railway whistle and the scream of the sea-gull tween books and affairs he holds cheap. Pervie with each other in shrillness; a cyclist or haps journalism, in which for some years he two wheels past; a golf player with his bur- was eminent, may be regarded as transitional den of clubs may be seen in the distance. The between the two. It touches literature, not town itself is a town of shops and shop-keep- always with a sure hand, and must deal with ers, close built, with devious streets; with affairs. Thiers said of journalism that it was solid brick houses and solid brick garden a good profession provided you got out of it walls, massive enough for a fortress, so that soon enough; and in this Mr. Morley seems to you almost expect a challenge from a sentry have agreed with Thiers. Kinglake said of it as you pass. Instead of which you find an that a first-rate leading article, or what we open door and a welcoming host or would, call an editorial, ought to be in the tone of a except that he has met you at the railway Cabinet Minister's speech. I don't know that stacón and taken charge of you. The house Mr. Morley will think it a compliment if I say is airy, o'd fashioned, with a garden, with that as between his leaders in the Pail Mall isa na obarning in their simplicity and a cer- Gazette and his speeches in the House the £62 xtingue faste. Nom the time you enter tone of the Cabinet Minister is as marked in $7you depare you feel the gemal presence of the former as in the latter. There was, at any wt ver as your bear him dictating to his root of the matter, and the penetration of abera haber acquired of recent years, Pewabicà sevended wet the moral aspira Voltaire his references are to a discredited and obsolete edition. He asked for a book once at Bains, the well-known little book-shop in the Haymarket. "Which edition, sir?" "Oh, any edition is good enough for me, and any copy." What he cared for was the substance, not the form. The most careless sketch of living authors would not omit the Poet Laureate. I give him the style and title of the dignity he holds, the style he prefers. You may hear it as the servant throws open the door of the room where dinner guests are assembling: 66 The Poet Laureate and Mrs. Austin." It may provoke a smile, but Mr. Alfred Austin has long since made his appeal to posterity rather than to the present. Criticism, even ridicule quite undesired-falls off from him and leaves him unscathed; his confidence in himself unimpaired; his faith in the justice the unknown future is to do him, wholly unshaken. Well, in days when we are all supposed to expect the immediate verdict of the democ Copyright photograph by Frederick Hollyer From a drawing by F. Sandys racy and to abide by it, there is THE RT. HON. JOHN MORLEY, M.P. Courtesy of Messrs. Macmillan & Company, Ltd., London praise. something fine in the attitude of a poet who regrets it with contumely and goes his way and fessional politician of his times by a political writes more verse to be met with real disamateur; of an Imperialist by a Little Englander; of a bon-vivant by an ascetic; of a great orator by a writer; and a biography by a real man of letters, of a man who had literature, indeed, and much literature and wrote many books, yet never a book which the world would not willingly let die. For writing it he receives, say those who ought to know, not less than $50,000. It has been the work of two busy years, and will be ready in the spring. The Life of Cobden" in two thick volumes, is said to have been completed within two months in a lonely Scottish moor. 66 Mr. Morley was for many years the "reader" to Messrs. Macmillan, and is still, I think, their literary adviser. There could be none with more literature, few of sounder literary judgment, or with a more conscientious sense of responsibility in letters. He is a student of history as well as of literature. He cares for books not as books, but as literature. It is characteristic of him that in his study of In truth, Mr. Alfred Austin has written much more prose than verse, and prose of high merit in a particular way. He was for many years a leading writer on "The Standard." He would not, I imagine, reject the general verdict of his fellow-journalists in England on his editorial prose. They rank it with the very best. "There never was anybody," said an expert, "who could deal with an important subject more rapidly, more firmly, more at tractively, or with a better gift of making his points clearly, broadly, convincingly." The writing of a good editorial article is so much an art by itself, and so difficult, that even a poet laureate need not disdain such a tribute to his powers. He begins his letters to the Prime Minister," My dear Salisbury." On the other hand, Lord Randolph Churchill, when leader of the House of Commons, used the style, "My dear Lord Salisbury," although his chief wrote to him "My dear Randolph." Mr. Gladstone did not like to be called Mydear Gladstone" -he had been known in reading to the House a letter from a colleague which omitted the "Mr." to restore it, as more consonant with the dignity of his office, and of himself. However, Mr. Austin is the friend of many persons, whom his caprices do not alienate, and a guest at many wellknown houses. He has a house and place of his own in the lovely country of Sussex, and perhaps in his prose books on the country and on the charms of nature and of gardens there is as much poetry as in his books of verse. He has been Photograph by Hollinger rather hardly dealt with by the American press. Yet to this country he has proved himself a friend. Mr. Swinburne, to whom the Poet Laureateship would naturally have fallen had he not chosen to make himself impossible as a candidate, is, even to the world of letters, more a name than a man. He has lived a life apart. One stanch friend, Mr. Watts-Dunton, has been his guardian angel; a few others are admitted to his acquaintance; he may be met at a Royal Academy private view where many a finger points him out, and there are houses where also he is to be met. But his real life is among his books and with himself; an ideal life in certain ways, with a wide, sound scholarship as one basis of it, and a life-long communion with the Greeks, whose literature he deeply admires and, except by way of experiment or adventure, refrains from taking as a model. Nobody is more modern, and if he be not entirely modern his literary godfathers need not be sought farther back than the Renaissance. It was not merely as a Republican that he put himself out of the running as Poet Laureate. The Queen, to whom the Prime Minister had to submit the name proposed for that honor, was understood to hold that Mr. Swinburne's verse had at times failed to conform to the standards of strict decorum which she enforced in her own court and desired to see prevail throughout her realm. The eulogist of Théophile Gautier was scarce likely to be a favorite with his sovereign. And Mr. Swinburne has shown often enough in his own poetry that he holds himself bound by no conventional law of propriety. |