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Speaking of the respect which ought to be accorded to a distinguished artist, there is an excellent example of propriety in Dr. Levin Schuecking’s review of Swinburne’s “The Age of Shakespeare,” which brings to a close the extraordinarily fine first number of the English Review.  Dr. Schuecking shows that he is quite aware of the defects of manner which mark the book, but his own manner is the summit of courteous deference such as is due to one of the chief ornaments of English literature, and to a very old man.  “A Man of Kent” (British Weekly), in commenting on the article, regrets its timidity, and refers to Swinburne as the “howling dervish” of criticism.  This is the kind of lapse from decorum which causes the judicious not to grieve but to shrug their shoulders.  Probably “A Man of Kent” would wish to withdraw it.  I trust he is aware that “The Age of Shakespeare” is packed full of criticism whose insight and sensitiveness no other English critic could equal.

THE RUINED SEASON

[24 Dec. ’08]

In a recent number of the Athenaeum appeared a letter from Mr. E.H.  Cooper, novelist and writer for children, protesting against the publication of the Queen’s Gift-Book and the royally commanded cheap edition of “Queen Victoria’s Letters” during the autumn season, and requesting their Majesties to forbear next year from injuring the general business of books as they have injured it this year.  That some semi-official importance is attached to Mr. Cooper’s statements is obvious from the fact that the Athenaeum (which is the organ of the trade as well as of learning) thought well to print his letter.  But Mr. Cooper undoubtedly exaggerates.  He states that the two books in question “have ruined the present publishing season rather more effectively than a Pan-European war could have done.”  Briefly, this is ridiculous.  He says further:  “Men and women who could trust to a sale of 5000 or 6000 copies of a novel, equally with authors who can command much larger sales, find that this year the sale of their annual novel has reached a tenth part of the usual figures.”  This also is ridiculous.  The general view is that, while the season has been scarcely up to the average for fiction, it has not been below the average on the whole.  But Mr. Cooper is nothing if not sweeping.  A few days later he wrote to the Westminster Gazette about the House of Lords, and said:  “I am open to wager a considerable sum that if the Government fights a general election next year they will win back all their lost by-elections and get an increased majority besides.”  Such rashness proves that grammar is not Mr. Cooper’s only weak point.

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