so little inclined to try it. It is a great
thing, no doubt, as has been said, from a certain point of view--that of
_pastime_--that the reading of a novel should be easy and pleasant. But
perhaps this is not all that you are entitled to ask of it. And as Mr.
Payn began with _Poems_, and some other suggestive books, I am inclined
to think that perhaps he did _not_ always regard literature as a thing
of the kind of a superior railway sandwich.

It is quite certain that, in his beginning, Mr. William Black
entertained no such idea; for his actual _debuts_ were something like
what long afterwards were called problem-novels, and _In Silk Attire_
(1869), _Kilmeny_ (1870), and the charming _Daughter of Heth_ (1871)
attempted a great deal besides mere amusement. It is true that no one of
them--not even the last--could be called an entire success: a "little
more powder" was wanted to send the shots home, and such flight as they
achieved did not even seem to be aimed at any distinct and worthy
object. But fortunately for his pocket, unfortunately for his fame, he
hit the public taste of the time with a sort of guidebook-novel in _The
Strange Adventures of a Phaeton_ (1872) and _A Princess of Thule_
(1873), and was naturally tempted to continue it, or to branch off only
into not very strong stories of society. Once he made an effort at
combining tragic romance with this latter kind in _Macleod of Dare_
(1878), but, though this was nearer to a success than some of his
critics admitted, it was not quite a success: and though he wrote fully
a score of novels after it, he never came nearer the actual bull's eye.
In fact his later work was not up to a very good average.

Neither of these writers, except, as has been said, perhaps Black in his
earliest stage, had taken novel-writing very seriously: it was otherwise
with the third of the trio. Mr., afterwards Sir Walter, Besant did not
begin early, owing to the fact that, for nearly a decade after leaving
Cambridge, he was a schoolmaster in Mauritius. But he had, in this time,
acquired a greater knowledge of literature than either of the other two
possessed: and when he came home, and took to fiction, he accompanied it
with, or rather based it upon, not merely wide historical studies, which
are still bearing fruit in a series of posthumous dealings with the
history of London, but rather minute observation of the lower social
life of the metropolis. For some ten years his novel productio