me.

Another circumstance I like, is the number of original Characters to be met with here. In the first rank of these, shines my Friend Hüber whose particular excellence would be very hard to discover, as he is as changeable as the wind and sometimes as boisterous. One day he wanders with his Faucons over Hill and Dale, marsh and river, wood and garden; the next, shut up in his Cabinet he will reflect on the nature of the Universe and the first principle of all things. The following week perhaps he is totally engaged in drawing caricatures and saying the queerest drollest things imaginable, and if he writes during this humour, probably it will be a dissertation upon the nature of Cats' whiskers. See him the day after this whim has left him and you will find a profound Musician, composing Misereres and declaiming Recitative with all the taste and judgment of an eminent professor. Whilst this rage lasts he holds forth with all the energy of an ancient Bard and is generally poetical. It is during this Fit we exult in the glories of Ariosto and Shakespeare, give a loose to our imaginations and repeat whole passages by heart in so vociferous a style as makes all the Auditors stare again and say the Devil has left the Swine to possess us. A few hours elapse. Come and you will find him in a coarse jacket feeding his Birds of Prey, all over filthiness and garbage. His hands are far too nasty to dwell upon; but should you just en passant observe their delicacy he would answer, Äh, si vous voiez mes pieds!

The next Night very likely he would be seen sunk in his Arm chair by the Fire side covered with snuff and strewing it about whenever he moves, quite marking his track. He is now as indolent as you please and seems to have forgot all that activity of Mind and Body for which he is sometimes so remarkable. He will now read nothing but romances and if anybody comes in speaks Spanish. Those who have been with him once before, perhaps at the time he talked of the government of providence and other topics of the gravest cast, might wish to take up the conversation again, and put him once more upon such subject. Let them question him a little-it will be all in vain. He will gape and whistle and pick his teeth and stir the Fire. Suppose they persevere. He continues so obstinate that at last quite impatient they ask if he ever heard of the Être Suprême. With all the sang froid and gravity conceivable he will answer, Oui, j'ai entendu dise du bien de lui. By the day after the scene is shifted and you will converse with a very reasonable Being, a little singular indeed, but upon the whole as pleasing as you can imagine. His conversation is now elegant and in what the French call un ton cavalier, perfectly well-bred, attentive

and obliging, may be tho' a little sneering; but that only when the Company is very plaguing and composed des Gens qui se flanquent d'esprit. If he has diverted himself well in the Day either by Falconry, engraving, music, writing, etc. etc., you will find him delightful in the Evening, serene, full of agreeable ideas, ideas that breathe the most delicate sensibility. It is then he will talk of the adventures of his Youth, recount his rambles thro' Italy, and describe the various scenes that have just passed before his eyes. His descriptions are covered with more vivacity and affect me in a degree superior to any I have ever heard and probably they would produce on you a similar effect. I would continue tracing this Genius thro' all his windings and following him thro' the labyrinth of his ideas and occupations in hopes to afford you some amusement but it would be as easy to pursue a meteor or to Morris after that dancing exhalation which our Country Folks call the Will o' the Wisp.

There are more strange Animals at Geneva besides the one I have attempted to say something about; but there were none so wonderful. You must live with Hüber to be able to discern his real perfection, and I greatly fear I have sent you but a very feeble Sketch. However, I trust you will excuse my not being able to divert you in the Winter.

Adieu Dr. S. I am ever your most aff.
WILLIAM BECKFORD.

T°

DIALECT IN FICTION.

?

O all readers and to most writers, the subject of dialect in fiction must be important. There are published nowadays so many novels having their scenes laid in country districts where the English language is more or less contorted and where colloquialisms abound, that readers are becoming somewhat familiar with these unusual modes of speech, and, being somewhat familiar, are becoming in consequence somewhat critical.

Every writer of fiction who dabbles in dialect has, I think, his own method of transcribing it. Now suppose a reader has just laid down a novel by A, who has chosen his characters from among the peasantry of, say, Devonshire-and Devonshire seems to be a very favourite workshop for fictionists—and takes up a novel by B, who has been digging in the same mine, it is disconcerting to find that A's characters speak a dialect in many respects different from B's. Unless he is himself acquainted with the locale of the stories, it is hard

for the reader to know whether it is A or B who is portraying the dialect of the county properly, or whether, indeed, either of them is correct.

In such a case as this the reader will be wise to adopt as his guide-other things being equal-the writer whose dialect is the more easily read; for without doubt the correct way to write dialect is to write as little of it as possible. Dialect suggested is in every way more artistic than dialect written phonetically, and I think I am correct when I say that he who writes dialect most broadly is he who knows least about it. Indeed, any attempt to reproduce on paper the exact pronunciation and intonation of a man speaking in the vernacular, must almost certainly be unsuccessful; and should it be successful no good purpose is served, for the reader is irritated by the difficulty of construing sense from the printed words, and the writer, being the unconscious cause of this irritation, is made to suffer.

There are of course persons who have a totally unjust contempt for the writer of "suggested dialect, and who delight in deciphering sentences the appalling broadness of which would prove an obstacle to ninety per cent. of readers. Some time ago I read, in one of the popular monthlies, a short story supposed to be told in the first person by a man of humble station, and to this day I am unable to decide from what part of Britain the narrator hailed. For a sentence or two he would proceed in what seemed an exaggerated reproduction of musichall Scotch; then he would relapse into something dimly resembling the patois of Cumberland, speak a sentence in fairly accurate Cockney, and for a few whirling paragraphs declaim in the jumbled dialect of half a dozen different counties. Why the editor of the magazine in question ever published the story or how the author ever contrived to pen it I do not know, but one thing I am sure of, it must have annoyed and perplexed hundreds of readers and been understood by but one-the gifted writer.

Certain novelists who are flagrantly town-birds, and who for reasons best known to themselves wish to transfer the action of their stories to the country, do so with a recklessness of consequences which deserves to be, and frequently is, heavily punished. A man should write only on subjects with which he is thoroughly acquainted, and similarly he should write only of places with which he is familiar and thoroughly understands. It is presumptuous on a writer's part to attempt a description of Devonshire scenery if he has lived all his life in London, or to set down for publication his idea of the characters and pronunciations of Highlanders if he has never been across the border. Not that a brief sojourn in Scotland would reward him with a knowledge of the Scottish nature or a knowledge

of the peculiarities of the Scottish tongue, for the Highlanders are timid of displaying their emotions, and to become intimate with their speech one must live amongst them for years and hearken to them patiently.

The Scottish tongue indeed is a difficult one to reproduce so that it may be intelligible to English eyes and ears. Every shire has its own dialect and its own curious inflection of the voice, and because a writer may have mastered the dialect of Aberdeenshire or Forfarshire, that does not imply that he is fitted to write the dialect of Perthshire. This, I fancy, is where readers are apt to be perplexed in reading tales of Scottish life. They have won their way through some volumes of what is known as the "Kailyard School," and are inclined to be put out when a farmer from one of the southern shires is presented to them as speaking, save for the "00 sound, the dropping of final g's, and the habitual drawl of the voice, in a language which is little different from that of any educated man, and could be understood by anyone understanding English.

They

The word "no," for example, is a source of frequent wondering to English readers. cannot understand why it should sometimes be written "no" and sometimes if one is dealing with the peasantry-" nae.” No is used (I am speaking of Perthshire) when answering a question or in declining to perform some request; nae when speaking of a lack of something. For instance:

"Will ye give rae some tobacco?" "No, I'll no'; for I've nae tobacco." There are many other words which are similarly treated, so that anyone writing these simple words as they are spoken is in danger of being thought inconsistent. It is curious, too, how chary the average Scottish reader is of reading" braid Scots "

contemporary "braid Scots at least, for of course he is faithful to Burns and the great Sir Walter. It may be that, his ears being surfeited with this type of speech, he is unwilling to spend his leisure hours in surfeiting his eyes and tiring his brain by attempting to follow the wayward spelling of the writer.

The novelist who elects to spend his energies in the penning of rural fiction must, if he is to be properly fitted for his work, not only have the gift of writing dialect artistically, of knowing what to omit, but must be thoroughly conversant with the hundred odd turns and little tricks of speech and the countless colloquialisms and idiomatic phrases in use among the characters of whom he writes.

There have been, and I suppose there are to-day, writers who, having decided to place the scene of their story in some rural spot, make a flying visit to that spot for the purpose of acquiring "local colour" and of studying the speech of the natives.

They spend an hour or two in pottering about the village street, in studying the formation of the country, in memorising the effect of sunshine or mist upon the hills, and in conversing with the landlord of the inn at which they have lunched, and with the policeman who is engaged in standing statue-like at the corner of High Street. Having thus acquired, from their point of view, the requisite amount of local colouring, the novelists return to town in the evening, satisfied that the entire phraseology of the country folk is jotted down in their notebook.

No! the writing of dialect is not a thing to be rashly ventured upon. To a few it comes naturally, and they are indeed blest; by the many it may be acquired only after long years of patient study, coupled and this is indispensable-with the artistic sense which will teach the writer to do away with every unmusical or unnecessary letter. W. HAROLD THOMSON.

THE ART OF ILLUSTRATING.

BY WM. BRETT PLUMMER.

(Compiled for the use of authors, artists, journalists advertisers, and others.)

(All rights reserved by the Author.)
CHAPTER II.

Photo-Mechanical Illustrations by "Line" Process.

You will see by the preceding chapter that it was once necessary to start all illustrated work through the medium of the artist. All that is changed. To-day we can in many instances dispense with the artist entirely, for the photographic snapshotter" has to a very large extent taken his place, and the old-fashioned artist of twenty years ago can now get scarcely a living.

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In fact many of them, some fifteen or sixteen years back, seeing the danger signal ahead, threw aside their pencil and brush and became disciples

of the camera.

This transformation of things has been brought about solely by the introduction of so-called "process work," the origin of which is based entirely upon photography.

There are two kinds of process work-the "line" and the "half-tone."

I will only differentiate between the two in this chapter, as I intend to devote my next entirely to the latter process.

By the one process you get a "line" block to print from, by the other you get a "half-tone" block.

Fig. 1. Line block.

orthodox way. It is really a reversed or turned negative, because, having to be printed first on the zinc, from which surface it is ultimately to be printed upon paper, it becomes necessary that the object shall be printed upon the metal in the reversed way, so that the left side of the picture or drawing shall be on the right side, and the right side on the left.

To accomplish this end a so-termed reversing mirror is attached diagonally to the camera.

The zinc plate with the printed image upon it, after passing through a series of chemical processes, is next rolled up with lithographic or greasy ink, and then immersed in a rocking bath containing diluted acid which naturally eats away all the exposed parts of the metal or the blank unprotected spaces or surfaces between the lines.

The etcher may be likened to a chef cooking a joint. He of course frequently takes out and examines the plate, and knows by experience the precise time it should be etched in order to obtain the necessary depth that is required for printing. By this process the very finest drawn line can with care be retained on the surface.

The metal plate is then "routed" and mounted on a solid wood basis or mount, which renders it exactly type high, and the now finished "line" block, or "photo-zinco" as it is frequently called, is ready for the printing machine.

The "line" process is generally devoted to reproducing lines and solid black washes only, of which two examples are shown.

For line blocks with stipple one can reckon another half penny per inch, or perhaps even more, according to the amount and character of the stipples required, but in a general way a fair price would be 3d. to 3d., with minimums accordingly of 3s. to 3s. 6d.

Very specially fine line work, such as is necessary for maps, and intricate close work, might be worth 4d. per square inch, and accordingly a minimum of 4s. for the 12 square inches. All large engraving firms keep a variety of

This is produced by means of what is termed a 'stipple or "line tint "that is laid in contact with the plate itself and impressed upon the part or parts that the shadow is required.

By this means very good effects are produced, as will be seen by Fig. No. 3.

With regard to prices for line work, they range at so much per square inch, with a minimum or lowest charge for a block, no matter how small it may be.

Different engraving firms have different prices according to the quality of the work they turn out, but as a general rule the rougher kind of line blocks are charged at from 23d. to 3d. per square inch, with a minimum price of 2s. 6d. to 3s. respectively.

Thus it will be seen that the size of a minimum block represents 12 square inches, say, for instance, a block measuring 3 inches wide by 4 inches deep, or any block below this number of inches.

Fig. 3. Line and tint combined.

stipples" and "tints" in stock for the customer to select from or leave to the engraver's discretion. Half-tone effects can, however, be reproduced by "line process" by the artist drawing in chalk upon a specially made grained paper, which is in itself a surface composed of raised lines, or ridges, upon the uppermost part of which the chalk lies, thus splitting up the sketch into actual lines. This is a very effective mode of cheap reproduction, and is nowadays adopted by many artists for portraiture, landscape work, etc.

The following illustration (Fig. No. 4) will give an idea of this class of work.

There are several other means of reproducing line work in existence, but since photographic line

reproduction has become so cheap, they are not now generally used.

It may be well to mention one or two, however. The earliest was the "Ideograph," a machine in front of which was a bed or table upon which the artist laid his full-sized drawing, and by tracing same over with a pointer, it reproduced or duplicated, upon a bed of plaster composition, a replica of the drawing itself in any size the artist desired. The mould obtained was then cleared of the superfluous plaster dust by means of a pair of

Fig. 4. A line zinco from a chalk drawing on grained paper.

bellows or a soft brush, and a stereotype in metal was next made from same and printed from.

The Hoke-plate then came into favour, by which finer lines and more decided work were produced, and upon which the artist drew or engraved his sketch to exactly the size he wished it reproduced in the print.

These plates, which were of steel, coated with a thin layer of composition, were made in various sizes and shapes, and the artist with fine tools or needles graved out his picture or scraped away where he wished his lines to appear.

When the drawing was finished, the paper was laid face downwards upon a piece of polished zinc and transferred upon same by pressuré. The plate was then rolled up in exactly the same way as I have previously explained, and etched in an acid bath.

It was then mounted and printed from as in the present-day photographic process.

All the above processes are suitable for any and every kind of printing, no matter how rough the paper or how quickly the machine may be running.

Daily newspapers are printed upon what are termed rotary machines, that is to say, where a cylinder is employed for the sake of printing very rapidly. These machines frequently turn out as many printed and folded papers as 23,000 copies per hour, and so it stands to reason, that for work of this kind the artist should draw his lines very openly, so that they do not clog together or blur when being printed.

In all drawings for daily papers, which are printed usually on coarse, rough-surfaced paper, artists should be careful to avoid putting too much detail into their sketches.

As a rule, mere outlines are the most effective, as they always appear clean and sharp to the reader, and are besides printed without involving any technical difficulties.

CHAPTER III.

The “Half-Tone" Reproduction Process.

IF you take up an ordinary photograph, whether a portrait or landscape, or for the matter of that any other subject, you will at once realise that it is composed of a variety of tints or shadows of different grades of strength.

In a seascape, for instance, the sky may be in parts almost pure white with several degrees of shade in the clouds, while the water will also again show ever so many equally varied tints, only of a deeper nature. And if there should happen to be one or two patches of rock peeping above the level of the sea, stronger and deeper shadows still will present themselves until in some parts the shadows may be so dense as to almost form a solid black patch showing little or no detail whatever.