MEMORIALS OF A MAN OF LETTERS. 



17 



key which the bishop led by a chain. " The 

 missing link ! " he exclaimed, " the missing link ! " 



"Nonsense ! " cried the sharp tones of a lady 

 with a green gown and gray, corkscrew curls. 

 " It is nothing but a monkey that the good bishop 

 has been trying to tame for his wife. Don't you 

 see her name engraved on the collar ? " 



The shrill accents acted like a charm upon 

 Paul. He sprang away from the creature that he 

 had been just caressing. He gazed for a moment 



on Virginia's lovely form, her exquisite toilet? 

 and her melting eyes. Then he turned wildly to 

 the green gown and the gray, corkscrew curls. 

 Sorrow and superstition he felt were again invad- 

 ing Humanity. " Alas ! " he exclaimed, at last, 

 " I do now indeed believe in hell." 



"And I," cried Virginia, with much greater 

 tact, and rushing into the arms of her bishop, 

 "once more believe in heaven." — Contemporary 

 Review. 



MEMOKIALS OF A MAN OF LETTEES. 



Br JOHN MOELEY. 



WHAT are the qualities of a good contributor ? 

 What makes a good review ? Is the best 

 literature produced by the writer who does noth- 

 ing else but write, or by the man who tempers 

 literature by affairs ? What are the different 

 recommendations of the rival systems of ano- 

 nymity and signature ? What kind of change, if 

 any, has passed over periodical literature since 

 those two great periodicals, the Edinburgh and 

 the Quarterly, held sway ? These and a number 

 of other questions in the same matter — some of 

 them obviously not to be opened with propriety in 

 these pages — must naturally be often present to 

 the mind of any one who is concerned in the 

 control of a review, and a volume has just been 

 printed which sets such musings once more astir. 

 Mr. Macvey Napier was the editor of the Edin- 

 burgh Review from 1829 — when Jeffrey, after a 

 reign of seven-and-twenty years, resigned it into 

 his hands — until his death in 184*7. A portion of 

 the correspondence addressed to Mr. Napier dur- 

 ing this period has been recently printed for pri- 

 vate circulation by his son. By his courteous 

 permission I am allowed to refer to a volume that 

 is full of personal interest both to the man of 

 letters and to that more singular being, the 

 editor, the impresario of men of letters, the en- 

 trepreneur of the spiritual power. 



To manage an opera-house is usually supposed 

 to tax human powers more urgently than any 

 position save that of a general in the very heat 

 and stress of battle. The orchestra, the chorus, 

 the subscribers, the first tenor, a pair of rival 

 prima donnas, the newspapers, the box-agents in 

 Bond Street, the army of hangers-on in the flies — 

 all combine to demand such gifts of tact, resolu- 



74 



tion, patience, foresight, tenacity, flexibility, as 

 are only expected from the great ruler or the 

 great soldier. The editor of a periodical of pub- 

 lic consideration — and the Edinburgh Review in 

 the hands of Mr. Napier was the avowed organ of 

 the ruling Whig powers — is sorely tested in the 

 same way. The rival house may bribe his stars. 

 His popular epigrammatist is sometimes as full 

 of humors as a spoiled soprano. The favorite 

 pyrotechnist is systematically late and procrasti- 

 natory, or is piqued because his punctuation or 

 his paragraphs have been meddled with. The 

 contributor whose article would be in excellent 

 time if it did not appear before the close of the 

 century, or never appeared at all, pesters you 

 with warnings that a month's delay is a deadly 

 blow to progress, and stays the great procession 

 of the ages. The contributor who could profit- 

 ably fill a sheet, insists on sending a treatise. 

 Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who had charge of 

 the Edinburgh for a short space, truly described 

 prolixity as the bete noire of an editor. " Every 

 contributor," he said, " has some special reason 

 for wishing to write at length on his own subject." 

 "Ah, que de choses dans un menuet," cried Mar- 

 cel, the great dancing-master, and ah, what things 

 in the type and ISea of an article, cries an editor 

 with the enthusiasm of his calling ; such propor- 

 tion, measure, comprehension, variety of topics, 

 pithiness of treatment, all within a space appoint- 

 ed with procrustean rigor. This is what the soul 

 of the volunteer contributor is dull to. Of the 

 minor vexations who can tell ? 



" Semper ego auditor tantum ? Nuuquamne reponam 

 Vexatus totiee rauci Theseide Codri ? " 



There is one single tribulation dire enough to 



