reviewer in "Maga." He is too prone to the besetting sins of
reviewing--the right hand defections and left hand fallings off, which,
being interpreted, consist first in expressing agreement or
disagreement with the author's views, and secondly in digressing into
personal statements of one's own views of things connected with them
instead of expounding more or less clearly what the book is, and
addressing oneself to the great question, Is it a good or a bad piece of
work according to the standard which the author himself strove to reach?
I have said that I do not think he was on the whole a good critic (for a
man may be a good critic and a bad reviewer, though the reverse will
hardly stand), and I have given my reasons. That he was neither a great,
nor even a very good poet or tale-teller, I have no doubt whatever. But
this leaves untouched the attraction of his miscellaneous work, and its
suitableness for the purpose of recreation. For that purpose I think it
to be among the very best work in all literature. Its unfailing life and
vigour, its vast variety, the healthy and inspiriting character of the
subjects with which in the main it deals, are the characteristics which
make its volumes easy-chair books of the best order. Its beauty no doubt
is irregular, faulty, engaging rather than exquisite, attractive rather
than artistically or scientifically perfect. I do not know that there is
even any reason to join in the general lament over Wilson as being a
gigantic failure, a monument of wasted energies and half-developed
faculty. I do not at all think that there was anything in him much
better than he actually did, or that he ever could have polished and
sand-papered the faults out of his work. It would pretty certainly have
lost freshness and vigour; it would quite certainly have been less in
bulk, and bulk is a very important point in literature that is to serve
as recreation. It is to me not much less certain that it never would
have attained the first rank in symmetry and order. I am quite content
with it as it is, and I only wish that still more of it were easily
accessible.

FOOTNOTES:

[15] If I accepted (a rash acceptance) the challenge to name the three
very best things in Wilson I should, I think, choose the famous Fairy's
Funeral in the _Recreations_, the Shepherd's account of his recovery
from illness in the _Noctes_, and, in a lighter vein, the picture of
girls bathing in "Streams."

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