LITERATURE cxxxix 



prefer the Agamemnon in the prose of Mr. Buckley, ay, to Keats. 

 But he was his mother's son, learning to the last. He told me 

 one day that literature was not a trade ; that it was no craft ; 

 that the professed author was merely an amateur with a door- 

 plate. ' Very well,' said I, ' the first time you get a proof, I will 

 demonstrate that it is as much a trade as bricklaying, and that 

 you do not know it.' By the very next post, a proof came. I 

 opened it with fear ; for he was indeed, as the reader will see 

 by these volumes, a formidable amateur ; always wrote brightly, 

 because he always thought trenchantly ; and sometimes wrote 

 brilliantly, as the worst of whistlers may sometimes stumble on 

 a perfect intonation. But it was all for the best in the interests 

 of his education ; and I was able, over that proof, to give him a 

 quarter of an hour such as Fleeming loved both to give and to 

 receive. His subsequent training passed out of my hands into 

 those of our common friend, W. E. Henley. c Henley and I,' 

 he wrote, ' have fairly good times wigging one another for not 

 doing better. I wig him because he won't try to write a real 

 play, and he wigs me because I can't try to write English.' When 

 I next saw him, he was full of his new acquisitions. ' And yet I 

 have lost something too,' he said regretfully. ' Up to now Scott 

 seemed to me quite perfect, he was all I wanted. Since I have 

 been learning this confounded thing, I took up one of the novels, 

 and a great deal of it is both careless and clumsy.' 



V. 



He spoke four languages with freedom, not even English His Talk. 

 with any marked propriety. What he uttered was not so much 

 well said, as excellently acted : so we may hear every day the 

 inexpressive language of a poorly-written drama assume cha- 

 racter and colour in the hands of a good player. No man had 

 more of the vis comica in private life ; he played no character on 

 the stage, as he could play himself among his friends. It was 

 one of his special charms ; now when the voice is silent and the 

 face still, it makes it impossible to do justice to his power in con- 

 versation. He was a delightful companion to such as can bear 



VOL. I. i 



