of seeing right into the heart of a subject, and discerning what it means and what it is worth. Nor is this ever a lucky jump at a conclusion. Bright never gives an opinion at random or offhand.-MCCARTHY, JUSTIN, 1869, The Liberal Triumvirate of England, The Galaxy, vol. 7, p. 39.

Respected, admired, trusted, believed in as he is by thousands, I shall be astonished if a close and careful study of these beautiful speeches in the light that I have indicated does not convince other thousands that, whether for power of pathos, foresight of feeling, simplicity or sincerity, earnestness, truth, or eloquence, these volumes are hard to match in the English language.-PAGE, S. FLOOD, 1872, The Right Honorable John Bright, M. P., Macmillan's Magazine, vol. 25, p. 352.

It is impossible to study his speeches, or to listen to any one of them, without perceiving that the speaker is a well-read man, able to illustrate any and every topic from the stores of his memory. In English poetry, especially, his quotations are frequently recondite and curious, and very much to the point. The book from which he quotes most constantly is the Bible; but he rarely makes use of a verse of Scripture unless it has a close and manifest application to the subject in hand.-APJOHN, LEWIS, 1881, John Bright and the Party of Peace, Retrenchment and Reform, p. 297.

Mr. Bright's teaching has its weak side, which it were mere flattery for any admirer to keep out of sight. But it were the grossest injustice toward a great teacher to deny that he has, by his acts no less than by his words, produced a most beneficial effect on the tone of English politics. . . . If Mr. Bright has raised the tone of politics by separating democratic agitation from the vices generally displayed by demagogues, this is not the only service, great though it be, which he has rendered to his country. His life-long labors have increased, if they have not created, a new sense of responsibility not only as regards peace and war, but as regards every matter connected with the treatment of foreign nations or the government of countries which are, in any sense whatever, dependencies.-DICEY, A. V., 1882, The Influence of John Bright, The Nation, vol. 35, pp. 305, 306.

He is as unacademical a personage as a really eminent and cultivated man can be, for his cultivation is entirely of the modern

and domestic English type. He never was at a university, and at school learned little of Latin and of Greek-mere scraps, which have long since perished. He has not given evidence of having studied the literature of any Continental country, while for physical science he seems to have no interest or knowledge beyond what every intelligent man who lives in an age of inventions must have. What he does care for and has diligently and lovingly studied is modern English literature, and especially Milton and the poets who have followed him down to our own time. They are no mean instrument of training, and their influence is often felt in the correct and finished diction of his speeches. . . . His opposition to the Crimean war in 1854 made him very unpopular. His opposition to Lord Palmerston's Chinese war in 1857 cost him his seat for Manchester. He was denounced as a man thoroughly unpatriotic, devoid of a sense of the honour and dignity of England; a manufacturer, who, to sell his goods, would have the country submit to any humiliation. He was also represented as the enemy of property and education; the man who sought to hand over all political power to the ignorant masses. In fact, he had become the typical demagogue, against whose designs the Saturday Review, then rather a Liberal than Conservative organ, and by no means the organ of Toryism which it has now become, used every week to warn its readers.-BRYCE, JAMES, 1883, Mr. Bright at Glasgow University, The Nation, vol. 36, p. 336.

Great Tribune of the people, storms may rise, They will not shake the pillars of thy throne,

Seeing thy rule was selflessness sincere. And praise did never blind those patient eyes

That looked beyond State discord to the year When golden Love shall bind all hearts in one. RAWNSLEY, H. D., 1889, John Bright, Murray's Magazine, vol. 5, p. 660.

The advantages Mr. Bright possessed for engaging in public life were at once discernible, and especially in the cause that had been launched just as he was ready to enter upon a public career. He had not occupied himself much with the economical mischiefs connected with this question, but he saw in it one of injustice, of disturbance of trade, and of periodical suffering on the part of those who earned their bread by labour, and, as he thought, one redounding to the exclusive advantage of the class he viewed with no favour. It was, therefore,

but much aged by illness since he was seen in America, with a leonine head, the plentiful hair and flowing beard nearly white, contrasting with a short and smallish though once powerful body, and tiny white hands. The stoop of his shoulders suggests long application to his work, but his manner and speech have the vigor and crispness of an unexhausted spirit of youth.-BOWKER, RICHARD ROGERS, 1888, London as a Literary Centre, Harper's Magazine, vol. 77, p. 3.

GENERAL

At the Olympic we have had, during the week, the opening of Mr. Wilkie Collins's "Red Vial." Intent upon the course of his narrative, the author has in this instance forgotten that in a drama characters are not less essential than a plot. There is not a character in the "Red Vial. One person is, indeed, benevolent; another rigid in the sense of probity; another, represented by Mrs. Stirling, weak in the same, and wicked: and another, represented by Mr. Robson, a maniac, with wits of dimensions varying according to the convenience of the story; but they are all shadows for a tale that should be read in ten minutes, not characters to be offered bodily to our senses, for a two hours' study. Still with the same exclusive care about the story, it happens also that the author of the "Red Vial" has taken no pains to secure pithiness of expression; there is no effort to say good things pointedly, and sometimes even a tendency to say even commonplace things tediously, as if they were worth elaborating into speeches.-MORLEY, HENRY, 1858, Journal of a London Playgoer, Oct. 16,p. 223.

I must say I think the "Woman in White" a marvel of workmanship. I found it bears a second reading very well, and indeed it was having it thrown in my way for a second time which attracted so strongly my technical admiration.-OLIPHANT, MARGARET O. W., 1862, To Mr. Blackwood, Autobiography and Letters, ed. Coghill, p.

186.

Wilkie Collins collects all the remarkable police cases and other judicial narratives he can find, and makes what Jean Paul Richter called "quarry" of them-a vast accumulation of materials in which to go digging for subjects and illustrations at leisure. Charles Reade does the same with bluebooks and the reports of official inquiries. The author of the "Dead Secret" is look

ing for perplexing little mysteries of human crime; the author of "Hard Cash" for stories of legal or social wrong to be redressed. I need hardly say, perhaps, that I rank Charles Reade high above Wilkie Collins. The latter can string his dry bones on wires with remarkable ingenuity; the former can, as he fairly boasts, make the dry bones live.-MCCARTHY, JUSTIN, 1872, Modern Leaders, p. 195.

Next to Dickens, however, he ranked, qualis inter viburna cupressus, his very dear friend, Mr. Wilkie Collins, "an artist of the pen, there are terribly few among writers," was his terse eulogium, the plain fact being that this past master in the art of dramatic construction excels all competitors just where most English authors fail. His plots resemble nothing so much as the intricate arabesques of an Oriental designer. Their complexity dazzles, yet they are always simple, never obscure. Moreover-and here they commanded Charles Reade's most of them, lend themselves intuitively to the earnest enthusiasm-they, or rather some stage. They dramatize easily and naturally; indeed "The New Magdalen" may be fairly termed one of the most effective of modern dramas. Mr. Wilkie Collins, therefore, if we may put it so, hit Charles Reade's ideal, and secured in consequence, that sort of genuine admiration which an author offers his brother in art when he esteems him greater than himself.-READE, CHARLES L., AND REV. COMPTON, 1887, Memoir of Charles Reade, p. 392.

He was certainly a giant among novelists, and far above the pinchbeck sensationalists and the rocket-stick romancers of the present day. In his particular line there is no one who can come anywhere near him. -ASHBY-STERRY, J., 1889, English Notes, The Book Buyer, vol. 6. p. 361.

Exit the novelist; enter the characters; that is Collins's idea. One never sees him, never thinks of him, from first page to last. What he wishes you to know he makes his characters, his incidents tell for him; the purpose of the book always advancing, gradually reveals itself, and grows slowly into shape we hardly know how, as incident follows incident. And in all the books this purpose is sustained, consistent, and worthy. Occasionally in the preface to the story he tells us himself what this intention has been, tells it plainly, simply, manfully, and leaves the reader to say whether or no

'

it has been achieved. . . . That Wilkie Collins was a great (one of the greatest) novelists we know; we, who have studied his works, have marked their range and power, their sincerity of purpose, their perfection of expression; but we know more than this, we know that in an age of selfadvertisement, jealousy, and pretence, he was a type-not without faults, but still a type of a genuine, kind-hearted, helpfulto-others man. He had blood, as well as brains, generosity, as well as intelligence, artistic pride and purpose in his work, as well as popular success.-QUILTER, HARRY, 1889, In Memoriam Amici, Universal Review, vol. 5, pp. 207, 224.

All the works of Wilkie Collins which we remember with pleasure are works of art as true as his godfather's pictures, and in their own line as complete. His excellent sense, his perfect self-command, his modest devotion to his art, are qualities not more praiseworthy than they are obvious. And if it were but for their rarity they should command no less attention than respect. His most illustrious friend and contemporary did not always show himself at once so loyal and so rational in observance of intellectual or æsthetic propriety. Collins never ventured to fling down among his readers so shapeless or misshapen a piece of work, though doubtless he could not furnish them with a piece of work so excellent in parts and sections, as "Little Dorrit.". It is apparently the general opinion-an opinion which seems to me incontestable that no third book of their author's can be ranked as equal with "The Woman in White" and "The Moonstone:" two works of not more indisputable than incomparable ability. "No Name" is an only less excellent example of as curious and original a talent. . . . "The New Magdalen" is merely feeble, false, and silly in its sentimental cleverness; but in "The Fallen Leaves" there is something too ludicrously loathsome for comment or endurance. The extreme clumsiness and infelicity of Wilkie Collins as a dramatic teacher or preacher may be tested by comparison with the exquisite skill and tact displayed by M. Alexandre Dumas in his studies of the same or of similar subjects. To the revoltingly ridiculous book just mentioned I am loth to refer again: all readers who feel any gratitude or goodwill towards its author must desire to efface its miserable memory from

the record of his works.-SWINBURNE, ALGERNON CHARLES, 1889, Wilkie Collins, Fortnightly Review, vol. 52, pp. 591, 593, 596.

Mr Collins's method is that of Mr. Browning in "The Ring and the Book." His characters view the same set of circumstances, but with very different eyes. The method has its obvious advantages and disadvantages; perhaps it is most artfully worked in "The Woman in White." Again, after reading and re-reading, one keeps one's old opinion-that for a writer so conscientious and careful, Mr. Wilkie Collins was but rarely successful in the full measure of his success. A few of his short stories, his "Woman in White," his "No Name," and, above all, doubtless, "The Moonstone"reach a level of ingenuity and of interest which the many others fall very far short of. The humorous passages, for example, in "Armadale" and "Hide and Seek" are very laboured and melancholy.-LANG, ANDREW, 1890, Mr. Wilkie Collins's Novels, Contemporary Review, vol. 57, p. 21.

Was an author of special power. There is moral tonic in his books, stimulating thought, fine and persuasive appeals to the imagination, as well as marvellous plot and weird incidents. His strikingly dramatic stories clothed in language as simple and direct as it is strong and beautiful. The uniform fascinating grace and ease of his diction ceases to surprise us when we read with what minute and painstaking care it is produced.-BAINTON, GEORGE, 1890, ed. The Art of Authorship, p. 89.

The work of all novelists, except those perhaps in the very first rank, has a tendency to age; and the author of "The Woman in White," "No Name," "Armadale," does certainly not now hold in the world's esteem the place that he held twenty-five or thirty years ago. Ingenious plot-puzzles were his forte; and though a good mystery still has its charm for the modern reader, yet to produce its full effect the mystery must be surrounded by something of exotic circumstance the scene must be laid in the South Seas, India, America. Then Collins's characters have no permanent vitality, and his general reflections on men and things can hardly be called valuable.MARZIALS, FRANK T., 1892, Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins, The Academy, vol. 42, p. 304.

The special power of Mr. Wilkie Collins,

as afterwards developed, was for the construction of plots, and the use of all the most elaborate machinery of the story. His was the art which keeps the reader breathless, not through a scene or act of adventure, but during the long and elaborate following out of intrigue and incident, those tangles of the web of fate, or intricate combinations of circumstance, conducting certainly to an often unsuspected end,-which never lose their effect so long as they are skilfully and powerfully done, as was the case in the earlier works of this novelist. He did not possess the still more interesting and far higher gift of creation. There is no character, no living being in his works, with the exception, perhaps, of Count Fosco, of whom the reader will probably at this distance remember even the name; but, notwithstanding this, his power of holding his audience spellbound, and of rousing the same kind of curiosity and eager interest with which we watch day by day the gradual unfolding of the links of evidence in a great trial, was unsurpassed, we might say unequalled, in his day. The sensation produced by the "Woman in White," the first and consequently most striking of the series of stories in which he has displayed this power, and which came out in a serial form in "Household Words," thus doubling the excitement of those who had to wait from week to week for a fresh instalment of the story--was prodigious. It was the sub

ject of conversation and speculation everywhere, and the reader followed every turn, and commented upon every incident, as if some personal interest of his own hung upon the identification of the gentle, witless creature who was the shadow heroine, and the unhappy lady who was the real object of all those highly wrought and intricate snares.-OLIPHANT, MARGARET O. W.,. 1892, The Victorian Age of English Literature, p. 482.

Great as was the vogue of Collins's works for a time, the seal of permanency is scarcely to be looked for in them. They are conspicuously wanting in the higher literary and artistic qualities. His characters are mechanically drawn: they do not live, or convey to the reader an impression of reality. His style, too, lacks distinction. His supreme quality is seen in his clever handling of sensational narrative, and especially in his ingenious construction of a plot, so woven around a mystery as to hold the reader's attention and curiosity enchained to the last.-GRAHAM, RICHARD D., 1897, The Masters of Victorian Literature, p. 92.

Collins's descriptions have the effect of a nightmare; his power of the consistent development, even of the most improbable plot and characters, forces us under his spell. The character of Count Fosco is, besides, a real work of art.-ENGEL, EDWARD, 1902, A History of English Literature, rev. Hamley Bent, p. 462.

PERSONAL

By this time I hope the E. Talbots will have met Dean Church. They are certainly to be envied for the opportunity of seeing so much more of so interesting a man than can be managed in London. . . . There is something of singular charm about him, and I fancy one sees it also in his writing. At least the essay on Dante has some exquisite passages "halfway between beauty

and goodness," if I may so parody one of his quotations.-PALGRAVE, FRANCIS TURNER, 1878, Letter to Lady Frederick Cavendish, Journals and Memoirs, ed. Palgrave, p. 129.

How significant is it that Dean Church should write the history of events in which he was a prominent actor, and never once mention his own name! He does not avoid the first person singular, for it appears in