Suggested by one friend and selected and compiled by another, this volume is less a book than a mosaic of scraps and shreds recovered from the shot rubbish of some fourteen years of journalism. Thus, the notes on Longfellow, Balzac, Sidney, Tourneur, ‘Arabian Nights Entertainments,’ Borrow, George Eliot, and Mr. Frederick Locker are extracted from originals in ‘London’—a print still remembered with affection by those concerned in it; those on Labiche, Champfleury, Richardson, Fielding, Byron, Gay, Congreve, Boswell, ‘Essays and Essayists,’ Jefferies, Hood, Matthew Arnold, Lever, Thackeray, Dickens, M. ThÉodore de Banville, Mr. Austin Dobson, and Mr. George Meredith from articles contributed to ‘The AthenÆum’; those on Dumas, Count TolstoÏ’s novels, and the verse of Dr. Hake from ‘The Saturday Review’; those on Walton, Landor, and Heine from ‘The Scots Observer,’ ‘The Academy,’ and ‘Vanity Fair’ respectively; while the ‘Disraeli’ has been pieced together from ‘London,’ ‘Vanity Fair,’ and ‘The AthenÆum’; the ‘Berlioz’ from ‘The Scots Observer’ and W. E. H. Edinr. 8th May 1890 |