ions, richly furnished and complete, are worthy of
remark. Stevenson is one of the very few authors in our literary history
who have been honoured during their lifetime by the appearance of such an
edition; the best of his public, it would seem, do not only wish to read
his works, but to possess them, and all of them, at the cost of many
pounds, in library form. It would be easy to mention more voluminous and
more popular authors than Stevenson whose publishers could not find five
subscribers for an adventure like this. He has made a brave beginning in
that race against Time which all must lose.

It is not in the least necessary, after all, to fortify ourselves with
the presumed consent of our poor descendants, who may have a world of
other business to attend to, in order to establish Stevenson in the
position of a great writer. Let us leave that foolish trick to the
politicians, who never claim that they are right--merely that they will
win at the next elections. Literary criticism has standards other than
the suffrage; it is possible enough to say something of the literary
quality of a work that appeared yesterday. Stevenson himself was
singularly free from the vanity of fame; 'the best artist,' he says
truly, 'is not the man who fixes his eye on posterity, but the one who
loves the practice of his art.' He loved, if ever man did, the practice
of his art; and those who find meat and drink in the delight of watching
and appreciating the skilful practice of the literary art, will abandon
themselves to the enjoyment of his masterstrokes without teasing their
unborn and possibly illiterate posterity to answer solemn questions. Will
a book live? Will a cricket match live? Perhaps not, and yet both be
fine achievements.

It is not easy to estimate the loss to letters by his early death. In
the dedication of _Prince Otto_ he says, 'Well, we will not give in that
we are finally beaten. . . . I still mean to get my health again; I still
purpose, by hook or crook, this book or the next, to launch a
masterpiece.' It would be a churlish or a very dainty critic who should
deny that he has launched masterpieces, but whether he ever launched his
masterpiece is an open question. Of the story that he was writing just
before his death he is reported to have said that 'the goodness of it
frightened him.' A goodness that frightened him will surely not be
visible, like Banquo's ghost, to only one pair of eyes. His greatest