‘But it’s so bald,’ objected Mr. Thomson.

‘I believe there is nothing so noble as baldness,’ replied I, ’and I am sure there is nothing so interesting.  I would have all literature bald, and all authors (if you like) but one.’

‘Well, well,’ said Mr. Thomson, ‘we shall see.’

Footnotes: 

{1} First published in the Contemporary Review, April 1885

{2} Milton.

{3} Milton.

{4} Milton.

{5} As PVF will continue to haunt us through our English examples, take, by way of comparison, this Latin verse, of which it forms a chief adornment, and do not hold me answerable for the all too Roman freedom of the sense:  ’Hanc volo, quae facilis, quae palliolata vagatur.’

{6} Coleridge.

{7} Antony and Cleopatra.

{8} Cymbeline.

{9} The V is in ‘of.’

{10} Troilus and Cressida.

{11} First published in the Fortnightly Review, April 1881.

{12} Mr. James Payn.

{13} A footnote, at least, is due to the admirable example set before all young writers in the width of literary sympathy displayed by Mr. Swinburne.  He runs forth to welcome merit, whether in Dickens or Trollope, whether in Villon, Milton, or Pope.  This is, in criticism, the attitude we should all seek to preserve; not only in that, but in every branch of literary work.

{14} First published in the British Weekly, May 13, 1887.

{15} Of the British Weekly.

{16} First published in the Magazine of Art in 1883.

{17} First published in the Idler, August 1894.

{18} Ne pas confondre.  Not the slim green pamphlet with the imprint of Andrew Elliot, for which (as I see with amazement from the book-lists) the gentlemen of England are willing to pay fancy prices; but its predecessor, a bulky historical romance without a spark of merit, and now deleted from the world.

{19} 1889.

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