venture which ought to have paid him well. Noble authors have long since left off presenting their copyrights to publishers, and now ask for agreements. That is because copyrights now represent, in many cases, property of a very substantial kind. We do not find Byron, who would certainly have tossed a ten pound cheque into the fire, refusing one for £5000. The next papers show that there were cases in which the author did not sell his copyright outright, but retained some share in it. Thus, on Dec. 25, 1775, Rev. J. Duncombe asks James Dodsley to pay Mrs. Jane Vigors or order the sum of £21 and to place the same to her account. And in February, 1789, Ann Smith, executrix to the late Mrs. Vigors, accepts ten guineas of Mr. John Ince, in "full demands on account of the late Mrs. Vigors' Letters." Therefore, Mr. J. Duncombe either had an interest in works of his own or he worked regularly for James Dodsley and could draw money on demand. The former is the more likely. In the case of the executrix it is clear that the widow must have had an interest in the book. John Duncombe was a highly respectable person, Vicar of Herne, in Kent, and Six Preacher of Canterbury Cathedral. He wrote a poem called the "Feminead and Occasional Poems," some of which are in Nichols' "Collection; " he also edited various books of Letters; his wife also wrote poems. There was a William Duncombe of the generation before John, who wrote translations, and another John Duncombe who wrote an account of his country house in 1739. A family of singing birds! The late John Duncombe's account of a cricket match written in imitation of Chevy Chase is a sprightly performance. Another case of the author or compiler retaining an interest in his copyright is that of Pearch. year Ann Pearch gives a receipt to Mr. Thomas Evans for the sum of £137 "in full satisfaction for the above-mentioned shares of a collection of poems in four volumes known by the name of Pearch's Collection of Poems,' the property of my late husband Mr. George Pearch." Therefore, the copyright of the work had been the property of the compiler. In July of the same year Dodsley buys the work of Thomas Evans for exactly the same sum, which is remarkable in the history of trade! A letter from Robert Orme, author of the "History of Hindustan," to Mr. Francis Wingrave shows that some agreement in the nature of a share in profits had been entered into. He acknowledges the arrival of his account, and begs the publisher to pay "Mrs. Dixon a friend or relation-£30. He goes on to invite Mr. Wingrave to dine with him at Ealing where he is living. The ordinary hour of dinner was then, among the better sort, about four. But Mr. Orme will arrange the dinner-hour so as to allow his visitor to get back before dark. Now at the end of February it is dark by six, and it would take an hour and a half to get from Ealing to the City, so that the dinner must have been at three. One little touch reveals a delightful wrong-headedness about Mr. Robert Orme. He wants the British Critic to be sent him, and no other magazine. Why? "Because I know one of the gentlemen concerned in the British Critic, and he is an excellent Greek scholar." Because he knows a contributor to the magazine who is a good Greek scholar, therefore the British Critic is the best magazine out. One more case of retaining a share in the copyright. When Mr. Adam Adamson wrote his "Dictionary of Commerce," he retained onesixteenth share for himself. Growing old-he was born in 1692, and this was in 1763-he sold his share to James Dodsley for £31 58. The whole value of the copyright at that time was therefore estimated at £500, a very considerable sum. We must remember that in those days of a limited book market, although the law might impose a limit to copyright, there were some works which became standard, and could only be reprinted by those who had the plates, on account of the expense of composition. A very curious case is one in which the author or his representative was paid by a certain number of books. It was this. The Rev. Dr. Leland, an Irish divine of great reputation in his day, left behind him at his death a collection of sermons which were offered by his executors to James Dodsley and William Johnstone, booksellers. They offered to publish the sermons on the following conditions: Four hundred copies of the book were to be given to the widow, with fifty more on a second edition-in full for the copyright. The accounts are preserved —I cannot understand every point in them, but it appears that some modification was made in the agreement. The author's rights were valued at £300. The widow received £200 in cash, and took 200 copies, valued at £1 each, in lieu of the remainder. This singular arrangement was probably entere l into in order that the widow might dispose of the books to the trade of Dublin and Ireland. Perhaps she saw the way to some advantage to herself by his arrangement. My readers will perhaps remember a curious passage in "Boswell" which shows the view which Johnson took on profit sharing: Johnson loquitar: "Old Gardener," the bookseller, employed Rolt and Smart to write a monthly miscellany called the Universal Visitor. There was a formal written contract which Allen, the printer, saw. They were bound to write nothing else. They were to have, I think, a third of the profits of this sixpenny pamphlet; and the contract was for ninety-nine years. I wish I had thought of giving this to Thurlow, in the cause about literary property. What an excellent instance would it have been of the oppression of poor authors! Boswell adds a note to the effect that this extraordinary contract was incredible. The only incredible part is the term of years. No man could possibly bind another for ninety-nine years. What Gardener offered, as we understand it, was a third share on the profits of a magazine on the condition that these two men gave their whole and undivided attention to its welfare. Who would not jump at the third share of, say, the Century magazine, on such conditions? But Johnson understood nothing beyond payment. done for work done, the purchaser to make what he could out of it. Although the old conditions have changed, some of the old notions survive. A man of letters observed to me the other day that he thought an author ought to take what the publisher chose to give him, and not to trouble about the rest! In some cases another payment is promised on the appearance of a second edition. Thus, on Dec. 5, 1761, Mr. Edward Powlett agrees to furnish Mr. James Dodsley with a Catalogue Raisonné of the British Museum for a sum of five guineas; but if a second edition shall be brought out a second sum of five guineas was to be paid. Such a clause in these days would probably appear in the illusory form that, when the second thousand should be sold, a second sum of five guineas should be paid; the second thousand, of course, would never be completed. In the same way there is an agreement between Robert Dodsley and Mr. Archibald Campbell, in which the former undertakes to pay the latter |