Text Anonymous and illustrated by Frederick Waddy

“ You feel, all the while you are reading his books, that the author is laughing at you. There is an air of insincerity about them all; there is not a passage in one of the romances that ever moved the passions of a boarding-school miss. They are very unreal, and very clever; but with all the splendour and wealth of his Eastern imagination, Mr. Disraeli has a fine sense of genuine English humour. What is finer in this way than the talk of the two servants, Mr. Freeman and Mr. Trueman, that Tancred takes with him to Palestine? They are so inimitably true as portraits of the English upper servant. ”

“ He has put more dukes, duchesses, lords, and ladies, more gold and jewels, more splendour and wealth into his books than anybody else has attempted to do. They are full of them. They are full, too, of his peculiar opinions about the race from which he has sprung. 'Race,' he tells us, 'is the only truth.' 'The Jews are the aristocracy of nature—the purest race, the chosen people.'
Whatever fate his fame as a statesman and a novelist may meet with at the hands of the future, there is, then, one thing at least he can never lose—his connection with the aristocracy of nature. ”

“ Almost Homeric in its breadth and simplicity, it combines the homely pathos, the picturesque variety, and the teeming allegory of our elder minstrels, with the polished grace which springs from a complete command of the highest resources of modern art. The exquisite blank verse—of which, perhaps, no greater master than Tennyson can be named—flows on with an utter disguise of all elaboration and effort. Art has concealed the traces of art. ”

“ Locker phrases it, must " be more or less of a poet"—cela va sans dire. His next essential qualification is the gift of humour. No society can ever have existed in which youth and beauty, genius and experience, freely commingled, without the atmospheric element of humour, the incessant play of mental summer lightning, produced by the gentle collision of electrical natures. A flow of light humorous talk, rippling with banter, bubbling into jets of wit and satire, is notoriously the staple of "polite" conversation, and the brightest talkers are the most favoured guests. ”

“ CHARLES LEVER.
Born August 31, 1809; died June 1, 1872.
Two worlds there are in which we live and move—
The world of fiction and the world of fact:
One of King Magic, whom his subjects love;
One of King Fate, wherein we talk and act.
In one, the good men fail, the bad succeed;
Age carves its lines too soon on buxom youth:
Man falls ignobly in the hour of need,
And woman's faith beats down our faith in truth. ”

“ Words are poor weak things, after all. They are overworked; we expect too much of them. They are too few in number. Doubtless, in a better world, our vocabulary will be more copious, and equal to expressing all our thoughts. And then every man will be a poet. But with the reading of Browning grows one's love for him. L'appetit vient en mangeant. And when the taste is once formed, there can be for his admirer but one living poet. ”

“ Portraits, animals, fruit, and small landscape are as flourishing, and certainly as good, at Burlington House as at Paris or Brussels; but the Englishman must admit, with a sigh, that he has no grand art to show among the canvases that represent the year's labours of the exponents of British art. The majority of our painters go on, year after year, painting the same old hackneyed subjects, the same familiar portraits, the same bits of landscape. They are so generally successful because they are careful never to put themselves into the way of failure. ”

“ The name of Mark Lemon was known all over the English-speaking world, and everywhere 'Punch' connoted Lemon. The two ideas were inseparable from the term. But when the first grief at the loss of the genial and witty humorist had had time to lose some of its poignancy, all who wished well to the satirical journal—in other words, all the world—were rejoiced to hear that the choice of his successor had fallen on Shirley Brooks: like the original projector of 'Punch,' himself a novelist, humorist, playwright,—and to employ a phrase in use in the cricket-field—'good all-round' man of letters. ”

“ Do you know, John, there are times when I feel very queer—there are indeed. I catched myself a singing "Sweet Home" one night, among those savages in the wilderness. One wants consolation, John, sometimes one does, indeed; and, for my part, I do miss the family prayers and the home-brewed.'
No author has ever done better in portraying the characteristic feeling of the servants' hall; and at the other social extreme, Mr. Disraeli has had more practice than any other novelist. ”

“ Although we place two of Charles Reade's books first in their respective classes—'Foul Play' in the class of novels called sensational, and 'The Cloister and the Hearth' in that of the purely imaginative—yet his books, taken throughout, are of more even merit than those of almost any other novelist. They are written in English as pure, as simple, and as truly Saxon as any this century has produced: in a literary style—nervous, vigorous, and masculine—with which the most captious and partisan critic cannot find any fault. ”

“ In the 'Idylls of the King' we see Tennyson's characteristic merits at their highest. In it he has taken a field for himself, in which all imitators—and they have been many, no less a poet than Lord Lytton among the number—have signally failed; and here at least, in his capacity of throwing a radiance of new life and beauty about the mouldering legends of antiquity, the Laureate has proved himself unrivalled by living bards. ”

“ We do not think that there will ever be a large proportion of women who will have the courage to face the difficulties and brave the labour. Many may, however, learn enough to make themselves invaluable nurses.
So will be restored the mediæval condition. Women will occupy themselves in household work, in study and literature, in looking after and educating children, in social amusements, in dances, music, and love-making. Man—poor, dear, patient animal!—goes on always the same: working for those he loves, striving to keep the nest warm, and caring little enough for aught else. ”

“ And it seem'd as if a voice
(Sweeter far than by harp or by psaltery
Is breathed) call'd out, 'O rats, rejoice!
The world is grown to one vast dry-saltery!'
Is he pathetic? Read 'Count Gismond,' where his wife recalls that day when he saved her name at the peril of his life, and slew the foul slanderer. She tells it to herself with love-soft heart: one can see her eyes swollen with the tears of happiness, tears that do not drop while she tells it ”

“ Farewell, Charles Lever! Could fate overlook,
But for one other work, thy fruitful days.
Farewell ! the world is gloomier. Ill we brook
To lose thy voice in Joy's small choir of Praise.
Charles James Lever, the writer of so many brilliant works of fiction, was born in Dublin, in the year 1809. He was educated there at Trinity College, and was originally intended to follow the medical profession; but he soon abandoned physic for literature, and so followed the bent of his great natural genius. ”

“ The navy has been the loser and the stage the gainer by the circumstance. He was fond of music, and made that his first profession. While fulfilling an engagement in the orchestra of the theatre at Warwick, he first threw down the fiddlestick, and put on the mask and tights of a harlequin—a character different from those with which in after years he pleased the public. But his real début as an actor took place in the same theatre, in the character of Thessalus in 'Alexander the Great.' He succeeded, and resolved to devote himself for the future to the stage. ”

“ A lover of external things of beauty, a student of nature rather than of men, a dreamer rather than a man of action, he—like his own 'Lotus Eaters'— yields rather to the seductive influence of sensuous attractions than to the impulse of more restless minds, who would fain step forth, and, taking the living world for their theme, suggest with prophetic voice the lessons which depend upon the present for the benefit of the unborn future. ”

“ To describe, to dissect, to observe these currents and moods is the hardest task that poet ever set himself; and it is Browning's self-imposed task. If he has failed, he has failed splendidly. It is a defeat which is a great victory. ”

“ If they are prepared to give up love and marriage, or to subordinate these—with, of course, the welfare of their children—to other things; if, farther, they are willing to give up those social amenities to which they are accustomed—the concession of small things by men, the deference and respectful bearing of gentlemen towards them—then, by all means, let women go upon platforms, and fight in the arena, side by side with their brothers. Life is a great battle, in which, from time immemorial, women have been spared. ”

“ Now, most poets are the slaves of verse, and can only get their thoughts expressed by a sort of coaxing, and in a roundabout fashion. Then, the life they describe is conventional: Browning's should be real. The motives and springs of action which they describe are simple: those of life are really complex, manifold, various, and overlapping each other. In Browning, we find the psychologist trying to show us in his analysis some of the many influences under which the soul acts. With most poets the soul is, as it were, a river. Browning recognises the fact that it is a mighty ocean. ”

“ The style is lively and discursive—one in which new information on topics of the greatest interest is marshalled with the skill of a practised pen, without the matter ever becoming dry, or the pages tedious to the reader, who, resigning himself to the spell of the writer's power, visits with him the places and people he has described with so much freshness and originality. ”

“ Social prejudices are almost as hard to eradicate as those of religion. It was not till quite lately that the feeling against woman's rights as regards education was successfully combated; and even now there are hundreds of respectable parents who would far rather send their daughters to a fashionable boarding-school at Brighton, where they are sure to learn nothing, than to a place like the Hitchin College, where they will be taught with the same accuracy and thoroughness as Cambridge honour men. ”

“ Now perhaps some people will open their eyes if we tell them that this prodigious writer often borrows ideas from Charles Reade, and sometimes improves them, sometimes bungles them. But, as in matters of art it is sometimes kind to open people's eyes, we shall assure you that this is so; and moreover that in a single instance the two writers have come into competition on fair terms, and the comparison is so unfavourable to the favourite, that the said comparison, though obvious, has always been dexterously avoided. ”

“ Down this would crawl El Captan, as the Arabs called him, note-book in hand and pencil in mouth, measuring, sketching, and examining; for nothing must be left undescribed. Who could tell but that some lucky accident, some unexpected clue, might not lead at once to the solution of all the difficulties? ”

“ Crawley of Hogglestock, are creations of his genius that have their originals in life. They are photographic portraits of men his readers know: nature clothed with the form of art: and from this exquisite truthfulness they derive their interest. ”

“ Nothing would be more to our mind than to offer some criticism here upon the skill in the construction of plots, the sustained interest, the sparkling dialogue, and the touches of genius in exhibiting the inner working of the human heart, that his novels show ”

“ The English school of painters in oil, at the present day, may boast of some branches of the art in which it is not at all behind the French, Flemings, and Belgians. Nay, more, there is at least one living English painter who is unrivalled. It is true that making likenesses of dogs and pictures of deer are not to be counted as among the giddy walks of high art. ”

“ This theory is at first a little shocking, and has been attacked as violently as it has been stoutly defended. Whatever there is of truth in this startling new theory of Natural Selection, whether it be almost of equal weight with a revelation or completely false in its assumptions, time may prove. The names of men of eminence, of great learning and great sagacity, can be catalogued both for and against it. ”

“ One axiom forms the basis of the work: 'The art is greatest which conveys the greatest number of great ideas.' The first volume shows what painters have best imitated Nature. The second treats of Beauty, typical and vital. Perhaps this volume contains the finest of Ruskin's writing. The subject, almost illimitable, is treated with a master's hand. The author of 'Modern Painters' has produced a book which has no parallel in any European language. It is impossible here to do any justice even to an outline of its contents, and we do not attempt it, but refer our readers to the book itself. ”

“ They have all of them a public, and they always take care to provide amusement for their readers. Something of theirs is always 'going on somewhere.'
This policy is sound. Fashions and tastes change, new writers may spring up, or old ones wear out. They charm while they may, while their 'copy' has a market value, and act on that most excellent proverb of making their hay while the sun shines. It is well that they should do so; and nobody's hay, old or new, is sweeter in the mouth than that of the writer whose books we have named. He is an artist who goes to nature for his materials ”

“ A few women have got up a cry—partly from a wish to get notoriety, partly from a perfectly intelligible, if unreasonable, revolt against their own position, partly against one or two real grievances. They are the shrieking sisterhood. ”

“ While his own story of his life is by no means overburdened by reflections, it contains a fund of most interesting recollections. Without following the autobiographer year by year, we may say, in a few words, that it has been the fortune of the amiable and accomplished playwriter and antiquary to know intimately almost all the notabilities of the stage who have flourished from his youth to the present day; whilst in society he has been everywhere welcome, and has seen and known nearly everybody of social distinction ”

“ While the unheeded hours pass by and go.
There beauty fades not, smiles change not to tears,
Mirth never palls, and wine doth not destroy;
Love is immortal, manhood has no fears;
No cloud is there 'tween sunshine and our joy. ”