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Poetry and Fiction.

Two examples of the « interviewing » of noted authors are recorded in our present issue, and they are of interest, if only as illustrating opposite varieties of the genus interviewer. Mr George Meredith's visitor is modest, almost to a painful degree. He eschews the first person altogether, and by an awkward and oft-recurring use of the second person makes himself appear as a kind of hypothetical personage. Dr Holmes's interlocutor, on the other hand, never loses sight of himself—in fact, the genial Autocrat takes a secondary place, agreeing deferentially (no doubt with a twinkle in his eye) to the literary opinions of the Man with the Pocket Memorandum Book. As indicating the personal views or opinions of the celebrities in question, these records are of very little value; but the public dearly love a little personal gossip about their literary or artistic favorites, and are not disposed to be too critical.

There are certain points raised in the remarks and opinions attributed to Dr Holmes that are of general interest. On the subject of the popularity of light fiction, he is reported to have said: « There may be a return to poetry; it is not improbable, I think. Poetry at present would not be supplanted by fiction, as it is, if the right kind of the former were given to the world, » &c. We confess to great scepticism as to such an opinion having been expressed by Dr Holmes. It is open to very grave question whether poetry can be said to be supplanted by light fiction. It is perfectly true that light fiction is being poured forth from a thousand printing-presses; but as compared with the poetry of the time, it is as a cloud of gnats to an orchestra of song-birds. It is essentially ephemeral. We doubt whether the most lenient critic could pick out one good novel for each year in the last ten years that have passed. There nave been some that have made a little talk— « Called Back » and « Robert Elsmere » for example, and have found a host of imitators: but they have not the slightest element of permanence. When « King Solomon's Mines » appeared, the Saturday Review said that it was worth all the other eight hundred novels of the year put together—which said very little indeed for the year's fiction. Light fiction is not studied, it is scarcely read—it is merely skimmed over to kill time by people who are too indolent for mental exertion. Poetry, on the other hand, does require thought. So far from being superseded by light fiction, it forms one of the most important and profitable branches of literature. There were never before so many English poets of a high standard, and there was never a time when poetry was so widely read as at present. Men who rank as minor poets to-day are in many respects equal to the most popular writers of the last century. The lists of any publisher will show a perfectly ravenous demand on the part of the reading public for verse. When the Laureate receives £125 for a six-line lyric, it does not seem as if poetry had gone out of fashion. Swinburne has published high-priced edition after edition of his principal works, and the public have bought and have read them. Certainly he is artificial enough, and has little of that sweet simplicity which (according to the Interviewer) is required to bring poetry once more into fashion. In fact, artificiality is a highly-prized quality now. The poets of simplicity, who satisfied the public of the last generation—Hemans, Cook, Barton, Swain, Mackay, Howitt—are all out of date, and it is the fashion to-day to disparage them. Even Longfellow is already too plain and direct for the present fastidious public. The involved and irregular but powerful verse of Browning, the sweetness and classic grace of Tennyson, the alliterative music and the stormy invective of Swinburne, the dreamy mysticism of Rossetti—all have their readers and admirers. Crowded as is the choir of poets, the world is not weary of their singing. Lewis Morris is only a minor chorister, and his Epic of Hades has reached its twenty-ninth or thirtieth edition; Arnold's Light of Asia has gone through more than forty. This is in Britain alone—the United States can show twice as many editions of the same works. Few modern novels, and certainly nothing in the shape of « light fiction, » can exhibit such a record. It is idle to talk of « a return to poetry, » and we do not suppose that the Autocrat made any such remark. He let the other man do the talking.

« Are not most writers disposed to write too much, doctor? » — « No doubt your criticism is a just one. Take the case of Hood, » &c. Anything more trite than this we have never read, even in an « interview. » So far as a truth is conveyed in the remark, it is too obvious to require pointing out; but the deduction which is suggested is a manifest absurdity. Dr Holmes would be the last man to expect the collected works of an author to be like the Deacon's carriage —the weakest place

—uz strong uz the rest:

—so like in every part
That there wasn't a chance for one to start.

The fact is universally true that no author is always at his best. Every active literary man has written reams of matter far below the level of his highest achievements. Every artist, every worker in any field, knows that his best and highest efforts are few and far between. Because Hood could, at his best, write such pieces as The Dream of Eugene Aram and The Bridge of Sighs, was he to blame for producing an elaborate failure like The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies? Lowell has given us the evergreen Biglow Papers, and at least one poem—The Present Crisis—that has taken its place as a classic; shall we then carp at his dreary Legend of Brittany? Our edition of Holmes contains four hundred pages, on every one of which is to be found graceful versification and suggestive thought. A century hence most of this will be known only to the curious student—the general reader will find nearly all he wants in contemporary verse. Have we any right to grumble because we find 399 pages of verse that are not quite equal to The Chambered Nautilus? Tennyson has given us In Memoriam and the unequalled songs in The Princess. He also has written I Stood on a Tower in the Wet, and the epitaph on Gordon—probably the worst quatrain in the English language until Browning capped it with his jubilee stanza. Who will question Tennyson's position as a poet because he has written (and unfortunately published) lines unworthy of his genius?

If this suggestion—that authors write too much—had any practical value, it might deserve consideration. But it has none whatever. The man who will not write or publish until he has produced a masterpiece is in the same predicament as he of ancient fable who would not go into the water until he could swim. He, too, who has once produced an immortal work should write no more. To such a proposition all readers will demur. If much of the work of the great authors and poets is inferior, it was none the less necessary as a preparation for their higher achievements. By long study and practice they gained the facility of execution and flexibility of expression characterizing their best efforts. Without the second-rate we should never have had their best. Again, no author is the soundest judge of his own work. He has known it in its embryotic condition has watched it take shape and form, and can rarely bring to bear upon it an unbiassed critical faculty. His only opportunity of so doing is to put the work aside until it is in a measure forgotten. Then he can approach it as a novelty, and study it with impartial eyes. This was how Goldsmith dealt with the two works on which his fame as a poet rests. Sixteen years they lay in his desk, taken forth at long intervals for careful study and revision. Thus did Gray deal with his immortal Elegy, deliberately rejecting some of the page 95finest stanzas of the poem because they interfered with its unity of thought. But the poet, as a rule, cannot afford to do this. Often-times, too, he has a message that must be delivered to the men of his day, and sent forth warm from the heart. Lowell's Crisis did not—could not—lie for years awaiting its finishing touch; and his Biglow Papers were written almost as the leaders in a daily paper are written—under pressure, and to influence, as they did mightly influence, the thought and action of his time. That in after years, when the circumstances of its origin are forgotten, work so produced should be treasured for its literary worth is the best tribute that could be paid to its author's genius.

There is yet another consideration—a sordid one, it may be—but which is too important to be overlooked. The poet, whoever he be, writes not only as a philosopher, prophet, or artist. He works, as all men work, for bread. Man is by nature an indolent creature, and but for this exigent necessity, very little great work—in fact, very little work of any kind—would be accomplished. Goldsmith has enriched our literature with the Vicar of Wakefield; but the great bulk of his writing was of a very different style. It was the merest hack-work for the booksellers—compilations such as the History of England and History of the Earth and Animated Nature. By toil of this kind he could maintain himself—had he depended on his plays, his poems, or his novels, he might have starved. When this aspect of the case is considered, the reference to Hood seems almost cruel. One of the truest and tenderest poets of the day, he had, in physical pain and weakness, and with a breaking heart, to grin through a literary horse-collar for bare maintenance. Can anyone believe that such compositions as Ben Battle and Tim Turpin were written from deliberate choice? Even in such unworthy lines as these his genius would assert itself; but the mirth is forced, and « has its chord in melancholy, »

Authors, if they have an average measure of common sense, will be strong-minded enough to burn what is really worthless. In every case they write, and always must write, for their own day and generation. The most conspicuous failures are those who have deliberately striven after immortality. The long train of inglorious Miltons who have written for posterity form a melancholy spectacle. Take our own century, and look at Pollok and Robert Montgomery. By himself, by the public, by the majority of critics, the latter was honestly regarded as the greatest poet of his day, and his works brought him fame and fortune to the close of his life. He is now remembered chiefly as an unconscious plagiarist, and by Macaulay's unrelenting attack upon him in the Edinburgh Review. James Montgomery, careless of fame, unambitious, seeking chiefly to influence aright the thoughts and actions of the men of his own day, has, among much that is now obsolete, left behind him poems that have taken their place as English classics.

؟Need we point the moral? It is worthy to be pondered by those—and they are many—who make « Art » the object instead of the means, and assert that it is the influence that will regenerate the world. They pass away—and their works do follow them—into oblivion. That which is honestly wrought for use—for the service of mankind—not only fulfils its intended purpose, but may quite unexpectedly live through the ages—a blessing to succeeding generations—a thing of beauty and a joy for ever. The pursuit of fame is the chase of an ignis fatuus; service brings its reward not only when rendered, but in all the ages that follow, in ever-increasing measure. As Whittier has written:

—never yet
Share of Truth was vainly set
In the world's wide fallow;
After hands shall sow the seed
After hands from hill and mead
Reap the harvests yellow.

For the little poem which appears in another part of this issue, Lord Tennyson received from the proprietor of the New Review the sum of £125. Byron satirised the mercenary muse of Scott, and calculated that for Marmion he received half-a-crown a line. That would be between threepence and fourpence a syllable. Tennyson for his last piece was paid at the rate of about £2 a syllable. It is quite possible that other living English poets might write a short piece as good or even better, but they would ask in vain for remuneration on the same princely scale. After all, there is something—and a good deal—in a name.