seaside places get beyond the MS. stage. They are written by well-to do women who are ready to pay £200 to get a novel published.

"Does not the existence of authors' of this kind account in some measure for the existence of low class publishers? May we not go even further and call this fact a justification of their existence? Honourable publishers refuse books which are foregone failures; they will not allow their names to appear on the title-page of such rubbish. Where, then, are the poor rich things to go with their MSS. and their money, save to such a friendly gentleman, who will kindly take £200 for publishing a book which costs less than 100 to produce?"

My correspondent is a little too hasty. It is not only the rich woman but the poor woman as well who is responsible for the existence of these persons. It is any one, man or woman, who believes that a MS., refused by those who only publish books certain to be in demand, will be accepted by the public when they are issued by those who publish any rubbish brought to them. In another part of this number we deal with the question of paying for publishing at greater length.

"I think," says a correspondent, "that you do not realise that small authors really get a great advantage in selling their copyright. In this way we get the money at once, without waiting for a year, and we have no risk or anxiety as to whether the book will sell or not." Well, if there is any risk or anxiety on that score the publisher will not buy the MS. at all. At the same time there are very few writers who would not rather take a lump sum down than the same or a little more spread over a term of years. The hardship is that the lump sum down is too often such a very little lump indeed. One fair and honest way would be for the publisher to buy an edition of so many copies, a new arrangement to be made when these were gone.

A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE.

Με

Y remarks arise out of one made by Mr. Max Müller :- "Find a respectable publisher and stick to him." It has been the ambition of my literary life to do so, but I shall have to postpone it, I fancy, to another and a better world! I began full of hope ten years ago, determined to give the public the best work of which I was capable as a novel writer. I loved the work and spared no pains to make it good. I sent what

I had written to a firm of leading publishers, who accepted my novel. Terms-half profits. I accepted the offer with joy, thinking myself fortunate that I had not been asked to take any risks. My book was well launched and excellently reviewed by all but the Athenæum, Academy, and the Saturday Review. The Athenæum called it "a wealth of nonsense," whereupon I asked the editor-when I told him it had been accepted on its merits by the firm in question, who, he admitted, would not have accepted "a wealth of nonsense "how he permitted such an unjust criticism in the pages of a journal supposed to guide literary opinion. The Academy critic cast odium on his paper by uttering an opinion on the book and the writing which a subsequent critic in the same paper emphatically contradicted. He spoke of the book as "beneath criticism," while my next critic in the same referred to it as a book of “distinct merit." The Saturday Review danced upon it.

The result of this handling by the three leading papers then, was, that the short three months' existence enjoyed by a three volume novel, by an unknown author, was insufficient to sell the number of copies published, and my publishers, while admitting that I had written a good book, found me a non-financial success, and bade me go elsewhere. The consequence of their decision was that other firms fought shy of my next book, which took three years in finding a publisher and was refused by twelve, one of whom took twelve months to consider it, and finally refused it "regretting-”! It was published at length and favourably reviewed. But all this came too late. The three years lost in finding a publisher made me practically once more a beginner after the lapse of five years between my first and second book. I lost heart after this, and tried no more "leading firms," since I found it was financial returns. not good work they wanted so much as quick

Last year, ten years after my first work appeared, I went casually and as a stranger into a first class library in a fashionable watering place. I asked for a small shilling story I had just brought out—not by a leading firm. Of course it had never been heard of, so I humbly said, “It is by the author of -andnaming my books. "Oh," exclaimed the librarian, brightening up, "I know those books well, they are among the best read in our library." This after ten years!

Moral:-Would it not be well for leading firms to be a little more patient with the slow sales of an unknown author's work ripening into "profits." My difficulty has been not so much in not being able to find a publisher I could stick to, but in finding one who would stick to me. I think I have proved that the adhesive properties are not lacking in

consequence of bad work, or work that is shortlived. Where is the remedy for such a case as mine?

EDITOR'S NOTE.-Perhaps the author is wrong, and the three leading literary papers were right. That is to say, they were probably right when they condemned the book from a literary point of view, and in regard to style or artistic construction. In such matters these papers do not often go wrong. But there are readers in plenty who regard neither style nor artistic construction. For them the story-that is the leading situation-is everything. And the leading firms do publish many books every year the sale of which is necessarily slow.

CHESTNUT BELLS ENCORE.

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PROPOS of Chestnut Bells. We often see the hand-bell in grotesque sculptures of the middle ages used in a manner which clearly indicates that it is intended to impose silence, oras an intimation that what one person is saying is not believed in, or is ridiculed by another. Thus on the grand portal of St. Stephen's Church, Vienna, there is a spirited stone-picture of a rollicking witch and a reprobate priest (perhaps a sorcerer), engaged in a tussle, he holding her by one leg, while she with the right hand pulls his head back by the capote, and with the other rings a bell in his ear-as if to silence his love-making, and say, "Yes, I have heard all that before-enough-shut up!"

A copy of this will appear as a vignette in my work on gypsy sorcery now in the press. On more than one bas-relief of the fourteenth century, we see a goat dressed as a monk, and in one instance, a sow, ringing a small bell. The allusion here is to telling coarse tales, since in modern German phrase doing this is called ringing the Sauglocke, or sow-bell, and I possess an outrageous little old work bearing that name, with the picture of a bell on the cover depicted in a manner "which could convey little joy to either moralist or Christian.”

The Lumpenglock, or blackguard's bell, is a term applied in Germany to the bells in steeples, rung at eleven o'clock p.m., as a signal to close all the beer-houses. So we are told of that veteran roisterer, the Herr von Rodenstein, that when he died—

"The blackguard's bell in the old Town Hall,
Began of itself to ring."

A man who is always telling coarse and rude tales or a Zotenreisser-is commonly said to be continually ringing the sow-bell. And I think it very probable that at a time when symbolism entered into every

It may be here observed that the primary object of church bells was not so much to call the faithful together to worship, as to drive away and avert evil influences, especially devils, concerning all which there is a deeply learned chapter in Southey's Doctor. The primitive Christian church bell was very truly what Mr. William Sikes called a " tinkler," since it was precisely of the shape, material, and make of the same which, in America especially, is hung to the necks of cows. Their object is to keep the cows from straying afield too far-that of the chestnut bell to recall men from wandering in discourse.

When I was a schoolboy, I once invested my last cent in the purchase of a black letter Latin folio-the "Moralization of the entire Bible," by Petrus Berchorius, all of which I perused faithfully and admiringly many times. By the way, my copy had belonged to Melancthon. It just occurs to me that the spirit of the old monk Pierre Bercheur is living again in these disquisitions on the true inwardness of the chestnut bell, and the esoteric mysteries of the Sauglocke. "Oh, good old maneven from the grave thy spirit" comes over thy disciple, into the year eighteen hundred and ninety, prompting him to find preaching in pebbles and sermons in grains of sand; of which "making great amount of small things," all that can be said is that it is better than making no account of or be-littling great ones, which is the vice of our day.

CHARLES G. LELAND.

THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH.

HE enrolment into a single company of so numerous and influential a body of English writers as composes the Society of Authors, may perhaps be profitably utilized in a manner which, if it be a little outside the scope of its foundation, would interest and benefit every reader and writer of the English language.

There has never yet existed in this country any academic body, any authoritative company of educated Englishmen qualified to pronounce judgment upon moot points connected with the writing of English. It has been questioned whether the formal institution of such an Academy would be

for the lasting benefit of literature, and I doubt myself if the ex cathedrâ pronouncements of an official Board of Letters would ever carry much weight with Englishmen. We are too impatient of law and precedent; but in a humble way some nseful work might surely be done. An expression of the consensus of opinion of so influential a body as our Society, can never be without influence and effect, and a resolution of the doubts and uncertainties that exist on many points in syntax, spelling, prosody, and phraseology would be welcomed by every educated man and woman in the land inside and outside of our own circle. I venture to suggest therefore that the Society of Authors should from time to time hold an inquest upon some one or other of the aforesaid moot points, and that their deliberation should issue in the shape of verdicts to be arrived at by unanimity, or by a large majority of votes; the verdicts to be published to the world at large in the columns of The Author.

There is another and perhaps a still greater service which our Society and its new organ might confer upon English letters, and that is by their sanction of the admission of useful provincial words into general usage. Many an admirable English word has no circulation beyond a limited district, many a word expressing ideas that can only be rendered elsewhere by a clumsy paraphrase. More competent persons than myself could cite many local words, which, if they were made general, would enrich the language. I will give but one example at present. In parts of the West and of the North of England backword signifies a refusal to comply with a pomise made or to fulfil some intention declared. The following telegram was recently offered at a London Post Office: "Dine with me on Saturday. A-sends me a backword." The telegraph clerk refused "backword" as a single word, properly observing that it was in no dictionary, and the recipient of the message-a cockney-had no notion of its meaning. Now surely such a word deserves to pass into circulation, to enjoy the approval, to be stamped with the mint mark of some academic body, and to become at once current coin of full weight and value in the realm of English literature.

OSWALD CRAWFURD.

"THIS MEMORIAL SHEWETH AS FOLLOWS:— "(a) It was enacted by section 5 of 1 Vict., c. 2. That your Memorialists respectfully submit that further Legislation is urgently needed on the grounds and for the following purposes :

"(b) Section 6 of 1 Vict., c. 2, declared that it is the bounden duty of the responsible advisers of the Crown to recommend to her Majesty, for grants of pensions of the Civil List, such persons only as have just claims on the Royal beneficence, or who by their personal services to the Crown by the performance of duties to the public, or by their useful discoveries in science or attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their Sovereign and the gratitude of their country.

"(c) The Select Committee appointed in 1837 to inquire into the then existing pensions, classed them under the following heads :-(1) Army; (2) Navy; (3) Diplomatic; (4) Judicial and Legal; (5) Political; (6) Civil and Revenue; (7) Colonial; (8) Services to Royal Family and in Household; (9) Rewards for Literary and Scientific Attainments; (10) Royal Bounty and Charity; (11) Compensation for Forfeited Estates; (12) Mis

cellaneous.

"The said Select Committee also reported as follows:-The operation of the Superannuation Acts, the system of retired allowances, the military and naval pensions for good services, the pensions granted by 57 Geo. iii, c. 65, for pensions holding high political offices, and the pensions for the diplomatic and consular services, have to a great extent superseded one of the original purposes of the Pension List. These Acts have also substituted a strictly-defined and regulated system of reward for a system which depended on the arbitrary selection of the Crown or the recommendation of the existing Government exposed to the bias of party or personal consideration.

"(d) The said regulated system of reward has since the passing of 1 Vict., c. 2, been confirmed, amended, and extended by the following statutes : The Superannuation Act, 1859; The Naval and Marine Pay and Pensions Act, 1865; The Colonial Governors' Pensions Act, 1865; The Superannuation Act, 1866; The Diplomatic Salaries Act, 1869; The Political Offices Pensions Act, 1869; The Colonial Governors' Pensions Act, 1872;

The Superannuation Act, 1876; The Pensions and Yeomanry Pay Act, 1884; The Pensions (Colonial Service) Act, 1887.

"(e) Notwithstanding the said Statutes, and the Report of the said Select Committee, pensions on the Civil List have been granted for services performed in the (1) Army; (2) Navy; (3) Diplomatic Service; (4) Civil and Revenue Services; and (5) Colonial Service.

"(f) It appears from the 'Returns of all Persons now in receipt of Pensions charged on the Civil List' (1889), that of the £25,221 135. 4d. (the total annual charge of the pensions payable at the date of the said Return) £8,625 was payable at the date of the said Return in the following proportions for services in the (1) Army (£2,710); (2) Navy (£1,335); (3) Diplomatic Service (900); (4) Civil Service and Revenue (£3,455); (5) Colonial Service (£225).

"And your Memorialists respectfully submit that further Legislation is urgently needed for the following purposes :

"(a) The restriction of the grant of pensions on the Civil List within ascertained limits.

"(b) The allocation of pensions amounting to not less than £800 in each year to those who by their useful discoveries in Science or attainments in Literature and the Arts have merited the gracious consideration of their Sovereign and the gratitude of their country, or their widows and children.

"(c) The increase of the Royal Bounty Fund and the Civil List Pension Fund so that her Majesty may be enabled to relieve distress and reward merit in a manner worthy of the dignity of the Crown."

The Memorial speaks for itself and requires little further elucidation here. It places on record the following facts :-(1) That notwithstanding the wording of the Civil List Act, and notwithstanding the Report of the Select Committee, pensions on the Civil List have been improperly granted; (2) That of the £25,221 135. 4d. (the total annual charge of the pensions payable in May, 1889), £8,625 was paid to the classes of persons not contemplated by the Act or the Report of the Committee.

Mr. W. H. Smith remarks in his letter to Mr. S. S. Sprigge, which we published last month, "that the figures in the Memorial, accepting them as fairly correct, show that the practical administration of the Fund is almost identical with the distribution proposed by the Societies, namely, one-third to services rendered to the Sovereign, and twothirds to the representatives of Science, Literature, and Art." From this it appears that the First

Lord of the Treasury defends the grant of pensions on the "Civil List" for services performed in the Army, Navy, Diplomatic, Civil and Revenue, and Colonial Services on the grounds that these are "services to the Sovereign." The Act, however, only empowers the grant of pensions for "personal services to the Crown," and it is, we imagine, merely idle to pretend that this expression was ever intended to have any such meaning as that which it is now sought to give it. It was no doubt one of the original purposes of the Pension List to reward all these classes of public servants, but as the Report of the Select Committee (cited in the Memorial) points out, various statutes have been passed "substituting a strictly-defined and regulated system of reward" in all these cases for a system which depended on the caprice of the Crown and of Her Majesty's advisers. It was clearly not the intention of the Act or the desire of the Committee-and it is necessary to remember that it was a Select Committee of Inquiry into this very question appointed in deference to a loudly expressed public opinion-that any pensions for these services should in future be charged on the Civil List. We think, then, that we have fully established the irregularity of all these pensions, and we regret that the First Lord of the Treasury, who admits that he enjoys "that discretion which must in such cases finally rest with some one responsible minister," has attempted to evade the conclusion.

Mr. W. H. Smith further remarks that "to make such changes as the Memorial suggests would necessitate a new Act of Parliament." This we are not prepared to deny. The Memorial prays for "further legislation " for certain specified purposes. We feel some diffidence in making any rejoinder to Mr. Smith's expression of opinion that there has not been "any such expression of dissatisfaction either in the House or outside of it as would justify the proposal." But we think it due to ourselves to say that the Incorporated Society of Authors and the Institute of Journalists do not stand alone in objecting to the present administration of the Civil List Pension Fund. The press has almost without distinction or exception condemned the existing system in no measured terms, and we are not aware that a single voice has been raised in its defence. If the Fund were administered strictly within its proper limits, it would, it is universally admitted, be impossible to satisfy the just claimants. Restrictions, it appears, already exist. It will be seen from the correspondence published in the current report of the Executive Committee that literary pensions can only be granted to the writers of "historical novels and technical and useful books," owing

to the unexpected existence of certain regulations, or, as Mr. Smith defined them in the House of Commons, "notes on practice." The Society has already placed on record a protest against the "permanent exclusion of any class of Literary, Scientific, or Artistic production from the just claims on the Royal beneficence contemplated by section 6 of 1 Vict., c. 2." The Society has already demanded that "the regulations, if any, under which the Civil List Pension Fund is administered should be communicated to the public." The case for reform is now complete. It cannot be left to private secretaries to draw up rules which vary the meaning and affect the application of an Act of Parliament. It is high time that genuine regulations were framed, if necessary by statute, which should restrict the grant of pensions not upon an artificial theory but in accordance with public opinion. Mr. Smith "fears that Parliament would be very unlikely to agree to an increase of the sum annually set apart for the Pension List." We, on the other hand, believe that if the necessity were shown to exist, the popular representatives would ungrudgingly support such a use of public money. And there is only too little doubt as to the urgent character of the necessity. It is the unanimous testimony of every First Lord of the Treasury that he is year by year deluged with applications for pensions which he is unable to grant. Many of those cases which now, perhaps, "lie forgotten in the cupboards of the Treasury," were, we do not doubt, sad and saddening, although no whisper of them reached the unofficial world. There are moreover, few years that pass by without the country being startled by the announcement that a pension has been refused to some distinguished man of letters or his surviving widow and children. We do not doubt, we repeat, that the public would support even an increase of the Pension List, but be that as it may, it cannot be denied that the country at large would welcome a reform in the administration of the Pension Fund, which would ensure it being devoted to the purposes for which it was founded.

II,

THE PENSIONS OF THE YEAR.

The Civil List Pensions granted during the last twelve months have now been published. They are as follows:---William Huggins, LL.D., a pension of £150 (very good). Ellen S. Scott, widow of General H. Scott, R.E., a pension of £100 (very bad). The widow of a soldier does not fall within the limits of the grant. Bessie Hatch (widow of Rev. Edwin Hatch, a pension of £100 (very good).

Ellen Isabella Tupper, daughter of Martin Tupper, a pension of £75 (very good). Rosamond Burnard, daughter of Gen. Sir H. W. Burnard, a pension of £75. The daughter of a soldier has no business in the list at all, unless that soldier was also distinguished for service, art or literature. Henrietta Elizabeth Wood, widow of the late J. T. Wood, a pension of £75. Augusta Theresa Motteram, widow of the late Judge Motteram, a pension of £75. Lady Wilde, a pension of £70. Pensions of £50 each to Mrs. Caroline Blanchard, Mr. John Absolon, Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, Dr. William Spark, Mrs. Kate Livingstone, Miss Catherine Shilleto, Mrs. Jane Eleanor Wood (widow of Rev. J. G. Wood). Pensions of £25 each have been granted to the Misses Eliza and Mary Maquire, daughters of the late Dr. Thomas Maquire, of Trinity College, Dublin, and of £20 each to the four unmarried daughters of the late Rev. M. J. Berkeley, F.R.S. General verdict. On the whole, a great improvement on many recent lists.

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A NEW GUIDE TO BOOKS.

GUIDE to Books should be found in any review. That is to say, the reader should be able to depend upon the review which he reads regularly to guide him in the ordering of books from the library. And, no doubt, the reader of the Saturday Review, for instance, would find no difficulty in understanding what is promising in the way of new literature. But one can very well understand that there may arise cases in which the most perfect review may fail to inform the reader as to the best books on special subjects. For instance, the Saturday Review may be acknowledged by its best friends to be weak in the Department of Surgery, or of Pure Mathematics, or of Electricity. Therefore, a certain compilation which will first appear in the autumn may prove of great use to specialists, if not to the general reader. The object of the editors is to "place at the service of the reader the opinions of those who may be trusted to give sound advice upon the books which are of value in each department of knowledge." A great many people-specialistshave promised to assist. Among them-members of the Society-we find the names of William Archer, Courthope Bowen, James Bryce, John Earle, Richard Garnett, J. W. Hales, E. Ray Lankester, J. Norman Lockyer, Erikr Magnusson, Max Müller, Sir Frederick Pollock, Burden San. derson, J. R. Seeley, Sir Henry Thompson, Andrew Tuer, and Sir Charles Wilson,