famous surgeon forms but an incidental illustration in a chapter. One condemns the author for thinking that genius is something more than hard work, and another condemns him for laying so much stress upon hard work. While one declares that "the book is too full of the author's own opinions and deductions," another affirms that "where the author tells of his own experiences he is most interesting and inspiring." And one or two obviously began their criticism - and probably finished it after reading only the first chapter or two. From these they drew their conclusions, and that settled the matter.

There is one class of newspaper critics whom, though few Americans pay much attention to them, I have found among the most thorough and trustworthy. I mean the German critics, or the critics of our German American periodical press. When a German critic takes hold of a book, he will tell you what it really is, and he will express very definite views regarding the style of the author and the subject-matter of the book. If the chief duty of a critic be to describe the character, contents, and aim of a book, the Germans do this most effectually. It is a pity that their critcisms are not better known among Americans. Probably the thoroughness of the German critic, however, is accounted for, partly at least, by the fewness of the books he gets to criticise; and this again is accounted for by the fewness of the Germans who buy English books. But for a thoroughgoing piece of work, commend me to the German critic!

I wonder how many critics are under the heel of a tyrant employer, who gives them orders as to how he wants new books reviewed. A lady, once employed as critic on a widely-circulated and influential New York paper, told me that when she had filled the critic's office for some time on this paper, the proprietor or editor came to her and said:

"Miss Jones, I want you either to praise a book sky-high, or to damn it completely!" "But that would not be criticism, sir."

"I don't care; that is what pays, and that is what I want."

Well, he may have continued to want this for some time longer; for the critic in question,

being an honorable woman, refused to comply with his wish, and left his employ. She is to-day working as critic on one of the best papers in the country. It is evident that this man wanted, in this way, to make a sensation in the world of literature, and thus, by increasing the circulation of his paper, put money in his purse. What was it to him whether a poor author were unjustly treated or not? I could show a good specimen of such criticisms, but I do not care to advertise the paper in which it appeared.

If this country were ruled like Russia, I should like to be Czar just for one week, in order to despatch such fellows at once to Siberia, where they would have time to reflect on the evils of arbitrary government and unjust judgments.

Some of our leading journals place the books they receive for review in the hands of certain professors who are familiar with the subjectmatter of the books. This is a good plan, especially with books on scientific or special subjects, since in this way each book is likely to come into the hands of an expert, but it has some drawbacks. Some of these critics are the very individuals who were consulted by the publisher as to the character of the work while it was still in manuscript; so that if the work be favorably reported on by the professor, it is pretty sure to be favorably reviewed by the

critic.

There is a deal of shrewd practice or underhand management in this business. When a publisher discovers who is the leading critic on an influential newspaper, he often employs him as manuscript reader. Mr. Frothingham, in his "Life of George Ripley," shows that that famous critic was for years in the pay of the Harpers in this capacity, and everybody knows why. There is no question but Mr. Ripley's judgment was excellent; but there is something sinister in a man receiving payment for reporting favorably on a book for a publisher, and then another payment for crying it up in the press.

The great thing nowadays, in some of the New York dailies, is an exhaustive and complete review once a week of some important new work. The New York Sun's fine review lately of Moncure Conway's "Life of Thomas Paine" is a good example. Such reviews make

up for short work with other books. The New York Tribune and the Evening Post are also noted for reviews of this kind.

I was struck with the novel practice of a St. Louis paper in book-reviewing. After setting down the title of a book, it begins with a series of sentences or paragraphs quoted from it, sometimes making a column or more, and then con

Icludes with a short notice of the book itself. It thus gives a taste of the book to its literary readers, and at the same time furnishes a readable article for them all. Another paper, the Methodist Recorder, introduces a book in a kindly spirit, and then quotes an entire chapter. A writer on the Brooklyn Eagle made a fourcolumn article out of one of my books, without ever once mentioning the source of his information. That man — if he may be called such was a literary thief, who ought to have been pilloried for his crime. Probably he will be some day. He was the first to give a rude shock to my ideas of the literary character character which I had conceived to be utterly incapable of such baseness. But this fellow had no character of any kind.

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But the neatest, the most complete, thing of this kind that I ever saw was the feat of Gath," formerly correspondent of the Cincinnati Enquirer. This famous newspaper writer, while writing a series of letters to the Enquirer, the first of which is dated "Careering, February 16, 1885," introduces my "Life of Cobbett " to his readers in a few lines, and then lays hold of the book with both hands, and

takes bodily from it, without any indication by quotation marks, small type, or anything else, that he was doing so, about ten newspaper columns, or fifty-five pages of the book! And the fun of the thing is, that he did this while showing young men how to become journalists! "Young men and professors in colleges," he says, "often write to me for tuition as to how to become journalists"-and he forthwith proceeds to show them how by cribbing half of my book, which he spreads out to their admiring gaze as something entirely from his own well-paid pen! It was truly something "immense"! After mentioning the author's name and cunningly using quotation marks in the first few sentences, he suddenly drops both altogether, and goes on for column after column as if it were all written by himself. Except a few introductory lines at the head, half a dozen lines in the middle, and four lines at the tail, the whole ten columns, or fifty-five pages, in four different letters to the Enquirer, are taken verbatim et literatim from the book, and printed (and doubtless paid for) as "Gath's" own composition. One of the letters has indeed not a single syllable except his own name, "Gath," at the end of his own; not even a comma or a quotation mark belongs to him.

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"Journalism," indeed! If this be journalism, save me from men of the journalistic stamp. "Careering," indeed! I would rather be a be gar at the Town's-end than such a "careerer." Robert Waters.

JERSEY CITY, N. J.

In a recently published treatise on authorship, the writer urges the necessity of practice in order to gain proficiency, at the same time quoting the names of Burns, Shakespeare, and Bunyan as exceptions to the rule. I now propose to consider whether these writers did, or did not, serve a literary apprenticeship.

Though the Scottish people love to call Burns "the poet ploughman," we know from one of his latest and most reliable biographers that he was by no means without literary training. After showing that besides the ordinary school books Burns had read the Spectator, odd plays of Shakespeare, Pope, including his

Homer," Locke "On the Human Understanding," etc., his biographer goes on to show that Burns treasured one book more than them all; this was a book of songs, his constant companion, which he "pored over," song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true, tender, and sublime, as distinguished from all that was affected or fustian. The biographer then quotes from Burns' note-book: "I am convinced I owe to this practice much of my critic craft, such as it is."

When we compare Burns' early verse with that of a more mature stage, we shall surely see that he, too, served a literary apprenticeship; and that such songs as "Oh, Wert Thou in the Cauld Blast?" to which Mendelssohn has added his inspiration, are the productions of a fuller development and of a more educated genius. As to Shakespeare, we know his literary

career began by remodelling old plays and writing in conjunction with other playwrights. Even the drama of "Richard III.," though the powerful hand of Shakespeare is seen throughout, is not wholly in his style, but rather in that of his more mature colleague, Marlowe. His early plays are full of the crudities of immature authorship; and we have to wait till a later date for his "Hamlet" and "King Lear."

Bunyan made a life-long study of the Bible, which found its expression first in preaching, and then in the writing of tracts, meditations, and treatises on religion, written in the common vernacular of the people. But we must look far on in his literary career before we find him able to give to England the full development of his religious imagination in the ingenious and original story of "The Pilgrim's Progress." K. M. Woodham. BOSTON, Mass.

Remember that the first thing that every embryo author in this land and others should learn is take a rejection with coolness. It is a matter of business purely.

There are so many reasons why an editor may not want that particular manuscript which you have submitted that you would waste your time in trying to imagine them. Certainly you cannot expect him to rehearse them all for your individual benefit, and, if he should, how much good would it do you?

When an editor returns your unavailable manuscript in good condition, provided you have enclosed full return postage, he has done all that you can expect of him. You do not buy a sirloin of beef or a pound of sugar at the shops as a matter of favor to the vender. What right have you to expect that an editor, whose individuality is a mere myth to you, should take a personal interest in your case? Yet I honestly believe that a good many editors are favorably impressed by the earnest efforts

which struggling writers of a certain type are putting forth, and do give them a lift occasionally, when they could get elsewhere just as good matter as that they send.

If a piece finds acceptance, get all the encouragement you can from the fact, but do not make a dead set at the particular magazine or newspaper which has taken it and deluge it with hurriedly-prepared manuscripts. Give the editor time to hear your work criticised and commended, and in the mean time put out the same efforts in other literary directions. Thus you may establish a number of means of communication between yourself and the outside literary world.

Try to form your own estimate of your own work, and that not in an egotistic way, but just as a farmer estimates the value of his own crop of hay or barley. Do not expect that the world of magazines will necessarily accept your estimate. Still, no man is under obligations to underrate his own work. If he has struck what

he thinks is an original vein, and feels that he is working it faithfully and carefully, there is no merit in assuming a great deal of mock humility and pretending that it is "nothing." Your own judgment may be faulty and blinded by selflove; but it is all that you have to rely on in deciding which manuscripts, of those you have on hand, you should especially push.

By all means, if you have any real ambition to succeed as a literary man, do not compare your success with that of authors whose names are household words, and whose cash receipts are in the thousands or tens of thousands annually. Such unwise comparison will discourage you and wither your energies quicker than a mail-box full of rejections at one time. The success of such authors is no criterion for you. Do not imagine, moreover, that their success was won merely by a streak of luck, and that you are one of the great unappreciated. Just go ahead, resolving that you will not give up the ship unless and until you have the clearest reason for believing that you have mistaken the writing craze for real talent. In fact, I do not know that any man or woman who feels a genuine love of writing ought to give up, anyhow. Success comes in some instances as the result of decades of the most selfrestrained, indomitable energy. "Paradise Lost" brought to its author only five pounds sterling, and "The Raven" only ten dollars.

Now as to the supposed favoritism of magazines for known authors and men of great distinction in literary or scientific life. You may think it a hardship, since it shuts you out; but when you send your child to a college, you ask the name of it, don't you? You reward success when you buy the best styles of wear, or employ the best architect in the construction of your house. It is certainly likely that, if you have the capacities for pleasing the public which these writers have, the fact will be discovered. And again no magazine can be purely "literary" in this age and live. It must cater to a number of readers of varying tastes, and it must present from month to month a set of subjects in which the average of these readers is most interested. Moreover, these very contributors whom you envy had to fight their way. Of all hardships conceivable, the greatest, it seems

to me, would be to compel a magazine editor, having assumed big financial risks and surrendered his own time to the work when he might have had a sure salary elsewhere, to take the embryo author under his arm, as if he were a small boy, or a bundle, and carry him over the stream to the land of success. And sup

pose he did attempt it—he could not make the public read what the fledgling author wrote. No! you must jump out into the stream yourself if you want to get over to the other shore.

Love of praise or notoriety is a very misleading thing. The first thing is to be filled with enthusiasm for your subject- to be so interested in it that you cannot lay it down easily. People at large are reasonably sure to be interested in that which has thus absorbed the author himself.

As a rule, I think it is a fatal mistake to go into authorship merely for the money there is in it, because it is not a profession nor a trade, but, I might say, a specialty, in which very few ever achieve distinct financial success. There is no fixed law of demand and supply in the literary world. The larger successes have been marked by a distinct and special recognition, and in many instances the man who made one hit has never been able to make another.

As regards verbose notes to editors, the regulations about not rolling manuscripts, the neatness of copy, etc., suggestions are trite; but it is well for a literary man, or for one who would be one, to be particular about little things. Submit your manuscripts in a business-like way, and then, when they are in the editor's hands, feel that "there they alike in trembling hope repose." But don't ask an editor the whys and wherefores.

If your manuscript comes back to you in the shape of a printed article in the magazine, then take fresh courage and go on your way to new achievements. But never by any possibility get the idea that you are a great genius until the world in which you live has decreed it. Then try to bear your honors meekly, remembering what a pitiful Uriah Heep you used to be.

ELMIRA, N. Y.

William B. Chisholm.

THE WRITER.

WM. H. HILLS, . . EDITOR AND PUBlisher.

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For the convenience of readers, the publishers of every paper the pages of which are larger than those of Harper's Monthly should have the date of issue printed at the top of each page, inside the running title, as well as on the cover. In the case of a magazine like THE WRITER, for instance, it is easy for the reader to turn back to the title page and see "where he is at," if he wants to know the date of the number he is reading, but papers like Harper's Weekly, or Harper's Bazar, or the Journalist, or the Pittsburg Bulletin are generally read folded, and it is not convenient for the reader

to turn back to the first page in case he wants to know what week's issue he has in hand. Newspapers, daily or weekly, should invariably print the date of issue at the top of every page.

When will writers learn that misspelling is not dialect? "Josh Billings" was not a dialect writer. The good dialect writer changes the ordinary spelling of words only when he needs to do so to indicate peculiarities of pronunciation. He does not write "kan" for "can," or "duz" for "" does," or "iz" for "is," as some would-be dialect writers do. Dialect should be written for the ear, not for the eye, and the ordinary spelling of words should be followed unless it misrepresents local pronunciation.

The newspapers have been printing a story to the effect that Mme. Patti has a room in her castle in Spain papered with American hotel bills collected during her numerous "farewell" tours through the United States. Is there any American magazine writer who has his library papered with editors' rejection blanks? How inspiring such a wall-paper would be!

Every proof-reader knows that the larger the type used in printing, the greater is the liability that typographical errors will be overlooked. For this reason, unusual care has to be exercised in reading proofs of headlines, capitals, and displayed matter generally, in which an inexperienced person would think any error that the compositor might make would stand out so prominently that it would at once be seen. An example of the perversity of types in this respect may be found on page 184 of THE WRITER for October, where, in the article on Padding Cable Despatches," the name "THE WRIRER stares every reader in the face. Once seen, the error is so obvious that it seems impossible that any one could ever have overlooked it; and yet, the proof of that article was read through at least five times, by two different persons, before the magazine was put upon the press.

The December number of THE WRITER Will be an especially interesting one. With the