he Black
Arrow_ (a wonderfully good, though not very generally popular,
York-and-Lancaster story) (1888), _The Master of Ballantrae_ (1889), the
exquisite _Catriona_ (1893). It also pleased him to write, in
collaboration with others, _The Dynamiter_, _The Wrecker_, _The Ebb
Tide_, etc., where the tracing of the several shares is not unamusing.
Stevenson also attempted poetry, and his _Child's Garden of Verse_
(1885) has very warm admirers, who are often more doubtful about
_Underwoods_ (1887) and _Ballads_ (1891). The list of his work is not
exhausted, and one of the latest additions to it was _A Footnote to
History_ (1892), containing an account of the intestine troubles of the
island of Samoa, where Mr. Stevenson, long a victim to lung disease,
latterly fixed his abode, and where he died suddenly in the winter of
1894.

As has been the case with most of the distinguished writers of recent
years, Mr. Stevenson has been praised by some of his contemporaries and
juniors with an uncritical fervour which has naturally provoked
depreciation from others; and the charm of his personality was so great
that it is extremely difficult for any one who knew him to hold the
scales quite even. As the most brilliant and interesting by far,
however, of those English writers whose life was comprised in the last
half of the century he absolutely demands critical treatment here, and
it so happens that his method and results were extremely typical of the
literary movement and character of our time. He has left somewhat minute
accounts of his own apprenticeship, but they are almost unnecessary: no
critic of the slightest competence could fail to divine the facts.
Adopting to the full, and something more than the full, the modern
doctrine of the all-importance of art, of manner, of style in
literature, Mr. Stevenson early made the most elaborate studies in
imitative composition. There is no doubt that he at last succeeded in
acquiring a style which was quite his own: but it was complained, and
with justice, that even to the last he never attained complete ease in
this style; that its mannerism was not only excessive, but bore, as even
excessive mannerism by no means always does, the marks of distinct and
obvious effort. This was perhaps most noticeable in his essays, which
were further marred by the fact that much of them was occupied by
criticism, for which, though his taste was original and delicate,
Stevenson's knowledge was not quite so