Since it is clear that the law assists in blackening reputations even in the grave, I claim that other Miss Brownes who take advantage of life, and time by the forelock to put up monuments in the sufficiently hideous thoroughfares should be pronounced non compos mentis. The perpetrators of the erection in High Street, Kensington, hard by St. Mary Abbots, may serve as an example. Inconvenient, vulgar, inapposite, this should debar even the subscribers from obtaining probate for their wills. I invoke posthumous revenge, and claim that at least 500l. damages should be paid as compensation to the nearest hospital for the indignant blind, as my friend Mr. Vincent O'Sullivan calls them in one of his delightful stories.

(1906.)



NON ANGELI SED ANGLI.

I wish that the Rokeby Velasquez now firmly secured for the British nation could have been allowed to remain in Bond Street for a short while; not to tantalise the foreign countries who so eagerly competed for its acquisition, nor to emphasise the patriotism of its former owners, but as a contrast to 'Some Examples of the Independent Art of To-day,' held at Messrs. Agnew's. Perhaps not as a contrast even, but as a complement. I do not mean to place all the examples on the same level with the 'Venus,' though with some I should have preferred to live; yet the juxtaposition would have asserted the tradition of the younger painters and the modernity of the older master. 'We are all going to—Agnew's, and Velasquez will be of the company,' or something like Gainsborough's dying words would have occurred sooner or later. I am persuaded that we look at the ancient pictures with frosted magnifying- glasses, and stare at the younger men from the wrong end of the binoculars. It was ever thus; it always will be so. Most of us suspect our contemporaries or juniors. And they—les jeunes feroces—are impatient of their immediate predecessors. Nos peres out toujours tort. Though grandpapa is sometimes quite picturesque; his waistcoat and old buttons suit us very well. 'Your Raphael is not even divine,' said Velasquez when he left Rome and that wonderful p.p.c. card on the Doria. 'Your Academicians are not even academic,' some of the younger painters and their champions are saying to-day.

I found, moreover, the epithet 'independent,' to qualify an entertaining and significant exhibition, misleading. For many of the items could only be so classified in the sense that they were independent of Messrs. Agnew and the Royal Academy. Mr. Tonks and Professor Brown are official instructors at the Slade School in London; Mr. C. J. Holmes is Keeper of the National Portrait Gallery. Mr. Gerard Chowne was a professor at Liverpool. Mr. Fry is now an official at New York; and the majority of the painters belonged to two distinctive and dependent groups—the Glasgow School and the New English Art Club. Intense individualism is not incompatible with militant collectivism. The only independent artists, if you except Mr. Nicholson, were Mr. C. H. Shannon and Mr. Charles Ricketts, who have always stood apart, being neither for the Royal Academy nor its enemies; their choice is in their pictures.

I feel it difficult to write of painters for some of whom I acted showman so long at the Carfax Gallery. I confess that when I heard they were going to Bond Street my pangs were akin to those of the owner of a small country circus on learning that his troupe of performing dogs had been engaged by Mr. Imre Kiralfy or the Hippodrome. A quondam dealer in ultramontanes, I became an Othello of the trade. And in their grander quarters (I grieve to say) they looked better than ever, though I would have chosen another background, something less expensive and more severe. Yes, they all went through their hoops gracefully. With one exception, I never saw finer Wilson Steers; the 'Sunset' might well be hung beside the new Turners, when the gulf between ancient and modern art would be almost imperceptible. The 'Aliens' of Mr. Rothenstein in the cosmopolitan society of a public picture gallery would hardly appear foreigners, because they belong to a country where the inhabitants are racy of every one else's soil. When time has given an added dignity (if that were possible) to this work, I can realise how our descendants will laugh at our lachrymose observations on the decadence of art. The background against which the stately Hebrew figures are silhouetted is in itself a liberal education for the aged and those who ask their friends what these modern fellows mean.

When the inhabitants of the unceltiferous portion of these islands employ the adjective un-English you may be sure there is something serious on the carpet. It is valedictory, expressive of sorrow and contempt rather than anger. All the other old favourites of vituperative must have missed fire before this almost sacred, disqualifying Podsnappianism is applied to the objectionable person, picture, book, behaviour, or movement. And when the epithet is brought into action, in nine cases out of ten it is aimed at some characteristic essentially, often blatantly, Anglo-Saxon. Throughout the nineteenth century all exponents of art and literature not conforming to Fleet Street ideals were voted un-English; Byron, Shelley, Keats, Swinburne, the Pre-Raphaelites, and, in course of good time, those artists who formed the New English Art Club. There was some ground for suspicion of foreign intrigue. They regarded Mr. Whistler, an American, who flirted with French impressionism, as a pioneer. Some of their names suggest the magic Orient or the romantic scenery of the Rhine. But it is not extravagant to assert that if Mr. Rothenstein had chosen to be born in France or Germany, instead of in Bradford, his art would have come to us in another form. In his strength and his weakness he is more English than the English. Art may have cosmopolitan relations (it is usually a hybrid), but it must take on the features of the country and people where it grows; or it may change them, or change the vision of the people of its adoption. Yet Ruth must not look too foreign in the alien corn, or her values will get wrong. When an English artist airs his foreign accent and his smattering of French pigment his work has no permanent significance. Even Professor Legros unconsciously assimilated British subjectivity: his Latin rein has been slackened; his experiments are often literary.

It is an error however to regard the exhibitions of the New English Art Club as a homogeneous movement, such as that of Barbizon and the Pre-Raphaelite—inspired by a single idea or similar group of ideas. The members have not even the cohesion of Glasgow or defunct Newlyn. The only thing they have in common, in common originally with Glasgow, was a distaste for the tenets and ideals of Burlington House. The serpent (or was it the animated rod?) of the Academy soon swallowed the sentimentalities of Newlyn, just as the International boa-constrictor made short work of Glasgow. And the forbidden fruit of an official Eden has tempted many members of the Club. Others have resigned from time to time, but with no ill result—to the Club. Now, the reason for this is that the members have no dependence on each other, except for the executive organization of Mr. Francis Bate. It may be doubted if in their heart of hearts they admire each other's works. They are intense individualists (personal friends, maybe, in private life) artistically speaking, on terms of cutting acquaintance at the Slade.

The mannerism of Professor Legros is still, of course, a common denominator for the older men, and the younger artists evince a familiarity with drawing unusual in England, due to the admirable training of Professor Brown and Mr. Henry Tonks. The Spartan Mr. Tonks may not be able to make geniuses, but he has the faculty of turning out efficient workmen. Whether they become members of the Club or drift into the haven of Burlington House, at all events they can fly and wear their aureoles with propriety. A society, however, which contains such distinctive and assertive personalities as Mr. Wilson Steer, Mr. Henry Tonks, Mr. Augustus John, Mr. William Orpen, Mr. Von Glehn, Mr. MacColl, and Professor Holmes, cannot possess even such unity of purpose as inspired Mr. Holman Hunt and his associates of the 'fifties. The New English Art Club is simply an admirably administered association whose members have rather less in common than is shared by the members of an ordinary political club. The exhibitions are for this reason intensely interesting. They cannot be waved aside like mobs, and no comprehensive epigram can do them even an injustice.

I never knew any painter worthy of the name who paid the smallest attention to what a critic says, even in conversation. He will retort; but he will not change his style or regulate his motives to suit a critic's palate. So may I now mention their faults? What painter is without fault? Their faults are shared by nearly all of them; their virtues are their own. I see among them an absence of any desire for beauty—for physical beauty. If the artists have fulfilled a mission in abolishing 'the sweetly pretty Christmas supplement kind of work,' I think they dwell too long on the trivial and the ignoble. They put a not very interesting domesticity into their frames. Rossetti, of course, wheeled about the marriage couch, but his was itself an interesting object of virtu. Modern art ceased to express the better aspirations and thoughts of the day when modern artists refused to become the servants of the commune, but asserted themselves as a component part of an intellectual republic. That is why people only commission portraits, and prefer to buy old masters who anticipate those better aspirations. Burne-Jones, however, expressed in paint that longing to be out of the nineteenth century which was so widespread. Now we are well out of it, the rising generation does not esteem his works with the same enthusiasm as the elders. It reads Mr. Wells on the future, and looks into the convex mirror of Mr. Bernard Shaw; but it does not buy Dubedats to the extent that it ought to do. The members of the New English Art Club could, I think, preserve their aesthetic conscience and yet paint beautiful things and beautiful people. Mr. Steer has now given them a lead. I wonder what Mr. Winter's opinion would be? He is the best salesman in London.

Among dealers, the ancient firm of Messrs. P. & D. Colnaghi, of which Thackeray writes, is the doyen. That of Messrs. Agnew is the douane. Here it is that the official seal must be set before modern paintings can pass onwards to the Midlands and the middle classes. Well, I felicitate the august officials on removing a tariff of prejudice; I felicitate the young artists who, released from the bondage of the Egyptian Hall, can now enjoy the lighter air, the larger day, the pasturage and patronage of Palestine. I compliment the fearless collectors, such as Mr. C. K. Butler, Mr. Herbert Trench, Mr. Daniel, His Honour Judge Evans, the Leylands and the Leathearts of a latter day, for ignoring contemporary ridicule and anticipating the verdict, not of passing fashion but of posterity. As the servant spoke well of his master while wearing his clothes which were far too big for him, let me congratulate the Chrysostom of critics, the Origen who has scourged our heresies, Mr. D. S. MacColl; because the Greeks have entered Troy or the barbarians the senate-house. Dissolve frigus ligna super foco large reponens, and let us mix our metaphors. What was Mr. MacColl's Waterloo was a Canossa for Messrs. Agnew.

(1906.)



MR. HOLMAN HUNT AT THE LEICESTER GALLERIES.

An enterprising American syndicate was once formed for manufacturing Stilton cheeses on a large scale; like the pirated Cheddars from similar sources, enjoyed by members of most London clubs. Various farms celebrated for their Stiltons were visited, sums of money being offered for old family recipes. The simple peasants of the district willingly parted with copies of their heirlooms, for a consideration, to the different American agents, who, filled with joy, repaired to their London offices in order to compare notes, and fully persuaded that England was a greener country than ever Constable painted it. What was their mortification on discovering that all the recipes were entirely different; they could not be reconciled even by machinery. So it is with Pre-Raphaelitism; every critic believes that he knows the great secret, and can always quote from one of the brotherhood something in support of his view. At the beginning the brothers meekly accepted Ruskin's explanation of their existence; his, indeed, was a very convenient, though not entirely accurate, exposition of their collective view, if they can be said to have possessed one. How far Ruskin was out of sympathy with them, indiscreet memoirs have revealed. An artistic idea, or a group of ideas, must always be broken gently to the English people, because the acceptance of them necessitates the swallowing of words. When the golden ladders are let down from heaven by poets, artists, or critics even; or new spirits are hovering in the intellectual empyrean, the patriarch public snoring on its stone pillow wakes up; but he will not wrestle with the angel. He mistakes the ladders for scaffolding, or some temporary embarrassment in the street traffic; he orders their instant removal; he writes angry letters to the papers and invokes the police. After some time Ruskin's definition of Pre-Raphaelitism was generally accepted, and then the death of Rossetti produced other recipes for the Stilton cheese, Mr. Hall Caine being among the grocers. Whatever the correct definition may be, ungracious and ungrateful though it is to praise the dead at the expense of the living, it has to be recognised that among the remarkable group of painters in which even the minor men were little masters, the greatest artist of them all was Dante Gabriel Rossetti. 'By critic I mean finding fault,' says Sir William Richmond; so let us follow his advice, and avoid technical discussion along with the popular jargon of art criticism. 'After staying two or three hours in the always-delightful Leicester Galleries, let us walk home and think a little of what we have seen.' For the essence of beauty there is nothing of Mr. Holman Hunt's to compare with Rossetti's 'Beloved' or the 'Blue Bower;' and you could name twenty of the poet's water-colours which, for design, invention, devious symbolism, and religious impulse, surpass the finest of Mr. Hunt's most elaborate works. Even in the painter's own special field—the symbolised illustration of Holy Writ—he is overwhelmed by Millais with the superb 'Carpenter's Shop.' In Millais, it was well said by Mr. Charles Whibley, 'we were cheated out of a Rubens.' Millais was the strong man, the great oil-painter of the group, as Rossetti was the supreme artist. In Mr. Holman Hunt we lost another Archdeacon Farrar. Then, in the sublimation of uglitude, Madox- Brown, step-father of the Pre-Raphaelites (my information is derived from a P.R.B. aunt), was an infinitely greater conjurer. Look at the radiant painting of 'Washing of the Feet' in the Tate Gallery; is there anything to equal that masterpiece from the brush of Mr. Holman Hunt? The 'Hireling Shepherd' comes nearest, but the preacher, following his own sheep, has strayed into alien corn, and on cliffs from which is ebbing a tide of nonconformist conscience. Like his own hireling shepherd, too, he has mistaken a phenomenon of nature for a sermon.

One of the great little pictures, 'Claudio and Isabella,' proves, however, that once he determined to be a painter. In the 'Lady of Shalott' he showed himself a designer with unusual powers akin to those of William Blake. Still, examined at a distance or close at hand, among his canvases do we find a single piece of decoration or a picture in the ordinary sense of the word? My definition of a religious picture is a painted object in two dimensions destined or suitable for the decoration of an altar or other site in a church, or room devoted to religious purposes; if it fails to satisfy the required conditions, it fails as a work of art. Where is the work of this so-called religious painter which would satisfy the not exacting conditions of a nonconformist or Anglican place of worship? You are not surprised to learn that Keble College mistook the 'Light of the World' for a patent fuel, or that the background of the 'Innocents' was painted in 'the Philistine plain.' Who could live even in cold weather with the 'Miracle of the Sacred Fire?' Give me rather the 'Derby Day' of Mr. Frith—admirable and underrated master. What are they if we cannot place them in the category of pictures? They are pietistic ejaculations—tickled-up maxims in pigment of extraordinary durability—counsels of perfection in colour and conduct. Of all the Pre-Raphaelites, Mr. Hunt will remain the most popular. He is artistically the scapegoat of that great movement which gave a new impulse to English art, a scapegoat sent out to wander by the dead seas of popularity. I once knew a learned German who regretted that none of his countrymen could paint 'Alpine scenery' as Mr. Hunt has done in the 'Scapegoat'! Yes, he has a message for every one, for my German friend, for Sir William Richmond, and myself. He is a missing link between art and popularity. He symbolises the evangelical attitude of those who would go to German Reed's and the Egyptian Hall, but would not attend a theatre. After all, it was a gracious attitude, because it is that of mothers who aged more beautifully, I think, than the ladies of a later generation which admired Whistler or Burne-Jones and regularly attended the Lyceum. When modern art, the brilliant art of the 'sixties, was strictly excluded from English homes except in black and white magazines, engravings from the 'Finding of Christ in the Temple' and the 'Light of the World' were allowed to grace the parlour along with 'Bolton Abbey,' the 'Stag at Bay,' and 'Blucher meeting Wellington.' You see them now only in Pimlico and St. John's Wood. A friend of mine said he could never look at the picture of 'Blucher meeting Wellington' without blushing. . . . Like a good knight and true, Sir William Richmond, another Bedivere, has brandished Excalibur in the form of a catalogue for Mr. Hunt's pictures. He offers the jewels for our inspection; they make a brave show; they are genuine; they are intrinsic, but you remember others of finer water, Bronzino-like portraits of Mr. Andrew Lang and Bismarck and many others. Now, you should never recollect anything during the enjoyment of a complete work of art.

Every one knows the view from Richmond, I should say of Richmond; it is almost my own . . . Far off Sir Bedivere sees Lyonesse submerged; Camelot- at-Sea has capitulated after a second siege to stronger forces. The new Moonet is high in the heaven and a dim Turner-like haze has begun to obscure the landscape and soften the outlines. Under cover of the mist the hosts of Mordred MacColl, en-Tate with victory, are hunting the steer in the New English Forest. Far off the enchanter Burne-Jones is sleeping quietly in Broceliande (I cannot bear to call it Rottingdean). Hark, the hunt, (not the Holman Hunt) is up in Caledon (Glasgow); they have started the shy wilson steer: they have wound the hornel; the lords of the International, who love not Mordred overmuch, are galloping nearer and nearer. Sir Bedivere can see their insolent pencils waving black and white flags: and the game-keepers and beaters (critics) chant in low vulgar tones:

When we came out of Glasgow town There was really nothing at all to see Except Legros and Professor Brown, But now there is Guthrie and Lavery.

Undaunted Sir Bedivere drags his burden to a hermitage near Coniston; but he finds it ruined; he bars the door in order to administer refreshment to the wounded Pre-Raphaelite; there is a knocking at the wicket-gate; is it the younger generation? No, he can hear the tread of the royal sargent-at-arms; his spurs and sword are clanking on the pavement. Sir Bedivere feels his palette parched; his tongue cleaves to the roof of St. Paul's; but he is undaunted. 'We are surely betrayed if that is really Sargent,' he says. Through the broken tracery of the Italian Gothic window a breeze or draught comes softly and fans his strong academic arms; he feels a twinge. Some Merlin told him he would suffer from ricketts with shannon complications. Seizing Excalibur, he opens the door cautiously. 'Draw, caitiffs,' he cries; 'draw.' 'Perhaps they cannot draw; perhaps they are impressionists,' said a raven on the hill; and he flew away.

(1906.)

To SIR WILLIAM BLAKE RICHMOND, R.A., K.C.B.



THE ECLECTIC AT LARGE.

In The Education of an Artist, Mr. Lewis Hind invented a new kind of art criticism—a pleasing blend of the Morelli narrative (minus the scientific method) and Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour. He contrives a young man, ignorant like the Russian, Lermoliev, who receives certain artistic impressions, faithfully recorded by Mr. Hind and visualised for the reader in a series of engaging half-tone illustrations. The hero's name is itself suggestive—Claude Williamson Shaw. By the end of the book he is nearly as learned as Mr. Claude Phillips: he might edit a series of art-books with all the skill of Dr. Williamson, and his power of racy criticism rivals that of Mr. George Bernard Shaw. You can hardly escape the belief that these three immortals came from the north and south, gathered as unto strife, breathed upon his mouth and filled his body—with ideas: Mr. Hind supplying the life. But this is not so: the ideas are all Mr. Hind's and the godfathers only supplied the name. What a name it is to be sure! It recalls one of Ibsen's plays: 'Claude Williamson Shaw was a miner's son—a Cornish miner's son, as you know; or perhaps you didn't know. He was always wanting plein-air.' Some one ought to say that in the book, but I must say it instead. At all events, Mr. Hind nearly always refers to him by his three names, and every one must think of him in the same way, otherwise side issues will intrude themselves—thoughts of other things and people. 'O Captain Shaw, type of true love kept under,' is not inapposite, because Claude Williamson Shaw fell in love with a lady who in a tantalising manner became a religious in one of the strictest Orders, the rules of which were duly set forth in old three-volume novels; that is the only conventional incident in the book. C. W. S., although he trains for painting, is admitted by Mr. Hind to be quite a bad artist. Apart, therefore, from the admirable criticism which is the main feature of the book, it shows great courage on the part of the inventor, great sacrifice, to admit that C. W. S. was a failure as an artist. Bad artists, however, are always nice people. I do not say that the reverse is true; indeed, I know many good and even great artists who are charming; but I never met a thoroughly inferior painter (without any promise of either a future or a past) who was not irresistible socially. This accounts for some of the elections at the Royal Academy, I believe, and for the pictures on the walls of your friends whose taste you know to be impeccable. There is more hearty recognition of bad art in England than the Tate Gallery gives us any idea of.

I know that the Chantrey Trustees were deprived of the only possible excuse for their purchases by the finding of Lord Lytton's Commission; but I, for one, shall always think of them as kindly men with a fellow- feeling for incompetence, who would have bought a work by Claude Williamson Shaw if the opportunity presented itself. I have sometimes tried to imagine what the pictures of invented artists in fiction or drama were really like—I fear they were all dreadful performances. I used to imagine that Oswald Avling was a sort of Segantini, but something he says in the play convinced me that he was merely another Verboekhoven. Then Thackeray's Ridley must have been a terrible Philistine—a sort of Sir John Gilbert. Poor Basil Hallward's death was no great loss to art, I surmise: his portrait of 'Dorian Grey, Esq.', from all accounts, resembled the miraculous picture exhibited in Bond Street a short while ago. I am not surprised that its owner, whose taste improved, I suspect, with advancing years, destroyed it in the ordinary course after reading something by Mr. D. S. MacColl. It is distinctly stated that Dorian read the Saturday Review! Frenhofer, Hippolite Schimier, and Leon de Lora were probably chocolate-box painters of the regular second-empire type. Theobald, we know from Mr. Henry James, was a man of ideas who could not carry out his intentions. It must have been an exquisite memory of Theobald's failures which made Pater, when he wished to contrive an imaginary artistic personality, take Watteau as being some one in whose achievements you can believe. No literary artist can persuade us into admiring pictures which never existed; though an artist can reconstruct from literature a picture which has perished we know, from the 'Calumny of Apelles' by Botticelli. It was, therefore, wise to make Claude Williamson Shaw a failure as a painter. In accordance with my rule he was an excellent fellow, nearly as charming as his author, and better company in a picture-gallery it would be difficult to find—and you cannot visit picture-galleries with every friend: you require a sympathetic personality. It is the Claude—the Claude Phillips in him which I like best: the Dr. Williamson I rather suspect. I mean that when he was at Messrs. Chepstow, the publishers, he must have mugged up some of the real Dr. Williamson's art publications. Whether in the Louvre, or National Gallery, or in Italian towns, he always goes for the right thing; sometimes you wish he would make a mistake. Bad artists, of course, are often excellent judges of old pictures and make excellent dealers, and I am not denying the instinct of C. W. S.; but I cannot think it all came so naturally as Mr. Hind would indicate.

The reason why Claude Williamson Shaw discovered 'that he would not find a true expression of his temperament' in painting readers of this ingenious book will discover for themselves. Assuming that he had any innate talent, I do not think he went about the right way to cultivate it. His friend Lund gave him the very worst advice; though we are the gainers. It is quite unnecessary to go out of England and gaze at a lot of pictures of entirely different schools in order to become a painter. Gainsborough and our great Norwich artists evolved themselves without any foreign study. There was no National Gallery in their days. A second- rate Wynants and a doubtful Hobbema seem to have been enough to give them hints. It would be tedious to mention other examples. The fortunate meeting of Zuccarelli and Wilson at Venice is the only instance I know in which foreign travel benefited any English landscape painter. Foreign travel is all very well when the artist has grown up. Paris has been the tomb of many English art students. M. Bordeaux, who gave Mr. Hind's hero tips in the atelier, seems to have been as 'convincing' as the famous barrel of the same name. Far better will the English student be under Mr. Tonks at the Slade; or even at the Royal Academy, where, owing to the doctrine of contraries, out of sheer rebellion he may become an artist. In Paris you learn perfect carpentry, but not art, unless you are a born artist; but in that case you will be one in spite of Paris, not because of it. But if C. W. Shaw had been a real painter he would have seen at Venice certain Tiepolos which seem to have escaped him, and in other parts of Italy certain Caravaggios. Yes, and Correggios and Guido Renis, too hastily passed by. He was doomed to be a connoisseur.

(1906.)



EGO ET MAX MEUS.

'How very delightful Max's drawings are. For all their mad perspective and crude colour, they have, indeed, the sentiment of style, and they reveal with rarer delicacy than does any other record the spirit of Lloyd- George's day.' This sentence is not quite original: it is adapted from an eminent author because the words sum up so completely the inexpressible satisfaction following an inspection of Mr. Beerbohm's caricatures. To-day essentially belongs to the Minister who once presided at the Board of Trade. Several attempts indeed have been made to describe the literature, art and drama of the present as 'Edwardian,' from a very proper and loyal spirit, to which I should be the last to object. We were even promised a few years ago a new style of furniture to inaugurate the reign—something to supplant that Louis Dix-neuvieme decor which is merely a compromise with the past. But somehow the whole thing has fallen through; in this democratic aeon the adjective 'Edwardian' trips on the tongue; our real dramatists are all Socialists or Radicals; our poets and writers Anarchists. Our artists are the only conservatives of intellect. Our foreign policy alone can be called 'Edwardian,' so personal is it to the King. Everything else is a compromise; so our time must therefore be known—at least ten years of it—as the Lloyd-Georgian period. I can imagine collectors of the future struggling for an alleged genuine work of art belonging to this brief renaissance, and the disappointment of the dealer on finding that it dated a year before the Budget, thereby reducing its value by some thousands.

Just as we go to Kneller and Lely for speaking portraits of the men who made their age, so I believe our descendants will turn to Max for listening likenesses of the present generation. Of all modern artists, he alone follows Hamlet's advice. If the mirror is a convex one, that is merely the accident of genius, and reflects the malady of the century. Other artists have too much eye on the Uffizi and the National Gallery (the more modest of them only painting up to the Tate). In Max we have one who never harks forward to the future, and is therefore more characteristic, more Lloyd-Georgian than any of his peers. Set for one moment beside some Rubens' goddess a portrait by Mr. Sargent, and how would she be troubled by its beauty? Not in the slightest degree; because they are both similar but differing expressions of the same genius of painting. The centuries which separate them are historical conventions; and in Art, history does not count; aesthetically, time is of no consequence. But in the more objective art of caricature, history is of some import, and (as Mr. Beerbohm himself admitted about photographs) the man limned is of paramount importance. Actual resemblance, truthfulness of presentation, criticism of the model become legitimate subjects for consideration. Generally speaking, artists long since wisely resigned all attempts at catching a likeness, leaving to photography an inglorious victory. Mr. Beerbohm, realising this fact, seized caricature as a substitute—the consolation, it may be, for a lost or neglected talent. It is as though Watts (painter of the soul's prism, if ever there was one) had pushed away Ward and Downey from the camera, to insert a subtler lens, a more sensitive negative.

* * * *

If, reader, you have ever been to a West-end picture shop, you will have suffered some annoyance on looking too attentively at any item in the exhibition, by the approach of an officious attendant, who presses you to purchase it. He begins by flattery; he felicitates you on your choice of the best picture in the room—the one that has been 'universally admired by critics and collectors.'

The fact of its not being sold is due (he naively confesses) to its rather high price; several offers have been submitted, and if not sold at the catalogued amount the artist has promised to consider them; but it is very unlikely that the drawing will remain long without a red ticket, 'as people come back to town to-morrow.' There is the stab, the stab in the back while you were drinking honey; the tragedy of Corfe Castle repeated. People with a capital P in picture-dealing circles does not mean what they call the Hoypolloy; it means the great ones of the earth, the monde, the Capulets and Montagues with wealth or rank. You have been measured by the revolting attendant. He does not count you with them, or you would not be in town to-day; something has escaped you in the Morning Post, some function to which you were not invited, or of which you knew nothing. If you happen to be a Capulet you feel mildly amused, and in order to correct the wrong impression and let the underling know your name and address you purchase the drawing; for the greatest have their weak side. But, if not, and you have simply risen from the 'purple of commerce,' you are determined not to lag behind stuck- up Society; you will revenge yourself for the thousand injuries of Fortunatus; you will deprive him of his prerogative to buy the best. The purchase is concluded. You go home with your nerves slightly shaken from the gloved contest—you go home to face your wife and children, wearing a look of wistful inquiry on their irregular upturned faces, as when snow lies upon the ground, they scent Christmas, and you look up with surprise at the whiteness of the ceiling. Though in private life a contributor to the press, in public I used to be one of those importunate salesmen.

It was my duty, my pleasurable duty, so to act for Mr. Beerbohm's caricatures when exhibited at a fashionable West-end gallery where among the visitors I recognised many of his models. I observe that when Mr. Beerbohm is a friend of his victim he is generally at his best; that he is always excellent and often superb if he is in sympathy with the personality of that victim, however brutally he may render it. His failures are due to lack of sympathy, and they are often, oddly enough, the mildest as caricatures. Fortunately, Mr. Beerbohm selects chiefly celebrities who are either personal friends or those for whom he must have great admiration and sympathy. By a divine palmistry he estimates them with exquisite perception. I noted that those who were annoyed with their own caricature either did not know Mr. Beerbohm or disliked his incomparable writings; and, curiously enough, he misses the likeness in people he either does not know personally or whom you suspect he dislikes. I am glad now of the opportunity of being sincere, because it was part of my function as salesman to agree with what every one said, whether in praise or in blame.

And let me reproduce a conversation with one of the visitors. It is illustrative:—

[SCENE: The Carfax Gallery; rather empty; early morning: Caricatures by Max Beerbohm; entrance one shilling. Enter DISTINGUISHED CLIENT, takes catalogue, but does not consult it. No celebrity ever consults a catalogue in a modern picture-gallery. This does not apply to ladies, however distinguished, who conscientiously begin at number one and read out from the catalogue the title of each picture. SHOPMAN in attendance.]

D. C. (glancing round). Yes; how very clever they are.

SHOPMAN. Yes; they are very amusing.

D. C. I suppose you have had heaps of People. What a pity Max cannot draw!

SHOPMAN. Yes; it is a great pity.

D. C. (examines drawing; after a pause). But he can draw. Look at that one of Althorp.

SHOPMAN (trying to look intelligent): Yes; that certainly is well drawn.

D. C. (pointing to photograph of Paris inserted in Mr. Claude Lowther's caricature). And how extraordinary that is. It is like one of Muirhead Bone's street scenes. He does street scenes, doesn't he?

SHOPMAN. Yes; or one of Mr. Joseph Pennell's.

D. C. (after a pause). What a pity he never gets the likeness. That's very bad of Arthur Balfour.

SHOPMAN. Yes; it is a great pity. No; that's not at all a good one of Mr. Balfour.

D. C. (pointing to Mr. Shaw's photograph inserted in caricature). But he has got the likeness there. By Jove! it's nearly as good as a photograph.

SHOPMAN (examining photograph as if he had never seen it; enthusiastically). It's almost as good as a photograph.

D. C. (pointing with umbrella to Lord Weardale). Of course, that's Rosebery?

SHOPMAN (nervously): Y-e-s. (Brightly changing subject.) What do you think of Mr. Sargent's?

D. C. (now worked up). Oh! that's very good. Yes; that's the best of all. I see it's sold. I should have bought that one if it hadn't been sold. I wish Max would do a caricature of (describes a possible caricature). Tell him I suggested it; he knows me quite well (glancing round). He really is tremendous. Are they going to be published?

SHOPMAN. Yes; by Methuen & Co. (Hastily going over to new-comer.) Yes, madam, that is Mr. Arthur Balfour; it's considered the best caricature in the exhibition—the likeness is so particularly striking; and as a pure piece of draughtsmanship it is certainly the finest drawing in the room. No; that's not so good of Lord Althorp, though it was the first to sell. (Turning to another client.) Yes, sir; he is Mr. Beerbohm Tree's half-brother.

(1907.)

To MRS. BEERBOHM.



THE ETHICS OF REVIEWING.

The 'Acropolis,' a review of literature, science, art, politics, society, and the drama, is, as every one knows, our leading literary weekly. Its original promoters decided on its rather eccentric title with a symbolism now outmoded. The 'Acropolis' was to be impregnable to outside contributors, and the editor was always to be invisible. All the vile and secret arts of reclame and puffery were to find no place in its immaculate pages. One afternoon some time ago a number of gentlemen, more or less responsible for the production of the 'Acropolis,' were seated round the fire in the smoking-room of a certain club. For the last hour they had been discussing with some warmth the merits of signed or unsigned articles and the reviewing of books. A tall, good-looking man, who pretended to be unpopular, was advocating the anonymous. 'There is something so cowardly about a signed article,' he was saying. 'It is nearly as bad as insulting a man in public, when there is no redress except to call for the police. And that is ridiculous. If I am slated by an anonymous writer, it is always in my power to pay no attention, whereas if the slate is signed, I am obliged to take notice of some kind. I must either deny the statements, often at a great sacrifice of truth, or if I assault the writer there is always the risk of his being physically stronger than I am. No; anonymous attack is the only weapon for gentlemen.'

'To leave for a moment the subject of anonymity,' said an eminent novelist, 'I think the great curse of all criticism is that of slating any book at all. Think of the unfortunate young man or woman first entering the paths of literature, and the great pain it causes them. You should encourage them, and not damp their enthusiasm.'

'My dear fellow,' said North, 'I encourage no one, and writers should never have any feelings at all. They can't have any, or they would not bore the public by writing.'

The discussion was getting heated when the editor, Rivers, interfered.

'My dear North,' he began, addressing the first speaker, 'your eloquent advocacy of the anonymous reminds me of a curious incident that occurred many years ago when I was assistant-editor of the "Acropolis." The facts were never known to the public, and my old chief, Curtis, met with much misplaced abuse in consequence. There were reasons for which he could never break silence; but it happened so long ago that I cannot be betraying any confidence. All of you have heard of, and some of you have seen, Quentin Burrage, whose articles practically made the "Acropolis" what it now is. His opinion on all subjects was looked forward to by the public each week. Young poetasters would tremble when their time should come to be pulverised by the scathing epigrams which fell from his anonymous pen. Essayists, novelists, statesmen were pale for weeks until a review appeared that would make or mar their fame. In the various literary coteries of London no one knew that Quentin Burrage was the slater who thrilled, irritated, or amused them, though he was of course recognised as an occasional contributor. The secret was well kept. He was practically critical censor of London for ten years. A whole school of novelists ceased to exist after three of his notices in the "Acropolis." The names of painters famous before his time you will not find in the largest dictionaries now. Four journalists committed suicide after he had burlesqued their syntax, and two statesmen resigned office owing to his masterly examination of their policy. We were all much shocked when a popular actor set fire to his theatre on a first night because Curtis and his dramatic critic refused to take champagne and chicken between the acts. This may give you some idea of Burrage's power in London for a decade of the last century.

'One day a curious change came over him. It was Monday when he and I were in the office receiving our instructions. Curtis, after going over some books, handed to Quentin a vellum-covered volume of poems, saying with a grim smile: "There are some more laurels for you to hash."

'An expression of pain spread over Quentin's serene features.

'"I'll see what I can do," he said wearily. But his curious manner struck both Curtis and myself. The book was a collection of very indifferent verse which already enjoyed a wide popularity. I cannot tell you the title, for that is a secret not my own. It was early work of one of our most esteemed poets who for some time was regarded by his friends as the natural successor to Mr. Alfred Austin. The "Acropolis" had not spoken. We were sometimes behindhand in our reviews. The public waited to learn if the new poet was really worth anything. You may imagine the general surprise when a week afterwards there appeared a flamingly favourable review of the poems. It made a perfect sensation and was quoted largely. The public became quite conceited with its foresight. The reputation of the poet was assured. "Snarley-ow must be dead," some one remarked in my hearing at the club, and members tried to pump me. One day a telegram came from Curtis asking me to go down to his house at once. A request from him was a command. I found him in a state of some excitement, his manner a little artificial. "My dear Rivers, I suppose you think me mad. The geese have got into the Capitol at last." Without correcting his classical allusion, I said: "Where is Burrage?" "He is coming here presently. Of course, I glanced at the thing in proof, and thought it a splendid joke, but reading it this morning, I have come to the conclusion that something is wrong with Burrage. You remember his agitated manner the other day?" I was about to reply, when Burrage was announced. His haggard and pale appearance startled both of us. "My dear Burrage, what is the matter with you?" we exclaimed simultaneously. He gave a sickly nervous smile. "Of course you have sent to ask me about that review. Well, I have changed my opinions, I have altered. I think we should praise everything or ignore everything. To slate a book, good or bad, is taking the bread out of a fellow's mouth. I have been the chief sinner in this way, and I am going to be the first reformer." "Not in my paper," said Curtis, angrily.

'Then we all fell to discussing that old question with all the warmth that North and the rest of you were doing just now. We lost our tempers and Curtis ended the matter by saying: "I tell you what it is, Burrage, if you ever bring out a book yourself I'll send it to you to review. You can praise it as much as you like. But don't let this occur again, with any one else's work." Burrage turned quite white, I thought, and Curtis, noticing the effect of his words, went up and taking him by the hand, added more kindly, "My poor Burrage, are you quite well? I never saw you in so morbid a state before. All this is mere sentimentality—so different from your usual manly spirit. Go away for a change, to Brighton or Eastbourne, and you must come back with that wholesome contempt for your contemporaries that characterises most of your writings. I'll look over the matter this time, and we'll say no more about it." And here Curtis was so overcome that he dashed a tear from his eye. A few hours later I saw Burrage off to the sea. He was very strange in his manner. "I'll never be quite the same again. If I only dared to tell you," he said. And the train rolled out of the station.

'Some weeks later I was again in the editorial room and Curtis showed me a curiously bound book, printed on hand-made paper, entitled Prejudices. I had already seen it. "That book," Curtis remarked, "ought to have been noticed long ago. I was keeping it for Burrage when he gets better. Shall I send it to him?"

'Prejudices for some weeks had been the talk of London. It was a series of very ineffectual essays on different subjects. Sight, Colour, Sound, Art, Letters, and Religion were all dealt with in that highly glowing and original manner now termed Style. It was delightfully unwholesome and extraordinarily silly. Young persons had already begun to get foolish over it, and leaving the more stimulating pages of Mr. Pater they hailed the work as an earnest of the English Renaissance. Instead of stroking Marius the Epicurean they fondled a copy of Prejudices. I prophesied that Burrage would vindicate himself over it and that the public would hear very little of Prejudices in a year's time. The book was sent; and the first part of my prophecy was fulfilled, Burrage spared neither the author nor his admirers. The pedantry, the affected style, the cheap hedonism were all pitilessly exposed. London, rocked with laughter. Some of the admirers, with the generosity of youth, nobly came to the rescue. They made a paper war and talked of "The cruelty and cowardice of the attack," "The stab in the dark," "Journalistic marauding," "Disappointed author turned critic." The slate was one that I am bound to say was killing in both senses of the word. A book less worthless could never have lived under it. It was one of those decisive reviews of all ages. Prejudices was withdrawn by the publisher fearful of damaging his prestige. Yet it was never looked on as a rarity, and fell at book auctions for a shilling, for some time after, amidst general tittering. The daily papers meanwhile devoted columns to the discussion. I telegraphed to Burrage in cipher and congratulated him, knowing that secrets leak out sometimes through the post office. I was surprised to get no reply for some weeks, but Curtis said he was lying low while the excitement lasted. One day I got a letter simply saying, "For God's sake come. I am very ill." I went at once. How shall I describe to you the pitiful condition I found him in? The doctor told me he was suffering from incipient tuberculosis due to cerebral excitement and mental trouble. When I went in to see him he was lying in bed, pale and emaciated as a corpse, surrounded by friends and relations. He asked every one to go out of the room; he had something of importance to say to me. I then learned what you have divined already. The anonymous author of Prejudices was no other than Quentin Burrage himself. Or rather not himself, but the other self of which neither I nor Curtis knew anything. He had been living a double existence. As a writer of trashy essays and verse, an incomplete sentimentalist surrounded by an admiring band of young ladies and gentlemen, he was not recognised as the able critic and the anonymous slater of the "Acropolis."

'When he first received his own book for review he recalled the words of Curtis. He must be honest, impartial, and just. No one knew better the faults of Prejudices. As he began to write, the old spirit of the slater came over him. His better self conquered. He forgot for the moment that he was the author. He hardly realised the sting of his own sarcasms even when he saw them in proof. It was not until it appeared, and the papers were full of the controversy, that the cruelty and unfairness of the attack dawned on him. I was much shocked at the confession, and the extraordinary duplicity of Burrage, who had been living a lie for the last ten years. His denunciation of poor Curtis pained me. I would have upbraided him, but his tortured face and hacking cough made me relent. I need not prolong the painful story. Burrage never recovered. He sank into galloping consumption, only aggravated by a broken heart. I saw him on his deathbed at Rome. He was attended by Strange, and died in his arms. His last words to me were, "Rivers, tell Curtis I forgive him."

'We buried in the Protestant cemetery near Keats and Shelley one whose name was written in hot water. His sad death provoked a good deal of comment, as you may suppose. Strange has often promised to write his life. But he could never get through Prejudices, and I pointed out to him that you can hardly write an author's life without reading one of his works, even though he did die in your arms. That is the worst of literary martyrs with a few brilliant exceptions: their works are generally dull.'

'Is that all?' asked North.

'That is all, and I hope you understand the moral.'

'Perfectly; but your reminiscences have too much construction, my dear Rivers.'

'The story is perfectly true for all that,' remarked the Editor, drily.



A LITTLE DOCTORED FAUST. A PROLOGUE.

'The version of Faust which Mr. Stephen Phillips is contemplating will, it is interesting to learn from the author, be a "compact drama," of which the spectacular embellishment will form no part. In Mr. Phillips's view the story is in itself so strong and so rich in all the elements that make for dramatic effectiveness that to treat the subject as one for elaborate scenic display would be to diminish the direct appeal of a great tragedy. "First let me say," said Mr. Stephen Phillips, "how gladly I approach a task which will bring me again into association with Mr. George Alexander, whose admirable treatment of Paolo and Francesco, you will no doubt remember. In the version of Faust which I am going to prepare there will be nothing spectacular, nothing to overshadow or intrude upon an immortal theme. As to how I shall treat the story, and as to the form in which it will be written, I am not yet sure—it may be a play in blank verse, or in prose with lyrics . . ." Mr. Phillips added that he had also in view a play on the subject of Harold."—The Tribune.

Scene: The British Museum.

SIDNEY COLVIN. Ah! my dear Stephen, when they told me Phillips Was waiting in my study, I imagined That it was Claude, whom I have been expecting. I have arranged that you shall have this room All to yourself and friends. Now I must leave you. I have to go and speak to Campbell Dodgson About some prints we've recently acquired.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS. How can I ever thank you? Love to Binyon!

[COLVIN goes out.

Enter Mr. GEORGE ALEXANDER, GOETHE, MARLOWE, GOUNOD.

ALEXANDER (from force of habit). I always told you he was reasonable.

GOETHE. Well, I consent. Mein Gott! how colossal You English are! 'Tis nigh impossible For poets to refuse you anything, And German thought beneath some English shade— Unter den Linden, as we say at home— Sounds really quite as well on British soil. Our good friend Marlowe hardly seems so pleased.

MARLOWE. Oh, Goethe! cease these frivolous remarks. Think you that I, who knew Elizabeth, And tasted all the joys of literature And played the dawn to Shakespeare's larger day, And heralded a mighty line of verse With half-a-dozen mighty lines my own, Am feeling well?

GOUNOD (brightening). Ah! Monsieur Wells, Auteur d'une histoire fine et romanesque Traduit par Davray; il a des idees C'est une chose rare la-bas . . .

STEPHEN PHILLIPS. He does not speak of Huysmans; 'tis myself. I thank you, gentlemen, with all my heart; I thank you, gentlemen, with all my soul; I thank you, sirs, with all my soul and strength. So for your leave much thanks. You know my weakness: I love to be at peace with all the past. The present and the future I can manage; The stirrup of posterity may dangle Against the heaving flanks of Pegasus. I feel my spurs against the saucy mare And Alexander turned Bucephalus.

MARLOWE. Neigh! Neigh! though you have told us what you are, And we have witnessed Nero several times, You do not tell us of this wretched Faustus, Who must be damned in any case, I fear.

S. P. Of course, I treat you as material On which to work; but then I simplify And purify the story for our stage. The English stage is nothing if not pure. For instance, we will not allow Salome. So in Act II. of Faust I represent The marriage feast of beauteous Margaret; Act I. I get from Goethe, III. from Marlowe, And Gounod's music fills the gaps in mine. Margaret, of course, will never come to grief. She only gets a separation order. By the advice of Plowden magistrate, She undertakes to wean Euphorion, Who in his bounding habit symbolises The future glories of the English empire. As the production must not cost too much, Harker, Hawes Craven, Hann are relegated To a back place. It is a compact drama, Of which spectacular embellishment Will form no part. The story is so strong, So rich in all the elements that make A drama suitable for Alexander, That scenery, if necessary to Tree, Shall not intrude on this immortal theme.

GOETHE. Pyramidal! My friend, but you are splendid. Now, have you shown the manuscript to Colvin?

MARLOWE. He is a scholar, and a ripe and good one, And far too tolerant of modern poets.

ALEXANDER. One of your lines strike my familiar spirit. Surely, that does not come from Stephen Phillips.

MARLOWE. No matter; I may quote from whom I will. Shakespeare himself was not immaculate, And borrowed freely from a barren past.

GOETHE. What thinks Herr Sidney Colvin of your work?

S. P. That he will tell you when he sees it played.



ACT I.

Scene: Faust's Studio.

SERVANT. Well, if you have no further use for me, I will go make our preparation.

FAUST. If anybody calls, say I am out; I must have time to see how I will act. As to the form in which I shall be written, I must decide whether in prose or verse. My thoughts I'll bend. Give me at once the Times: Walkley I always find inspiriting— And really I learn much about the drama (Even the German drama) from his pen, More curious than that of Paracelsus. (Reads) 'Sic vos non vobis, Bernard Shaw might say, Dieu et mon droit. Ich dien. Et taceat Femina in ecclesia. Ellen Terry, La plus belle femme de toutes les femmes Du monde.' Archer, I have observed, Writes no more for the World, but for himself. Then I forgot; he's writing for the Leader, That highly independent Liberal paper.

[FAUST muses. Bell heard.

The Elixir of Life, is it a play Which runs a thousand nights? Is it a dream Precipitated into some alembic Or glass retort by Ex-ray Lankester?

Enter SERVANT.

SERVANT. A gentleman has called.

FAUST. Say I am out.

SERVANT. He will take no denial.

FAUST. Show him in. Most probably 'tis Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Who long has planned a play of Doctor Faustus.

Enter MEPHISTOPHELES.

MEPHISTOPHELES. Ah! my dear Doctor, here we are again! Micawber-like, I never will desert you. How do you feel? Your house I see myself In perfect order. Ah! how much has past Since those Lyceum days when you and I Climbed up the Brocken on Walpurgis night. That times have changed I realise myself; No longer through the chimney I descend; I enter like a super from the side. Widowers' Houses dramas have become; Morals and sentiment and Clement Scott No more seem adjuncts of the English stage.

FAUST. Oh, Mephistopheles, you come in time To save the English drama from a deadlock! Like Mahmud's coffin hung 'twixt Heaven and Earth, It falters up to verse and down to prose. Tell us, then, how to act, how consummate The aspirations of our Stephen Phillips!

MEPHISTO. Ah, Alexander Faustus! young as ever, Still unabashed by Paolo and Francesca, You long for plays with literary motives, Plots oft attempted both in prose and rhyme.

FAUST. As ever, you are timid and old-fashioned.

MEPHISTO. Hark you! One thing I know above all others, The English drama of the century past. Though English critics have consigned to me The plays of Ibsen, Maeterlinck, and Shaw, And Wilde's Salome, none has ever reached me. Back to their native land they must have gone, Or else you have them here in Germany. Only to me come down real British plays, The mid-Victorian twaddle, the false gems Which on the stretched forefinger of oblivion Glitter a moment, and then perish paste.

FAUST (drily). Well, if I learn of any critic's death Leaving a vacant place upon the Press, You'll hear from me; meanwhile, Mephisto mine, As we must needs play out our little play, Whom would you cast for Margaret, alias Gretchen? Kindly sketch out an inexpensive Faust, Modelled on the Vedrenne and Barker style Once much in favour at the English Court.

MEPHISTO. The stage is now an auditorium, And all the audiences are amateurs, First-nighters at the bottom of their heart. What do they care for drama in the least? All that they need are complimentary stalls, To know the leading actor, to be round At dress rehearsals, or behind the scenes, To hear the row the actor-manager Had with the author or the leading lady, Then to recount the story at the Garrick, Where, lingering lovingly on kippered lies, They babble over chestnuts and their punch And stale round-table jests of years ago.

FAUST. So Mephistopheles is growing old! Kindly omit your stage philosophy, And tell me all your plans about the play.

MEPHISTO. First we must make you young and fresh as paint, Philters and elixirs are out of date. A week in London—that is what you want; London Society is our objective. There you will find a not unlikely Gretchen, For actresses are all the rage just now; Countesses quarrel over Edna May, And Mrs. Patrick Campbell is received In the best houses. I shall introduce you As a philosopher from Tubingen. A sort of Nordau, no? Then Doctor Reich— Advocates polyandry, children suffrage— One man, one pianola; the usual thing That will secure success: here is a card For Thursday next—Lady Walpurge 'At Home' From nine till twelve—a really charming hostess. Her ladyship is intellectual, The husband rich, dishonest, a collector Of objets d'art, especially old masters. He got his title for his promises To England in the war; financed the raid, A patriot millionaire within whose veins Imperial pints of German-Jewish blood Must make the English think imperially, And rather bear with all the ills they have Than fly to others that they know not of.

FAUST. Excellent plan! Except at Covent Garden, I've hardly been in England since the 'eighties.



Act II.

Scene: Brocken House, Park Lane.

The top of the Grand Staircase. LORD and LADY WALPURGE receiving their guests. The greatest taste is shown in the decorations, which are lent for the occasion of the play free of charge, owing to the deserved popularity of Mr. George Alexander. Furniture supplied by Waring, selected by Mr. Percy Macquoid; Old Masters by Agnew & Son, P. & D. Colnaghi, Dowdeswell & Dowdeswell; Wigs by Clarkson. A large, full-length Reynolds, seen above the well of staircase; R. a Gainsborough, L. a Hoppner. The party is not very smart, rather intellectual and plutocratic; well-known musicians and artists in group R., and second-rate literary people L. An Irish peer and a member of the White Rose League are the only 'Society' present. There are no actors or actresses. FAUST, who has aged considerably since the Prologue, is an obvious failure, and is seen talking to a lady journalist. MEPHISTOPHELES, disguised as a Protectionist Member of Parliament, is in earnest conversation with LORD WALPURGE. FOOTMAN announcing the guests: The Bishop of Hereford, Mr. Maldonado, Mr. Andrew Undershaft, Mr. Harold Hodge, Mrs. Gorringe, Mr. and Mrs. Aubrey Tanqueray, &c.

LADY WALPURGE (archly). Ah, Mr. Tanqueray, you never forwarded me my photographs; it is nearly three weeks ago since I sent you a cheque for them.

TANQUERAY. Labby has been poisoning your mind against me. You shall have a proof to-morrow!

FOOTMAN. Mr. Gillow Waring.

LADY WALPURGE. I was so afraid you were not coming. My husband thought you would give us the slip.

WARING. How charming your decorations are! You must give me some ideas for my new yacht, you have such perfect taste.

MALDONADO. Walpurge! what will you take for that Reynolds? Or will you swap it for my Velasquez?

WALPURGE. My dear Maldo, I always do my deals through—

FOOTMAN. Mr. Walter Dowdeswell.

WALPURGE. Through Dowdeswell and Dowdeswell; and you, my dear Maldo, if you want to get rid of your Velasquez, ought to join the National Art Collections Fund, or go and see—

FOOTMAN. Mr. Lockett Agnew. 'Er 'Ighness the Princess Swami.

Enter the PRINCESS SALOME.

LADY JOURNALIST. Fancy having that woman here. She is not recognised in any decent society, she is nothing but an adventuress; talks such bad French, too. Have you ever seen her, Doctor Faustus?

FAUST. Yes, I have met her very often in Germany. Though the Emperor would not receive her at first, she is much admired in Europe.

LADY JOURNALIST (hedging). I wonder where she gets her frocks? They must be worth a good deal.

FAUST. From Ricketts and Shannon, if you want to know.

LADY JOURNALIST. Dear Doctor, you know everything! Let me see: Ricketts and Shannon is that new place in Regent Street, rather like Lewis and Allenby's, I suppose?

FAUST. Yes, only different.

IRISH PEER (to FAUST). Do you think Lady Walpurge will ever get into Society?

FAUST. Not if she gives her guests such wretched coffee.

LADY JOURNALIST. It's nothing to her tea. I've never had such bad tea. Besides, she cannot get actors or actresses to come to her house.

LADY WALPURGE (overhearing). I expect Sir Herbert and Lady Beerbohm Tree here to-night, and perhaps VIOLA. (Sensation.)

[Enter, hurriedly, MR. C. T. H. HELMSLEY.] Mr. Alexander, a moment with you! A most important telegram has just arrived.

FAUST (reading). 'Handed in at Greba Castle, 10.15. Reply paid. Do not close with Stephen Phillips until you have seen my play of Gretchen, same subject, five acts and twelve tableaux.—HALL CAINE.' Where is Mr. Stephen Phillips? [STEPHEN PHILLIPS advances.] My dear Phillips, I think we will put up Harold Hodge instead. 'The Last of the Anglo-Saxon Editors,' by the last Anglo-Saxon poet.

CURTAIN.

(1906.)

To W. BARCLAY SQUIRE, ESQ.



SHAVIANS FROM SUPERMAN.

DONNA ANA has vanished to sup her man at the Savoy; the DEVIL and the STATUE are descending through trap, when a voice is heard crying, 'Stop, stop'; the mechanism is arrested and there appears in the empyrean MR. CHARLES HAZELWOOD SHANNON, the artist, with halo.

THE DEVIL (while Shannon regains his breath). Really, Mr. Shannon, this is a great pleasure and quite unexpected. I am truly honoured. No quarrel I hope with the International? Pennell quite well? How is the Whistler memorial getting on?

SHANNON. So-so. To be quite frank I had no time to prepare for Heaven, and earth has become intolerable for me. (Seeing the Statue.) Is that a Rodin you have there?

THE DEVIL. Oh! I forgot, let me introduce you. Commander! Mr. C. H. Shannon, a most distinguished painter, the English Velasquez, the Irish Titian, the Scotch Giorgione, all in one. Mr. Shannon, his Excellency the Commander.

SHANNON. Delighted, I am sure. The real reason for my coming here is that I could stand Ricketts no longer. Ricketts the artist I adore. Ricketts the causeur is delightful. Ricketts the enemy, entrancing. Ricketts the friend, one of the best. But Ricketts, when designing dresses for the Court, Trench, and other productions, is not very amiable.

THE STATUE (sighing). Ah! yes, I know Ricketts.

THE DEVIL (sighing). We all know Ricketts. Never mind, he shall not come here. I shall give special orders to Charon. Come on to the trap and we can start for the palace.

SHANNON. Ah! yes. I heard you were moving to the Savoy. Think it will be a success?

[They descend and no reply is heard. Whisk! Mr. Frank Richardson on this occasion does not appear; void and emptiness; the fireproof curtain may be lowered here in accordance with the County Council regulations; moving portraits of deceased, and living dramatic critics can be thrown without risk of ignition on the curtain by magic lantern. The point of this travesty will be entirely lost to those who have not read 'Man and Superman.' It is the first masterpiece in the English literature of the twentieth century. It is also necessary to have read the dramatic criticisms in the daily press, and to have some acquaintance with the Court management, the Stage Society, and certain unlicensed plays; and to know that Mr. Ricketts designs scenery. This being thoroughly explained, the Curtain may rise; discovering a large Gothic Hall, decorated in the 1880 taste. Allegories by Watts on the wall—'Time cutting the corns of Eternity,' 'Love whistling down the ear of Life,' 'Youth catching Crabs,' &c. Windows by Burne-Jones and Morris. A Peacock Blue Hungarian Band playing music on Dolmetsch instruments by Purcell, Byrde, Bull, Bear, Palestrina, and Wagner, &c. Various well-known people crowd the Stage. Among the LIVING may be mentioned Mr. George Street; Mr. Max Beerbohm and his brother; Mr. Albert Rothenstein and his brother, &c. The company is intellectual and artistic; not in any way smart. The Savile and Athenaeum Clubs are well represented, but not the Garrick, the Gardenia, nor any of the establishments in the vicinity of Leicester Square. The Princess Salome is greeting some of the arrivals—The Warden of Keble, The President of Magdalen Coll., Oxford, and others—who stare at her in a bewildered fashion.

THE DEVIL. Silence, please, ladies and gentlemen, for his Excellency the Commander. (A yellowish pallor moves over the audience; effect by Gordon Craig.)

THE STATUE. It was my intention this evening to make a few observations on flogging in the Navy, Vaccination, the Censor, Vivisection, the Fabian Society, the Royal Academy, Compound Chinese Labour, Style, Simple Prohibition, Vulgar Fractions, and other kindred subjects. But as I opened the paper this morning, my eye caught these headlines: 'Future of the House of Lords,' 'Mr. Edmund Gosse at home,' 'The Nerves of Lord Northcliffe,' 'Interview with Mr. Winston Churchill,' 'Reported Indisposition of Miss Edna May.' A problem was thus presented to me. Will I, shall I, ought I to speak to my friends here—ahem!—and elsewhere, on the subject about which they came to hear me speak. (Applause.) No. I said; the bounders must be disappointed; otherwise they will know what to expect. You must always surprise your audience. When it has been advertised (sufficiently) that I am going to speak about the truth, for example, the audience comes here expecting me to speak about fiction. The only way to surprise them is to speak the truth and that I always do. Nothing surprises English people more than truth; they don't like it; they don't pay any attention to those (such as my friend Mr. H. G. Wells and myself) who trade in truth; but they listen and go away saying, 'How very whimsical and paradoxical it all is,' and 'What a clever adventurer the fellow is, to be sure.' 'That was a good joke about duty and beauty being the same thing'—that was a joke I did not make. It is not my kind of joke—but when people begin ascribing to you the jokes of other people, you become a living—I was going to say statue—but I mean a living classic.

THE DEVIL. I thought you disliked anything classic?

THE STATUE. Ahem! only dead classics—especially when they are employed to protect romanticism. Dead classics are the protective tariffs put on all realism and truth by bloated idealism. In a country of plutocrats, idealism keeps out truth: idealism is more expensive, and therefore more in demand. In America, there are more plutocrats, and therefore more idealists . . . as Mr. Pember Reeves has pointed out in New Zealand . . .

THE DEVIL. But I say, is this drama?

THE STATUE. Certainly not. It is a discussion taking place at a theatre. It is no more drama than a music-hall entertainment, or a comic opera, or a cinematograph, or a hospital operation, all of which things take place in theatres. But surely it is more entertaining to come to a discussion charmingly mounted by Ricketts—discussion too, in which every one knows what he is going to say—than to flaccid plays in which the audience always knows what the actors are going to say better often than the actors. The sort of balderdash which Mr. —- serves up to us for plays.

THE DEVIL (peevish and old-fashioned). I wish you would define drama.

HANKIN (advancing). Won't you have tea, Commander? It's not bad tea.

THE STATUE. I was afraid you were going to talk idealism.

HANKIN (aside). Excuse my interrupting, but I want you to be particularly nice to the Princess Salome. You know she was jilted by the Censor. She has brought her music.

THE DEVIL. You might introduce her to Mrs. Warren. But I am afraid the Princess has taken rather too much upon herself this evening.

THE STATUE. Yes, she has taken too much; I am sure she has taken too much.

A JOURNALIST. Is that the Princess Salome who has Mexican opals in her teeth, and red eyebrows and green hair, and curious rock-crystal breasts?

THE DEVIL. Yes, that is the Princess Salome.

SHANNON. I know the Princess quite well. Ricketts makes her frocks. Shall I ask her to dance?

THE DEVIL. Yes, anything to distract her attention from the guests. These artistic English people are so easily shocked. They don't understand Strauss, nor indeed anything until it is quite out of date. I want to make Hell at least as attractive as it is painted; a place as well as a condition within the meaning of the Act. Full of wit, beauty, pleasure, freedom—

THE STATUE. Ugh—ugh.

SHANNON. Will you dance for us, Princess?

SALOME. Anything for you, dear Mr. Shannon, only my ankles are a little sore to-night. How is dear Ricketts? I want new dresses so badly.

SHANNON. I suppose by this time he is in Heaven. But won't you dance just to make things go? And then the Commander will lecture on super- maniacs later on!

SALOME. Senor Diavolo, what will you give me if I dance to-night?

THE DEVIL. Anything you like, Salome. I swear by the dramatic critics.

HANKIN (correcting). You mean the Styx.

THE DEVIL. Same thing. Dance without any further nonsense, Salome. Forget that you are in England. This is an unlicensed house.

[SALOME dances the dance of the Seven Censors.

THE DEVIL (applauding). She is charming. She is quite charming. Salome, what shall I do for you? You who are like a purple patch in some one else's prose. You who are like a black patch on some one else's face. You are like an Imperialist in a Radical Cabinet. You are like a Tariff Reformer in a Liberal-Unionist Administration. You are like the Rokeby Velasquez in St. Paul's Cathedral. What can I do for you who are fairer than—

SALOME. This sort of thing has been tried on me before. Let us come to business. I want Mr. Redford's head on a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. No, not that. You must not ask that. I will give you Walkley's head. He has one of the best heads. He is not ignorant. He really knows what he is talking about.

SALOME. I want Mr. Redford's head on a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. Salome, listen to me. Be reasonable. Do not interrupt me. I will give you William Archer's head. He is charming—a cultivated, liberal-minded critic. He is too liberal. He admires Stephen Phillips. I will give you his dear head if you release me from my oath.

SALOME. I want Mr. Redford's head on the top of a four-wheel cab. Remember your oath!

THE DEVIL. I remember I swore at—I mean by—the dramatic critics. Well, I am offering them to you. Exquisite and darling Salome, I will give you the head of Max Beerbohm. It is unusually large, but it is full of good things. What a charming ornament for your mantelpiece! You will be in the movement. How every one will envy you! People will call upon you who never used to call. Others will send you invitations. You will at last get into English society.

SALOME. I want Mr. Redford's head on the top of a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. Salome, come hither. Have you ever looked at the Daily Mirror? Only in the Daily Mirror should one look. For it tells the truth sometimes. Well, I will give you the head of Hamilton Fyfe. He is my best friend. No critic is so fond of the drama as Hamilton Fyfe. (Huskily.) Salome, I will give you W. L. Courtney's head. I will give you all their heads.

SALOME. I have the scalps of most critics. I want Mr. Redford's head on a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. Salome! You do not know what you ask. Mr. Redford is a kind of religion. He represents the Lord Chamberlain. You know the dear Lord Chamberlain. You would not harm one of his servants, especially when they are not insured. It would be cruel. It would be irreligious. It would be in bad taste. It would not be respectable. Listen to me; I will give you all Herod's Stores . . . Salome. Shannon was right. You HAVE taken too much, or you would not ask this thing. See, I will give you Mr. Redford's body, but not his head. Not that, not that, my child.

SALOME. I want Mr. Redford's head on a four-wheel cab.

THE DEVIL. Salome, I must tell you a secret. It is terrible for me to have to tell the truth. The Commander said that I would have to tell the truth. MR. REDFORD HAS NO HEAD!

[The audience long before this have begun to put on their cloaks, and the dramatic critics have gone away to describe the cold reception with which the play has been greeted. All the people on the stage cover their heads except the STATUE, who has become during the action of the piece more and more like Mr. Bernard Shaw. Curtain descends slowly.

(1907.)

To ARTHUR CLIFTON, ESQ.



SOME DOCTORED DILEMMA.

A NEW EPILOGUE FOR THE LAST PERFORMANCE OF MR. SHAW'S PLAY.

Though Mr. Bernard Shaw has set the fashion in prologues for modern plays, his admirers were not altogether satisfied with the epilogue to The Doctor's Dilemma. It is far too short; and leaves us in the dark as to whom 'Jennifer Dubedat' married. Epilogues, as students of English drama remember, were often composed by other authors. The following experiment ought to have come from the hand of Mr. St. John Hankin, that master of Dramatic Sequels, but his work on the 'Cassilis Engagement' deprived Mr. Shaw of the only possible collaborator.

[SCENE: A Bury Street Picture Gallery—MESSRS. GERSAINT & CO. The clock strikes ten, and SIR COLENSO RIDGEON is seen going out rather crestfallen by centre door. MR. GERSAINT, the manager, is nailing up a notice ('All works of art, for art's sake or sale; prices on application. Catalogue 1s.). MR. JACK STEPNEY, the secretary, is receiving the private view cards from the visitors who are trooping in; some sneak catalogues as they enter, and on being asked for payment protest and produce visiting cards and press vouchers instead of shillings. Artists, Royal Academicians, MR. EDMUND GOSSE, and other members of the House of Lords discovered; men of letters, art critics, connoisseurs, journalists, collectors, dealers, private viewers, impostors, dramatic critics, poets, pickpockets, politicians crowd the stage. From time to time JACK STEPNEY places a red star on the picture frames in the course of the action.]

J. STEPNEY. I thought all the pictures had been bought by Dr. Schutzmacher.

GERSAINT. So they were, my boy, but he has wired saying they are all to be put up for sale at double the price; capital business, you see we shall get two commissions.

J. STEPNEY. Yes, sir. It is fortunate Mrs. Dubedat did not have the prices marked in the Catalogue.

GERSAINT. You mean Mrs. Schutzmacher. (Drives in last nail).

J. STEPNEY. Yes, sir.

Enter a striking-looking-man, not unlike a Holbein drawing, at a distance: but on nearer inspection, as he comes within range of the footlights, he is more like an Isaac Oliver or Nicholas Lucidel. He examines the notice and sniffs.

S.L.M.N.U.H.D. Which are the works of Art?

EDMUND GOSSE. Can you tell me who that is? He is one of the few people I don't know by sight. A celebrity of course; and do point out any obscurities. Every one is so distinguished. It is rather confusing.

GERSAINT. That is the Holland Park Wonder, so-called because he lives at the top of a tower in Holland Park—the greatest Art Connoisseur in England. Mr. Charles Ricketts, the greatest—

EDMUND GOSSE. Thank you; thank you.

MR. FREDERICK WEDMORE (interrupting). Can you tell me whether the frames are included in the prices of the pictures?

J. STEPNEY. No, sir. They are stock frames, the property of the Gallery, and are only lent for the occasion.

MR. FREDERICK WEDMORE. Then I fear I cannot buy; a naked picture without a frame is useless to me.

CHARLES RICKETTS. Do you think I could buy a frame without a picture?

JOSEPH PENNELL. I say Ricketts, it seems a beastly shame we didn't get this show for the International. It would have been good 'ad.' What's the use of Backers? I see they're selling well.

CHARLES RICKETTS. But, my dear Pennell, you're doing the Life, aren't you?—the real Dubedat?

JOSEPH PENNELL. Oh, yes, but the family have injuncted Heinemann from publishing the letters: Mr. Justice Kekewich will probably change his opinion when the weather gets warmer. It is only an interim injunction.

CHARLES RICKETTS. A sort of Clapham Injunction.

SIR WILLIAM RICHMOND, K.C.B., R.A. If I had known what a stupendous genius Dubedat was, I should have given him part of the 'New Bailey' to decorate.

D. S. MACCOLL. Let us be thankful he's as dead as Bill Bailey.

SIR CHARLES HOLROYD (smoothing things over). I think we ought to have an example for the Tate. (MACCOLL winces.) The Chantrey Bequest—(MACCOLL winces again)—might do something; and I must write to Lord Balcarres. The National Arts Collections Fund may have something over from the subscriptions to the Rokeby Velasquez; but I want to see what Colvin is going to choose for the British Museum.

SIDNEY COLVIN. I think we might have this drawing; it stands on its legs. A most interesting fellow Dubedat. He reminds me of Con—

GEORGE MOORE. Not Stevenson, though he had no talent whatever. My dear Mr. Colvin, have you ever read 'Vailima Letters'? I have read parts of them.

SIDNEY COLVIN (coldly). Ah, really! Did you suffer very much?

SIR HUGH P. LANE. Do you think, Mr. Gersaint, the artist's widow would give me one of the pictures for the Dublin Gallery? We have no money at all. I have no money, but all the artists are giving pictures: Sargent, Shannon, Lavery, Frank Dicksee; and Rodin is giving a plaster cast.

GERSAINT. How charming and insinuating you are, Sir Hugh. We can make special reductions for the Dublin Gallery, but you can hardly expect charitable bequests from picture dealers.

SIR HUGH P. LANE. Oh! but Dowdeswell, Agnew, Sulley, Wertheimer, P. and D. Colnaghi, and Humphry Ward are all giving me pictures. Now, look here, I'll buy these five drawings, and you can give me these two. I'll give you a Gainsborough drawing in exchange for them. It has a very good history. First it belonged to Ricketts, then to Rothenstein, then Wilson Steer, and then to the Carfax Gallery, and . . . then it came into my possession, and all that in three months. (Bargain concluded.)

MR. PFFUNGST (aside). But is there any evidence that it belonged to Gainsborough?

SIR HUGH P. LANE (turning to a titled lady). Oh, do come to tea next Saturday. I want to show you my new Titian which I have just bought for 2100l.

TITLED LADY. Sir Hugh, can you tell me who Mrs. Dubedat is now?

SIR HUGH P. LANE. Oh, yes. She married Dr. Schutzmacher, the specialist on bigamy only this morning.

TITLED LADY. How interesting. I should like to meet her. Dresses divinely, I'm told.

SIR HUGH P. LANE. She's coming to tea next Saturday; such good tea, too!

TITLED LADY. That will be delightful.

ST. JOHN HANKIN (loftily). Can you tell me whether this charmian artist is pronounced Dubedat or Dubedat?

W. P. KER (in deep Scotch). Non Dubitat. (He does not speak again.)

P. G. KONODY. Oh, Mr. Phillips, do tell me exactly what you think of this artist!

CLAUDE PHILLIPS. I think he wanted a good smacking.

P. G. KONODY. Ah, yes, his art has a smack about it. (Aside.) Good heading for the Daily Mail, 'Art with a smack.' (Writes in catalogue.)

WILL ROTHENSTEIN. When I see pictures of this kind, my dear Gersaint, they seem to me to explain your existence. An artist without a conscience . . . (Sees ROGER FRY.) My dear Fry, what are you doing here? Buying for New York? (Laughs meaningly.)

ROGER FRY. Oh, no; but I hear Gersaint has a very fine picture by the Maitresse of the Moulin Rouge. Weale says it is School of Gheel (pronounced Kail).

WILL ROTHENSTEIN. Kail Yard I should think; do look at these things.

ROGER FRY (vaguely). Who are they by? Oh, yes, Dubedat, of course.

[FRY and ROTHENSTEIN regard picture with disdain; it withers under their glance. Stage illusion by MASKELYNE and THEODORE COOK. STEPNEY places a red star on it.

GERSAINT. Well, Mr. Bowyer Nichols, I hope we shall have a good long notice in the Westminster Gazette. Now if there is any drawing . . .

BOWYER NICHOLS (very stiffly). No, there isn't. I don't think the Exhibition sufficiently important; everything seems to me cribbed: most of the pictures look like reproductions of John, Orpen or Neville Lytton.

GERSAINT. Ah, no doubt, influenced by Neville Lytton. That portrait of Mr. Cutler Walpole has a Neville Lytton feeling. Neville Lytton in his earlier manner.

Enter SIR PATRICK CULLEN, SIR RALPH BLOOMFIELD BONNINGTON and SIR COLENSO RIDGEON.

SIR C. RIDGEON. Ah, Sir Patrick, I have just heard that the pictures are for sale; now I am going to plunge a little. I think they will rise in value; and by the way I want to ask your opinion as a scientific man. If I treat four artists with virus obscaenum for three weeks, what will be the condition of the remaining artists in the fourth week?

SIR P. CULLEN. Colenso, Colenso, you ought to have been a senior wrangler and then abolished.

SIR C. RIDGEON. What a cynic you are. All the same I've had great successes, though Dubedat was one of our failures. A rather anaemic member of the New English Art Club come to me for treatment, and in less than a year he was an Associate of the Royal Academy; what do you say to that?

SIR P. CULLEN. Out of Phagocyte, out of mind.

SIR R. B. B. My dear Sir Patrick, how prejudiced you are. Take MacColl's case: a typical instance of morbus ferox ars nova anglicana: under dear Colenso he became an official at the Tate.

SIR C. RIDGEON. Then there's Sir Charles Holroyd, you remember his high tempera?

SIR P. CULLEN. There has been a relapse I hear from the catalogue.

SIR R. B. B. How grossly unfair; that is a false bulletin issued by the former nurse: 'the evil that men do lives after them.'

SIR P. CULLEN. My dear B. B., this is not Dubedat's funeral. Do you think Bernard Shaw will like the new epilogue?

BERNARD SHAW. He will; I'm shaw.

L. C. C. INSPECTOR. Excuse me, is Mr. Vedrenne here? Ah, yes! There is Mr. Vedrenne. Will you kindly answer some of my questions? Is that door on the left a real door? In case of fire I cannot allow property doors; the actors might be seized with stage fright, and they must have, as Sir B. B. would say, 'their exits and their entrances.'

VEDRENNE. Everything at the Court Theatre, my dear sir, is real. Ask Mr. Franks, he will tell you the door is not even a jar. The art, the acting, the plays, even the audience is real, except a few dramatic critics I cannot exclude. I admit the audience looks improbable at matinees; out of Court is a truth in art of which we are only dimly beginning to understand the significance. [Noise outside.

Enter JENNIFER, dressed in deep mourning.

JENNIFER (with a bright smile). Mr. Vedrenne, I have just had a telegram saying that my husband, Leo, was killed in his motor after leaving me at the Synagogue. His last words were: 'Jennifer, promise me that you will wear mourning if I die, merely to mark the difference between Dubedat and myself.' This afternoon I am going to marry Blenkinsop. How are the sales going?

VEDRENNE. Well, I think we might have the catechism or the churching of heroines. What is your name?

JENNIFER. Jennifer.

VEDRENNE. Where did you get that name?

JENNIFER. From Bernard Shaw in my baptism.

MR. REDFORD (Licenser of Plays). Mr. Shaw, I really must point out that this passage comes from the Anglican Prayer-book. Are you aware of that? I have a suggestion of my own for ending the play.

BERNARD SHAW. Oh, shut up! Let us have my ten commandments.

GRANVILLE BARKER. My dear Shaw, you sent them to Wells for revision and he lost them in the Tube. I can remember the first one, 'Maude spake these words and said: "Thou shalt have none other Shaws but me."'

BERNARD SHAW. How careless of Wells. I remember the second: 'Do not indulge in craven imitation.'

W. L. COURTNEY. The third commandment runs: 'Thou shalt not covet George Alexander.'

GRANVILLE BARKER. One of them runs: 'Do not commit yourself to Beerbohm Tree, though his is His Majesty's . . . ' But we shall never get them right. We must offer a reward for their recovery. I vote that Walkley now says the credo. That, I think, expresses every one's sentiment.

A. B. WALKLEY (reluctantly). I believe in Bernard Shaw, in Granville Barker, and (heartily) in The Times.

WILLIAM ARCHER. Plaudite, missa est.

(1907.)

CURTAIN.



THE JADED INTELLECTUALS. A DIALOGUE.

Scene: The Smoking-room of the Elivas Club.

Characters: LAUDATOR TEMPOREYS, aetat. 54, a distinguished literary critic, and LUKE CULLUS, a rich connoisseur of art and life. They are not smoking nor drinking spirits. One is sipping barley water, the other Vichy.

LUKE CULLUS. You are a dreadful pessimist!

LAUDATOR TEMPOREYS. Alas! there is no such thing in these days. We are merely disappointed optimists. When Walter Pater died I did not realise that English literature expired. Yet the event excited hardly any interest in the Press. Our leading weekly, the Spectator, merely mentioned that Brasenose College, Oxford, had lost an excellent Dean.

L. C. I can hardly understand you. Painting, I admit, is entirely a lost art, so far as England is concerned. The death of Burne-Jones brought our tradition to an end. I see no future for any of the arts except needlework, of which, I am told, there is a hopeful revival. But in your fields of literature, what a number of great names! How I envy you!

L. T. Who is there?

L. C. Well, to take the novelists first: you have the great Thomas Hardy, H. G. Wells, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Maurice Hewlett . . . I can't remember the names of any others just at present. Then take the poets: Austin Dobson, my own special favourite; and among the younger men, A. E. Housman, Laurence Housman, Yeats, Arthur Symons, Laurence Binyon, William Watson—

L. T. (interrupting). Who always keeps one foot in Wordsworth's grave. But all the men you mention, my dear Cullus, belong to the last century. They have done their best work. Hardy has become mummy, and Henry James is sold in Balham. Except Hardy, they have become unintelligible. The theory that 'to be intelligible is to be found out' seems to have frightened them. The books they issue are a series of 'not-at-home' cards—sort of P.P.C.'s on posterity. And the younger poets, too, belong to the last century, or they stand in the same relation to their immediate predecessors, to borrow one of your metaphors, as l'art nouveau does to Chippendale. Oh, for the days of Byron, Keats, and Shelley!

L. C. All of whom died before they were matured. You seem to resent development. In literature I am a mere dilettante. A fastidious reader, but not an expert. I know what I don't like; but I never know what I shall like. At least twice a year I come across a book which gives me much pleasure. As it comes from the lending library it is never quite new. That is an added charm. If it happens to have made a sensation, the sensation is all over by the time it reaches me. The book has matured. A quite new book is always a little crude. It suggests an evening paper. There at least you will agree. But to come across a work which Henry James published, say, last year, is, I assure you, like finding a Hubert Van Eyck in the Brompton Road.

L. T. I wish I could share your enthusiasm, or that I could change places with you. Every year the personality of a new artist is revealed to you. I know you only pretend not to admire the modern school of painting. You find it a convenient pose. Your flora and your fauna are always receiving additions; while my garden is withered; my zoo is out of repair. The bars are broken; the tanks have run dry. There is hardly a trace of life except in the snake-house, and, as I mentioned, the last giraffe is dead.

L. C. Our friend, Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, is fortunately able to give us a different account of the institution in Regent's Park. You are quite wrong about modern painting. None of the younger men can paint at all. A few of them can draw, I admit. It is all they can do. The death of Charles Furse blasted all my hopes of English art. Whistler is dead; Sargent is an American.

L. T. Well, so is Henry James, if it comes to that. And so was Whistler. But I have seen the works of several young artists who I understand are carrying out the great traditions of painting. Ricketts, Shannon, Wilson Steer, Rothenstein, Orpen, Nicholson, Augustus John are surely worthy successors to Turner, Alfred Stevens, and the Pre-Raphaelites.

L. C. They are merely connoisseurs gifted with expressing their appreciation of the past in paint. They appeal to you as a literary man. You like to detect in every stroke of their brushes an echo of the past. Their pictures have been heard, not seen. All the younger artists are committing burglary on the old masters.

L. T. It is you who are a disappointed optimist.

L. C. Not about literature or the drama. I seem to hear, with Ibsen's 'Master Builder,' the younger generation knocking at the door.

L. T. It comes in without knocking in my experience; and generally has fig-leaves in its hair—a decided advance on the coiffure of Hedda Gabler's lover.

L. C. But look at Bernard Shaw.

L. T. Why should I look at Bernard Shaw? I read his plays and am more than ever convinced that he has gone on the wrong lines. His was the opportunity. He made il gran refuto. Some one said that George Saintsbury never got over the first night of Hernani. Shaw never recovered the premiere of Ghosts. He roofed our Thespian temple with Irish slate. His disciples found English drama solid brick and leave it plaster of Paris. Yet Shaw might have been another Congreve.

L. C. Troja fuit. We do not want another. I am sure you never went to the Court at all.

L. T. Oh, yes, I attended the last levee. But the drama is too large a subject, or, in England, too small a subject to discuss. We live, as Professor Mahaffy has reminded us, in an Alexandrian age. We are wounded with archaeology and exquisite scholarship, and must drag our slow length along . . . We were talking about literature. Where are the essayists, the Lambs, and the Hazlitts? I know you are going to say Andrew Lang; I say it every day; it is like an Amen in the Prayer-book; it occurs quite as frequently in periodical literature. He was my favourite essayist, during the last fifteen years of the last century. What is he now? An historian, a folk-lorist, an archaeologist, a controversialist. I believe he is an expert on portraits of Mary Stuart. You were going on to say G. K. Chesterton—

L. C. No. I was going to say Max Beerbohm. Some of his essays I put beside Lamb's, and above Hazlitt's. He has style; but then I am prejudiced because he is the only modern artist I really admire. He is a superb draughtsman and our only caricaturist. Then there is George Moore. I don't care for his novels, but his essays are delightful. George Moore really counts. Few people know so little about art; yet how delightfully he writes about it. Everything comes to him as a surprise. He gives you the same sort of enjoyment as you would derive from hearing a nun preach on the sins of smart society.

L. T. Moore is one of many literary Acteons who have mistaken Diana for Aphrodite.

L. C. You mean he is great dear; but he gets hold of the right end of the stick.

L. T. And he generally soils it. But you know nothing about literature. The age requires blood and Kipling gave it Condy's Fluid (drinks barley water). The age requires life, and Moore gave us a gallantee show from Montmartre (drinks barley water). Even I require life. To-morrow I am off to Aix.

L. C.—les Bains?

L. T. No, la-Chapelle!

L. C. Oh, then we shall probably meet. Thanks. I can get on my own overcoat. I shall probably be there myself in a few weeks.



ABBEY THOUGHTS.

Shall some memorial of Herbert Spencer be erected in the Abbey, or rather in what journalists love to call the 'National Valhalla,' the 'English Pantheon,' or the 'venerable edifice,' where, as Macaulay says, the dust of the illustrious accusers, et cetera——? The question was once agitated in a daily paper. It seems that the Dean, when approached on the subject, acted like one of his predecessors in the case of Byron. The Dean is in a very difficult position, because any decision of his must be severely criticised from one quarter or another. The Abbey retains, I understand, some of its pre-Reformation privileges, and is not under the jurisdiction of Bishop or Archbishop. Yet no one who has ever visited the Chapel of St. Edward the Confessor on October 13th, the festival of his translation, can accuse the Abbey authorities of bigotry or narrow- mindedness. Only a few years ago I fought my way, with other Popish pilgrims, to the shrine of our patron Saint (as he was, until superseded by Saint George in the thirteenth century), and there I indulged in overt acts of superstition violating Article XXII. of 'the Church of England by law established.' A verger, with some colonial tourists, arrived during our devotions, but his voice was lowered out of regard for our feelings. Indeed, both he and the tourists adopted towards us an attitude of respectful curiosity (not altogether unpleasant), which was in striking contrast to the methods of the continental Suisse routing out worshippers from a side chapel of a Catholic church in order to show Baedeker-ridden sightseers an altar-piece by Rotto Rotinelli.

Thoughts of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley irresistibly mingled with my devotions. What had the poor fellows burnt for, after all? Here we were ostentatiously ignoring English history and the adjacent Houses of Parliament; outraging the rubrics by ritual observations for which poor curates in the East End are often suspended, and before now have been imprisoned. I could not help thinking that the Archbishop of Westminster would hardly care to return these hospitalities, by permitting, on August 24th, a memorial service for Admiral Coligny in Westminster Cathedral. . . . I rose from my knees a new Luther, with something like a Protestant feeling, and scrutinised severely the tombs in Poets' Corner. Even there I found myself confronted with an almost irritating liberalism. Here was Alexander Pope, who rejected all the overtures of Swift and Atterbury to embrace the Protestant faith. And there was Dryden, not, perhaps, a great ornament to my persuasion, but still a Catholic at the last. Dean Panther had not grudged poet Hind his niche in the National Valhalla (I knew I should be reduced to that periphrasis). And here was the mighty Charles Darwin, about whose reception into the English Pantheon (I have fallen again) I remember there was some trouble. Well, if precedent embalms a principle, I venture to raise a thin small voice, and plead for Herbert Spencer. 'The English people,' said a friendly French critic, 'do not admire their great men because they were great, but because they reflect credit on themselves.' So on the score of national vanity I claim space for Herbert Spencer. Very few Englishmen have exercised such extraordinary influence on continental opinion, which Beaconsfield said was the verdict of posterity. On the news of his death, the Italian Chamber passed a vote of condolence with the English people. I suppose that does not seem a great honour to Englishmen, but to me, an enemy of United Italy, it seemed a great honour, not only to the dead but to the English people. Can you imagine the Swiss Federal Council sending us a vote of condolence on the death of Mr. Hall Caine or Mr. Robert Hichens?

Again, though it is ungrateful of me to mention the fact after my experiences of October 13th, the Abbey was not built nor endowed by people who anticipated the Anglican form of worship being celebrated within its walls, though I admit it has been restored by the adherents of that communion. The image of Milton, to take only one instance, would have been quite as objectionable to Henry III. or Abbot Islip as those of Darwin or Spencer. The emoluments bequeathed by Henry VII. and others for requiem masses are now devoted to the education of Deans' daughters and Canons' sons. Where incensed altars used to stand, hideous monuments of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries wound the Gothic air with their monstrous ornaments and inapposite epitaphs. St. Paul's may fairly be held sacred to Anglicanism, and I do not think any one would claim sepulture within its precincts for one who was avowedly hostile to Christian or Anglican sentiment. But I think the Abbey has now passed into the category of museums, and might well be declared a national monument under control of the State. The choir, and possibly the nave, should, of course, be severely preserved for whatever the State religion might be at the time. Catholics need not mourn the secularisation of the transepts and chapels, because Leo XIII. renounced officially all claims on the ancient shrines of the Catholic faith, and High Churchmen might console themselves by recalling the fact that Abbots were originally laymen.