And the new theory of morals which Mr Walpole attributes to his annus mirabilis, if it were new, had little to do with the art of novel-writing. It was but a reaction in favour of outspokenness against the stern convention of the nineteenth century. What prisons and circumlocution offices were to Dickens and his contemporaries, sexual problems were to the intrepid novelists of the 'seventies and 'nineties who had been on a trip to Paris. They had read the works of Zola, that hot gospeller, that bitter foe of artistic expression, who thought that the duty of the novelist was not to select but to tumble all the contents of a well-filled notebook out upon paper. And the change which they pretended to inaugurate was a social, not an artistic change. It matters less what is the theme of the novel than the skill with which the theme is handled; and if it is a mere contest of tedious disclosure, one set of facts is not worth more than another. The New Women, whose works Mr Walpole mentions as "a bold challenge to British morality "—they were no challenge to literary art,-did not differ in style or boredom from their predecessors. They merely chose something else to write about, and their books and their influence are buried as deeply in the pit of forgotten things as the history of the 'Rougon - Macquarts' themselves. And as to the word realism, we understand it and care as little about it as does Mr Walpole himself.

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yea" or nay, or of the words which are commonly chalked upon shutters, he must, if he is to achieve an artistic success, be master of narrative, character, and expression. These are the three tests. And when Mr Walpole sorrowfully admits that neither George Meredith nor Thomas Hardy has had any part in the evolution of the modern novel, we cannot agree with him. Influence comes from those who survive, and these two have a better chance of survival than the brave intrepid ones who shrank not from dangerous themes. Truly there is nothing sadder to contemplate than the havoc wrought by time among old novels. A century ago was published in Paris a directory of English fiction. This directory contained the titles of some 20,000 novels, the greater part of which are to-day entirely forgotten. Again, Mr Walpole quotes a writer in 'The Nineteenth Century,' who makes the bold assertion that "there are at least a hundred and fifty living novelists, men and women, whose work is worthy of serious attention, and, out

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of these, certain writers do most definitely emerge to give us courage.' Fortunate, indeed, are they who do emerge, and though Mr Walpole does exclude Meredith and Hardy from the ranks of modern novelists, we could bet that in the future they will seem far fresher, far less deeply marked by an accusing date than than Madame Grand, "Iota," and all the New Women and New Men, who once hoped that they were inventing a new form.

It is largely a matter of definition. It is not enough to say that the modern novel is a novel of idea and that the old is not. It is not enough to deny the consciousness of art to the great masters, who created as easily easily as they breathed, and to grant it to the writers of to-day.

There is no quality in any modern novel which may not be found in Tristram Shandy' or 'Clarissa' or Tom Jones,' or Vanity Fair' or 'Great Expectations.' And when Mr Walpole tells us that the earlier novelists had no sense at all of the solemnity of their task, we cannot but think he is making himself a victim of his own words. "Fielding and Scott, he says, were, in a jolly kind of way, half ashamed of their art; it was, in fact, no art to them at all. Scott wrote 'Guy Mannering' in six weeks, and concealed his name as the author of those wonderful novels because there was something a little childish and simple about storytelling." Now we would say in answer to this, firstly, that the time

which it takes to produce a masterpiece is wholly irrelevant. 'Guy Mannering' took six weeks to write; it might have taken six years; and all that need be said about it is that it was finished when Scott took his hand from the paper. Scott's motive for concealing the name of the author of Waverley' is not very clear, but no reader of Lockhart's 'Life' can be satisfied with the explanation that he thought story-telling simple or childish. He gave his life and his health to the task, and none knew better than he how much of a strong man's toil it cost him. Nor can we believe for a moment that Scott and Fielding, ashamed in a jolly sort of way of their art, had no faith in its existence. The old fable of Fielding going to bed fuddled with claret and getting up the next morning to add another chapter to 'Tom Jones' carries its own refutation upon it. In that story of English life, which Gibbon thought worth more than all the glories of the Hapsburgs, there is not a touch that is not calculated, nor a phrase that is not finished. When in Jonathan Wild' Fielding showed the world what irony could achieve, he must perforce have watched every page, every line, lest there should be, perchance, a lapse in that irony. We can imagine no definition of art which would grant the sacred quality to Mr George Moore, for instance, and withhold it from Scott and Fielding. From Scott, who imagined a new world, and peopled it with men and women

"I DO believe an English newspaper is the most various and extraordinary composition that mankind ever produced. An English newspaper, while it informs the judicious of what is really doing in Europe, can keep pace with the wildest fancy in feigned adventures, and amuse the most desultory taste with essays on all subjects and in every style."

So wrote James Boswell, some time early in 1767, in the manuscript of his 'Account of Corsica'; and, as he gave the last flourish with his quill, he may well have smiled and glanced at the last number of the 'London Chronicle,' in which several "various and extraordinary compositions" owed their existence solely to his own fertile fancy.

No one, I think, without the evidence which I am about to present, would have suspected the astonishing amount of his

VOL. CCXVIII.-NO. MCCCXVIII.

journalistic writing, nor its equally astonishing range and versatility. And this is one of the little ironies of fate, for Boswell intended that long ere this we should have known all about it.

I have before me as I write one of the most amazing sets of books it has ever been my lot to examine: Boswell's own file of the London Chronicle (a newspaper which appeared three times a week) for the years 1767 to 1775 inclusive, with his contributions marked in his own hand. This remarkable set has recently, through the munificence of Mr R. B. Adam, become the property of the Yale University Library, where I have had the opportunity to study it thoroughly and at leisure. It is more than a marked file. For not only has Boswell meticulously indicated each of his own contributions with a distinctive mark

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(a star made thus, *), but he has also added occasional manuscript notes, intimate and personal. More than this, Boswell has drawn up in the front of the first three volumes (that is, from January 1767 to June 1768 inclusive) a complete manuscript index of all the paragraphs and essays contributed by James Boswell, Esq." In the three volumes there are roughly one hundred of these paragraphs and essays," ranging in length from a line or two to a whole newspaper page and more. He has not been content with merely marking and listing them. In this index every item is carefully set down as "fact " "invention." The "facts are news items with some actual basis of truth; the "inventions," which have every external appearance of being as genuine, were made up by James Boswell, Esq. There are, I rejoice to add, very few paragraphs indexed "fact." The greater part of the entries are "feigned adventures calculated to "keep pace with the wildest fancy."

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As every one knows, Boswell made a tour to Corsica, then engaged in a war of independence with the republic of Genoa, in the late autumn of 1765. He was the first English tourist ever to make the journey. He remained on the island five weeks, and he came away with

two great desires burning in his breast. The first was to be of some real service to Pascal Paoli and the brave Corsican patriots. The second was to write a book concerning his travels in Corsica-and to sell it.

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On 9th January 1766 1 (more than a month before he landed in England), the readers of the London Chronicle' were treated to a long paragraph which purported to be an extract of a letter from Rome,' dated 5th December 1765. It had really been dispatched by Boswell himself from Genoa a day or two after he set foot on the mainland: You have been amused with reports of Britain's sending an embassy to the island of Corsica. I can, however, inform you for certain that a British subject has actually been there. About the middle of October, Mr Boswell, a Scots gentleman upon his travels over Europe, sailed from the port of Leghorn for the island of Corsica." The letter gives a brief résumé of the tour, but casts a shroud of mystery over the real object of Mr Boswell's visit, which, it is more than hinted, was of a political nature : Genoese have been not a little alarmed by it. People in this part of the world are curious to know what will really be the consequences of Mr Boswell's tour to Corsica."

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