rlatanry, can hardly be denied. Readers are
tempted to postpone serious and persistent interest in subjects, to a
semi-personal curiosity about the casual and unconnected deliverances
of the literary or social star of the hour. That this conception has
been worked out with signal ability in more cases than one; that it
has made periodical literature full of actuality; that it has tickled
and delighted the palate--is all most true. The obvious danger is lest
we should be tempted to think more of the man who speaks than of the
precise value of what he says.

One indirect effect that is not unworthy of notice in the new system
is its tendency to narrow the openings for the writer by profession.
If an article is to be signed, the editor will naturally seek the name
of an expert of special weight and competence on the matter in hand. A
reviewer on the staff of a famous journal once received for his week's
task, _General Hamley on the Art of War_, a three-volume novel, a work
on dainty dishes, and a translation of Pindar. This was perhaps taxing
versatility and omniscience over-much, and it may be taken for granted
that the writer made no serious contribution to tactics, cookery,
or scholarship. But being a man of a certain intelligence, passably
honest, and reasonably painstaking, probably he produced reviews
sufficiently useful and just to answer their purpose. On the new
system we should have an article on General Hamley's work by Sir
Garnet Wolseley, and one on the cookery-book from M. Trompette. It is
not certain that this is all pure gain. There is a something to be
said for the writer by profession, who, without being an expert, will
take trouble to work up his subject, to learn what is said and thought
about it, to penetrate to the real points, to get the same mastery
over it as an advocate or a judge does over a patent case or a suit
about rubrics and vestments. He is at least as likely as the expert to
tell the reader all that he wants to know, and at least as likely to
be free from bias and injurious prepossession.

Nor does experience, so far as it has yet gone, quite bear out Mr.
Lewes's train of argument that the "first condition of all writing is
sincerity, and that one means of securing sincerity is to insist on
personal responsibility," and that this personal responsibility
can only be secured by signing articles. The old talk of "literary
bravoes," "men in masks," "anonymous assassins," and so forth, is out