poem, "Italy," a mediocre production, to his friend Lockhart, asking him to review it or have it reviewed in the Quarterly Review. The great critic was unwilling to comply with this request, because he could not praise the poem honestly, and did not want to offend "Peter" by slating it. Ultimately he wrote a scathing review of the poem, and, having had one copy of it printed and inserted as if it were part of the Quarterly, caused the single copy to be forwarded to Robertson at Edinburgh. In it occurred the famous epitaph on his lordship,

Here lies the Christian, Judge, and Poet Peter, Who broke the laws of God, and man, and meter. Only a short time ago a living man of letters was hoaxed in a similar manner, and it was not until legal proceedings were started against the editor and publishers of the presumably erring organ of public opinion that he discovered the article had not been published in the usual way.

Similarly a Parliamentary candidate was given a bad quarter of an hour. He received by post, carefully sealed, a copy of an opposition newspaper containing a distinctly "hot account of his career, which, in truth, was anything but creditable. In a towering rage he rang up his agent, who, in consequence, called upon the sinning editor, and accused him of having published a mass of libels on the candidate.

"Published?" said the editor, with a smile. "Actually we have not published them, but only printed them, because they appear merely in the copy sent, under special cover, to your man. We did that to show him that we know his record, and as a gentle hint that he had better avoid the coarse personalities to which he gave vent the other night." The "gentle hint" was taken.

One of the most remarkable of special productions in paper and print was made solely for a trial at the Old Bailey, London. A number of witnesses swore positively to the identity of a prisoner, saying that they had a good view of him by moonlight on the night of the crime. Whereupon his counsel handed to judge and jury a copy of Ryder's Almanack, and pointed out that, according to that "indisputable" authority, the moon did not rise

1. All publication of language bringing "hatred, contempt, or ridicule" is in the realm of libel. The publisher should be on his guard. 2. When the language, even though bringing "hatred, contempt, or ridicule," is true, it may be published. The publisher takes the risk of being able to prove its truth. 3. When the language is pure 66 comment and opinion" and not statement of purported facts, it may be published, as it is privileged, even if in the realm of "hatred, contempt, and ridicule."

4. An article being signed by a contributor does not relieve the publisher from liability.

5. Publications relating to branches of the government, such as facts stated in connection with court action and legislative proceedings, may be published in good faith without fear of libel.

6. Good faith and honest mistakes do not excuse a verdict for libel, but are considered in mitigation of damages.

7. The term "freedom of the press" does not give a publication any special privileges, but means that the government cannot interfere with any publication so long as it complies with all the laws.

8. Mere repetition is libelous and the terms "it is said," "it is rumored," etc., do not relieve from libel.

9. Newspapers are held responsible for everything published as purported facts, but may publish anything when it is absolutely

true.

What People Want to Read. - "People want to read about what other people are doing, about what is happening to other people," said "Dorothy Dix" (Mrs. Elizabeth Meriwether Gilman ). "That is why we are all hungry for news. We want to hear about

the baby that is born next door, and the neighbor who is dying. We are interested in the love affair of the girl across the way, and the Jones's new automobile. And this is true of the highbrows as well as the lowbrows.

"Our eternal interest is in people. Nine people out of ten skip all the descriptions in a novel, and get to the human drama. They don't care a rap about the most marvelous account of a jungle or a desert or a sunrise ; what they want to know is whether Cecil Montmorency clasped Lady Gwendolyn to his manly breast or not.

"What the general public wants to read about is something of human interest, something that will make them laugh, or cry, and people want to read something that is within the range of their own experience, something that either has happened to them, or that might happen to them, except for the grace of God.

"That is the fascination, I think, that crime stories have for people. It stirs a housewife's imagination to read of some beautiful chorus girl who revenges herself on a fickle lover by murdering him, and makes her wonder if she ever could have done a thing like that.

"It interests the slow, plodding man who lives in a rut, to read about criminals who carry their lives in their hands, and he wonders if he could have ever dared take such risks. Most people's lives are very monotonous, and they like something that takes them out of themselves.

"Then people like to be interpreted to themselves. They have vague ideas and convictions floating around in their brains, that they have never been able to formulate, and put into a concrete shape. They like somebody to tell them what they are thinking, and what they are feeling, and whatever success I have had is based on my effort to do this.

"When I analyze the thousands of letters that I get, my conclusion is that the most interesting things to people are other people. They are interested in these letters that I answer because every one of them is a glimpse into some other man or woman's life.

"Each one is a little heart throb. Each one is a human problem that may be theirs or their friends'. They read it as we would listen to a bit of gossip or scandal, and none of us ever

turn a deaf ear to that until we have heard the last word."- Editor and Publisher.

Secrets of Popular-Song Writing.-Songs, like singers, travel varied roads to fame. Some make brilliant metropolitan recital débuts, while others modestly go barnstorming. Winning popular approval is the affair of a few months for some songs, but others struggle along for years before "arriving." There is no rule to go by, though certain characteristics appear to be essential. A best seller must be tuneful and not too difficult to be sung by others than trained concert singers. Many songs that are immensely successful in concert fail to attain large sales. Sentiment is an apparent essential. It is the simple universal appeal that succeeds. There's no room for the cynical or the vacuously smart among the songs that endure.

Reviewing, in Musical America, the history of many songs best known to fame, Joel Swensen cites "A Perfect Day" as the most successful of recent best sellers. It was in 1910 that the composer, struggling to support herself and her son after the death of her husband, published this as one in a collection of seven songs for a dollar. At first returns were very slow. Mrs. Bond, who, in addition to writing the words and music, was her own publisher, and even painted the cover design, then introduced her songs by singing them in public at every opportunity. Gradually they "caught on" and the aggregate sales are set at more than 5,000,000 copies. Of other songs :

same year in Within a few and Bertram

"'Invictus' went the recital route to fame. Bruno Huhn set the poem by W. E. Henley to music at the request of Francis Rogers, who sang it for the first time in Bar Harbor, Me., in August, 1910, and later the Mendelssohn Hall, New York. weeks Reinald Werrenrath Schwahn also sang it. The public was quick to appreciate the merits of 'Invictus.' During the war it enjoyed a considerable vogue, and its popularity has been maintained.

"Among the songs that were originally sold outright by the composers and later earned large royalties under new agreements with the publishers are 'Silver Threads Among the Gold' and 'At Dawning.' Although the former has earned $25,000 in royalities since the copy

right was renewed, Hart Pease Danks, the composer, was said to have received only $15 for it, and out of that he paid Eben E. Rexford $3 for writing the words. The song became popular soon after its publication in 1873. When Danks died in 1903 the sales had diminished considerably, but in 1910 the song took a spurt that lasted for two years, and its popularity has continued.

"When he composed 'At Dawning' in 1906 Charles Wakefield Cadman was little known. He had no difficulty in finding a publisher, however, and he sold the song for a modest $15. For five or six years barely enough copies were sold to pay the cost of publication. Then Alessandro Bonci, tenor, heard the song and liked it. He decided to sing it on a coastto-coast concert tour. Its popularity dated from that tour.

"Oh, Promise Me,' composed in 1889, was the most popular song in Reginald De Koven's comic opera, 'Robin Hood.' Ever since its first introduction it has been used a great deal in concerts, and for a generation it has been considered one of the requisites of a well-conducted wedding. Its popularity, as indicated by sales, continues undiminished and even appears to be growing.

"De Koven's setting of Kipling's 'Recessional,' published in 1898, has also enjoyed a considerable vogue, chiefly on Memorial Day and Armistice Day programs. The most popular musical setting of a Kipling poem is Oley Speak's 'On the Road to Mandalay.' Ever since it was published in 1907 it has enjoyed the unique distinction of being sung in cabarets, concerts, and barracks at the same time. Another successful Kipling setting is Walter Damrosch's 'Danny Deever,' which favorite with David Bispham.

was a

"Tenors were nearly deprived of J. C. Bartlett's 'Dream.' When Bartlett, himself a lyric tenor, submitted it to a well-known publisher, it was promptly declined. A second publisher could see nothing in it, but the third published it. That was in 1895. Bartlett introduced it, and it has been a favorite teaching and concert piece ever since, the sales having piled up to an enormous total.

"Frequently it requires unusual circumstances to make the public appreciate a song. eighteen years American audiences had been

For

hearing and applauding the Kashmiri Song, 'Pale Hands I Loved,' one of the Four Indian Love Lyrics by Amy Woodforde-Finden, but comparatively few copies were sold. Then Rudolph Valentino appeared in a motion-picture version of "The Sheik,' and a Washington theatre manager presented a prologue in which a singer in desert garb sang the Kashmiri Song. At once there was a demand for it. The publishers had never printed more than 500 copies in one edition and the supply was exhausted with one order from a Washington music dealer. As picture and prologue traveled through the country the demand grew. Within three months 10,000 copies were sold, and the song has remained a best seller ever since. Mrs. Woodforde-Finden died before her song became popular."

Few amateurs appear in the list of successful song writers, and recently there has been a war against fake music publishers who have encouraged the belief that there are millions to be made in a single song success.-Current Opinion.

BOOK REVIEWS.

AID TO RHYME. By Bessie G. Redfield. 533 pp. Leatherette. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons.

1925.

If rhyme appealed only to the eye, instead of to the ear, and if there were no such thing as accent in the pronunciation of words, this might be a useful book, but as that is not the case it is hard to see what in the world Miss Redfield could have been thinking of in the ten years that she spent in the preparation of the work. Intended to serve the purpose of a rhyming dictionary, it lists alphabetically the various sounds of the vowels, a, e, i, o, u, assembling under each sound the words that end in that sound, regardless of the spelling of the terminations, and regardless of whether the accent falls on the ultimate syllable or not or whether the pronunciation of final syllables is similar. For instance, "soirée" is associated with "absentee"! The book might have value if the verse-maker wanted to know how many words, for instance, end with the sound er," but rhyme begins with the accented syllable, and if the verse-maker is looking for a rhyme for " paper he wants to find something under aper more than "draper and a reference to er," under which he will find a three-page list of words with that ending adder, adorer, after, alter, amber, antler, archer, artificer, and so on- which he must go through to find the possible rhymes for

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"

66

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see

"paper - not all of which are there. What is the sense of putting together in a rhyming dictionary such combinations as escarpments, refreshments, sixty-cents," or "mint julep, foot-step"; or what is the sense of putting "aid-de-camp (so spelled) under "amp"? The book is full of similar futilities. Under "enthe" the verse-maker will find "Nepenthe" and the reference, see 'enth.'" Under "enth" he will find "tenth" and the reference, enthe." Are "Nepenthe" and "tenth" pronounced the same? Ünder "ethe," "Lethe is given, with the reference, "See 'eath." The Foreword explains that the star indicates a difference in pronunciation, but if "Lethe and words ending in "eath" do not rhyme, what is the purpose in bringing them together in a rhyming dictionary? As a help in the solution of cross-word puzzles, "Aid to Rhyme" may be of use, but as an aid to versemakers it cannot compare with the standard rhyming dictionaries. The publishers, by the way, use a novel word in calling attention to the anopistographic method of printing the book, in which the alternate pages are left blank for the verse-maker to add words in manuscript and he would have a great many words to add.

W. H. H.

THE WAY OF THE MAKERS. By Marguerite Wilkinson. 316 pp. Cloth. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1925.

Wide reading in a special field and a strong poetic instinct have admirably fitted Mrs. Wilkinson-who is herself a poet of distinction to produce this book, which is made up largely of extracts from the writings of poets about their work, and illustrations of it. Mrs. Wilkinson lets the poets speak for themselves about the various phases of their work, about their travail and exultation, and she has tried to make the book a record of experience rather than a symposium of theories. The book, she says, is not made for scholars, but for men, women, and children who may wish to know more about their poets how they feel, think, live, and labor- and for young students of poetry who would like to discriminate between the great and the brilliant, between the sublime and the specious. The work covers English poetry from Edmund Spencer to John Masefield, and American song from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Vachel Lindsay. Quotations from letters, memoirs, prefaces, and other prose writings, as well as poems, are arranged under subjects, preceded by short chapters on The Poetic Nature, The Poet's Travail, The Primary Inspiration, The Secondary Inspiration, Themes for Poems, How Poets Work (particularly interesting ), and Concerning Fame.

W. H. H.

THE COMPLETE LIMERICK Book. By Langford Reed. Illustrated. Cloth. 154 pp. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1925. The limerick, properly handled, is a very effective verse form, and Mr. Reed has made an entertaining book by collecting more than

66

four hundred examples of the five-line verse, some of which have real literary merit. Why verses of this kind are called limericks nobody really knows, but probably the first one composed was the old nursery rhyme beginning Dickory, dickory, dock." Edward Lear's "Book of Nonsense," published in 1846, made the limerick popular, and since then it has. been a favorite form of expression with humorists and wits. Mr. Reed's collection includes many witty productions - some of the limericks that he classifies as "of the stockexchange variety are particularly piquant but it is hardly "complete," and it is not, as he says, the first collection of its kind, for a little book of limericks compiled by Florence Herrick Gardiner was published by the Lippincotts in 1921. That contains some good limericks which are not in Mr. Reed's collection, and the famous lines beginning "There wanst was two cats in Kilkenny" are not in either book. Many of the limericks that Mr. Reed' gives are gems, and his book is adapted not only to amuse the solitary reader but to entertain social groups of people gathered anywhere.

CHATS ON CHRISTIAN NAMES. By Rev. A. M. Grussi. 449 pp. Cloth. Boston: The Stratford Company.

1925.

Chats on Christian Names" comprises 366. chapters - one for every day in the year in leap year each giving the significance and an historical account of a Christian name, with admonitions and exhortations to readers to do honor to their names and emulate the virtues of the worthies who have borne them. The book is meant especially for Roman Catholic readers, but it contains information and good advice for all.

INVESTMENT BANKING IN ENGLAND. By Bradley D. Nash. 114 pp. Cloth. Chicago A. W. Shaw Company. 1924.

This study of the methods of investment banking in England, giving information obtained directly from London bankers and other original sources, was awarded the first prize for monographs in the field of business development and the modern trust company offered in 1923 by the Chicago Trust Company. Similar awards of $300 and $200 are made annually, and a triennial research prize of $2,500 will be awarded in 1926.

LITERARY ARTICLES IN PERIODICALS.

[ Readers who send to the publishers of the periodicals indexed for copies of the periodicals containing the articles mentioned in the following reference list will confer a favor if they will mention THE WRITER.]

THE OUTLOOK FOR WESTERN CIVILIZATION. II. The Literature of Hope. Glenn Frank. Century for August.

THE MYTH OF GOOD ENGLISH. Arthur Livingston. Century for August.

American and British Literature since 1890," by Carl and Mark Van Doren (The Century Company), deals with the fiction, poetry, drama, and essay of the United States and England, with a consideration of recent Irish literature.

"Modern Russian Literature," by Prince D. S. Mirsky, is published by the Oxford University Press.

"The Literature of the Middle Western Frontier," by Ralph Leslie Rusk, published in two volumes by the Columbia University Press, has chapters on Cultural Beginnings, Travel, Newspapers and Magazines, Controversial Writings, Scholarly Writings and Schoolbooks, Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and The Vogue of British and Eastern Writers.

"Further Reminiscences: 1864-1894," by S. Baring Gould ( E. P. Dutton & Co.), is a continuation of the author's "Early Reminis cences."

"Joseph Conrad: The Man," by Elbridge L. Adams, is published by William Edwin Rudge (New York).

"Theodore Dreiser," by Burton Rascoe (Robert M. McBride & Co.), is a new volume in the Modern American Writers series.

"A Sheaf of Memories," by Frank Scudamore (E. P. Dutton & Co.), is a collection of recollections by the dean of war correspon^ dents.

"Ancient Rhetoric and Poetic," by Charles Sears Baldwin, is published by the Macmillan Company.

“Editorial English," by Arnold Levitas, instructor of printing and typography in the public schools of New York city, with an introduction by William I. Orchard, is published by the Roy Press (New York).

"Creative Youth," edited by Hughes Mearns (Doubleday, Page, & Co.), is an account of the literary development of a group of high-school students.

"Rules for Compositors and Readers at the University Press," by Horace Hart, is published by the Oxford University Press.

"Writing by Types," a manual of composition for college students, by Albert C. Baugh, Paul C. Kitchen, and Mathew W. Black, is published by the Century Company.

The ownership of the Modern Library has passed from Boni & Liveright to a new corporation, to be known as the Modern Library, Inc., with Bennett A. Cerf, formerly vicepresident of Boni & Liveright, at its head. The new corporation will have offices at 71 West Forty-fifth street, New York.

The Viking Press, started last March by Harold K. Guinzburg and George S. Oppenheimer, and the firm of B. W. Huebsch have combined, and after the first of the year all books published by either firm will bear the imprint of the Viking Press, 30 Irving place, New York.

Little, Brown, & Co. have published for free distribution a booklet biography of Thornton W. Burgess, the Bedtime Story Man.

John Temple Graves died in Washington August 8, aged sixty-eight.