LETTERS TO THE PRESS - 4

William Archer (1)

The Era (19 June, 1886 - Issue 2491)

MR. ARCHER’S CRITICISMS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Mr William Archer, in his book “About the Theatre,” after asking the question “Is the drama advancing?” answers it in the affirmative, in-so-much as he discovers in sundry products of the stage a proof that a certain saturnine current of cynicism (which, however, frequently fails to please the public) has been here and there displacing old poetical and ideal landmarks. He, in fact, sees hope where most writers for the stage, and fortunately most accredited critics, find only despair, in the dearth of the literature of imagination, and in the growth of the meaner art of observation and characterisation. It is on this score only that I desire to join issue with a gentleman whose views are otherwise unimportant in themselves and essentially impertinent; who scatters imputations recklessly and, I am bound to add, ignorantly; whose chief feats in literature have been a spiteful attack on Mr Irving, to whom the drama owes so much, and a copy of clever and insulting verses thrown with cruelly bad taste upon the coffin of the late Mr Charles Reade; who is, in fact, a writer to whom the world owes nothing, but who is well fitted, nevertheless, to write criticisms for the World.
     So far as I can gather Mr Archer’s drift, he regards the influence of our great ideal dramatist as rather disturbing, rejoices in the disintegrating influence of cynics like Mr Gilbert, and desiderates a drama which shall be disagreeable rather than edifying, fantastic rather than ennobling. He seems, in other words, a critic quite without imagination and radically without insight; smart, subacid, and rectangular, nevertheless, and with the courage of his somewhat ignoble opinions. Observe his definition of melodrama. “Melodrama,” he asserts, “is illogical and sometimes irrational tragedy; it subordinates character to situation, consistency to impressiveness; it aims at startling, not at convincing,” &c. Now, this is not a definition at all; it is an ex parte dogmatic assertion, and defines nothing. It would be far truer to say that melodrama is the rhythmic and melodious drama of situation, illustrating character and relieving it against the background of events, startling but convincing at the same moment, and now and then by tragic means. The Agamemnon is a melodrama; Æschylus was a melodramatist. Macbeth is a melodrama; and here, as elsewhere, Shakespeare was a melodramatist. If we contrast the method of either of these giants with that of the egregious M. Sardou, we shall discover the difference between the art of the comic melodramatist, or tragic poet, and the art of the microscopic manufacturer of dramas of observation.
     I will quote in this connection Mr Archer’s description of a drama of my own, Stormbeaten, as “a prodigious piece of paste and size melodrama, amusing in its blusterous, bombastic transpontism.” “What probably attracted the public,” says Mr Archer, “was a grotesque scene at the North Pole, or thereabouts, in which Mr Charles Warner, Mr Barnes, and an Aurora Borealis played some fantastic tricks before high heaven.” With the literary criticism I have nothing to do; no one can be more sensible than myself of the literary defects of the piece in question; but the public is well aware, and the critics were generous enough to recognise, that it was precisely this scene, to Mr Archer so grotesque, which removed the play from the category of transpontine pieces, and which, I may add, ultimately affected its popularity, at least, in England. Neither in Æschylus nor in Shakespeare (I say it in all humility) can there be found a more tragic situation than the piteous reconciliation of two life-long enemies left alone in all the world than the disintegration of the vilest of the social passions, hate, under the elemental influence of nature. Popular audiences could not understand, and Mr Archer cannot understand, a great motive and a poetical conception; popular audiences saw only, as Mr Archer saw, two well-known actors declaiming on the snow, in the presence of canvas-icebergs, and an Aurora Borealis created by the magic lantern. Popular audiences are deaf as even Mr Archer to the divine issues of a sublime reconciliation, and see no difference between a situation like that and the vulgar hurly-burly of minor sensationalism.
     It is here, at last, that we touch the horns of the modern dramatist’s dilemma. He has often to face a public as devoid of imagination as rectangular critics like Mr Archer. He has to recognise the fact that Mr Gilbert, in destroying theatrical sentiment, has destroyed the true as well as the false, and made all sentiment of the nobler kind seem preposterous. He has to combat clever cynicism and educated ignorance. Mr Archer fails to find the “poetry” in Olivia; Mrs Kendal, in his eyes, is our only “great” actress; romantic plays, plays of passion and imagination, like those of Victor Hugo, are fustian; Faust, at the Lyceum, is “worse than unskilful, it is unintelligent;” Sophia, at the Vaudeville, “bores” him; but he grows enthusiastic, nevertheless, over Lords and Commons, and eloquent in praise of The Great Pink Pearl. I hardly know what to say to such a critic, if critic he is to be called. I only know that if the drama is advancing in the direction he supposes, if the outcome of modern art is to be the death of all that is spiritual and ideal, if what Mr Archer likes is to be taken as an indication of the plays of the future, the drama is hastening to the same pitfall which has swallowed up the modern novel. Fortunately for the drama and for art generally, Mr Archer, though he represents the callous cynicism and superficial culture of a small class of the public, is almost alone among critics in his ignoble hopes and aims. Mr Irving and Mr Wilson Barrett, men of imagination, encouraged by sympathetic criticisms and popular approval, are working steadily in the opposite direction—in the direction of a bold poetical ideal; and it is with them upon the heights, not with the critic of a society journal upon the ground, that the drama is advancing to a successful and triumphant regeneration,
              I am, &c.,                     ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Vaudeville Theatre, June 16th, 1886.
     N.B.—Bad taste and bad English do not constitute good criticism. Here is an average sample of Mr Archer’s slipshod habits of expression:—“A Lyceum first night has grown into a solemn function, which peers, millionaires, and honourable women intrigue to see.” Mr Archer, in one of his absurdest passages, introduces the name of the late Mr Darwin; but what would Mr Darwin have said to a young gentleman who talked of “seeing” a “function.” Elsewhere Mr Archer talks about “writing a style,” an expression about as meaningless as “singing a music.” A critic so microscopic in his observation should really study the language in which his views are published.—R. B.

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[Note:
William Archer’s critical assessment of Robert Buchanan in the chapter ‘Are We Advancing? (1882- 1886)’ from About The Theatre: Essays and Studies (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1886) is available on this site.]

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The Era (26 June, 1886 - Issue 2492)

DRAMATIC CRITICISM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—That critics judge by rule and not by feeling has often been the abused author’s plea. May not much of our modern dramatic criticism be said to reverse this? To criticise the dexterity of art is rare, the critic’s own taste being usually the sole arbiter of merit. Is the author the better for the change? A recent dramatic criticism in a leading London journal contained the following remarkable statement:—“I am told sometimes that I ought to like what is true to nature. I don’t. It is the very thing I am most anxious to avoid.” With these simple words is the critic’s art explained. The writer does not like a play, it does not suit his tastes, it wounds his feelings, therefore he condemns it. But Pope tells us,—

A perfect judge will read each work of wit
With the same spirit that its author writ.

And, Dr. Johnson defines the word critical as “to be exact and nicely judicious.” How, then, can this candid confession be consistent with that justness of mind which is necessary for one who is to judge and advise others? Mr Partridge, we know, did not like what was true to nature, but intelligent minds have long since come to the conclusion that Mr Partridge’s judgment was wrong. Besides, is there not a maxim “Opinionum commenta delet dies; naturæ judicia confirmat”? A confession so unguarded forces one to reflect on Addison’s words, “there is nothing in the world so tiresome as the works of that critic who writes in a positive, dogmatic way without either language, genius, or imagination.” He then adds, “I must beg such a writer’s pardon if I have no manner of deference for his judgment, and refuse to conform myself to his taste.”
     Another dramatic criticism, in a leading morning paper, informed the public that “a woman who silences a brute by blinding him is the ordinary heroine of Bow-street police-court.” Without doubting the truth of this statement, may it not be questioned whether the ordinary heroine of Bow-street police-court might not, under the exigencies of fate, reveal the highest attributes of humanity, duty, and self-sacrifice, as well as the titled lady or the apostle of culture. Surely, if criticism is to be founded upon a taste that would banish Shakespeare’s tragedies from the stage, condemning the play of Hamlet for the use of poison, and that of Lear for “his detestable passion,” let authors have back the good old times when dramatic criticism was based upon principles of art which  could be ascertained by reason, and was not the simple product of personal feeling.
     I am, Sir, yours, &c.,                         W. P.

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The Era (3 July, 1886 - Issue 2493)

MR. ARCHER’S CRITICISMS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—Mr Robert Buchanan, in a recent issue of your widely read journal, administered a very well-deserved castigation to the young gentleman whose views upon the drama are “unimportant in themselves and essentially impertinent.” Mr Archer seems to have brought Mr Buchanan out by describing his drama Storm-beaten as a prodigious piece of paste-and-size melodrama, amusing in its blusterous, bombastic transpontism. He thinks that all melodrama subordinates character to situation, consistency to impressiveness; it aims at startling, not convincing. hence it is worthless. Now, Sir, I need not remind you of the saying that the most crusty critics are those who have tried their hands at authorship, and have ignominiously failed. Has Mr William Archer ever attempted to write for the stage? Let us see.
     At the Grecian Theatre in April, 1881, under the management of Mr T. G. Clark—who, having for some years directed the refreshment saloons at the Adelphi, considered himself competent to direct a theatre—there was brought out a five-act drama called Australia; or, the Bushrangers. Your own columns, Sir, bear testimony to the fact that in its five acts and half a score tableaux almost every kind of sensational incident popular in modern melodrama was introduced. In the third act the incidents, according to your critic’s account, became absolutely bewildering. Among the sensational devices may be mentioned the attempt to blow up a railway with dynamite. There is a tremendous explosion, but the train has stopped in time. Australia ran for about three weeks—eighteen nights—and I believe has not since been heard of. The drama was the work of A. G. Stanley and W. A. I am open to correction, of course, but I entertain the thought that W. A. here stands for William Archer.
     I could not for a moment suggest that Mr William Archer was the “Miss Archer” who, at the Gaiety in December, 1882, produced a piece called My Life, with a story of the kind most dear to kitchen-maids as you described it. Even, however, before the wonderful Australia brought out “W. A.” at the Grecian, William Archer had contrived to get produced at a Gaiety matinée a gloomy adaptation of Ibsen called Quicksands; or, the Pillars of Society. The good materials in Ibsen’s play, the adaptor, according to your own notice, did not turn to the best account, and the four acts dragged along in a way that did not furnish a very lively entertainment for a Gaiety audience. I am not aware that Quicksands has ever since been heard of. In conclusion I would like to ask whether Mr William Archer is or is not the author of a printed play called Auto-da-fè which has been sent for acceptance to almost every manager in London, and, like the other pieces referred to, still lies “on the shelf.”
                         I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
                                                                   INQUISITOR.

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The Era (10 July, 1886 - Issue 2494)

MR. ARCHER’S DRAMAS.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—From the fact of your inserting “Inquisitor’s” letter in your last issue, I presume that your readers are curious as to my “Dramatic Works”—why, I cannot conceive. It is an innocent curiosity, however; and as “Inquisitor” has made some omissions and mistakes in his catalogue, you will, perhaps, allow me to supplement and correct it.
     Firstly, I am not “Miss Archer,” and I never heard either of that lady or of her play.
     Secondly, it is quite true that I translated rather than adapted a play by Henrik Ibsen, which was produced at a Gaiety matinée. It was a sufficiently melancholy performance, and, like most pieces produced at Gaiety matinées,

Elle a vécu, ce que vivent les roses,
     L’espace d’un—matin!

“Inquisitor” is quite right; it has never been heard of.
     Thirdly, he is right in the main as to Australia; or, the Bushrangers, produced at the Grecian Theatre; but my impression is that he exaggerates the length of its run, which, if I am not mistaken, was not three weeks, but one. A three weeks’ run would have meant a fair success at the Grecian, whereas I have always understood that the play was a desperate failure. It certainly deserved to be. I wrote it (in collaboration with a friend) under the delusion that nothing was too bad for a Grecian audience; but long before it was produced I recognised that we were wrong, and that our play was too bad for any audience under the sun. It was the worst melodrama I ever saw—or rather the worst I never saw, for when the authors were called for (if they were called for), by the infuriated audience, I, for my part, was “not in the theatre.” I saw two acts of it rehearsed, and that was quite enough for me. In saying this, I make no reflection upon the actors, who were, I believe, thoroughly competent had we given them a chance. It was the play that was at fault; and having had a hand in the concoction of what was probably the feeblest play ever seen in the City-road, I think I may claim to be something of an authority on bad melodramas. So far, again, “Inquisitor” is right.
     Fourthly, it is quite true that I have written a one-act play called Auto da fé—“Inquisitor” should surely be well posted on this subject—but it is not printed, nor “has it been sent for acceptance to almost every manager in London.” So far as I can remember (indeed I am almost certain on the point) I have sent it to only one manager, Mr Wilson Barrett, and to one actor, Mr Hermann Vezin—in both cases, about six years ago. If “Inquisitor” is still further inquisitive, it may interest him to know that I have written two other one-act plays within the last ten years, one of which I once sent to a manager, while the other has never left my desk.
     Is Torquemada satisfied? Or will he give the rack another twist and extort a full confession of boyish enormities committed in my teens? There is one burden on my conscience (who is there that has never known remorse?) which public confession may perhaps lighten—I once wrote a burlesque! It was an infantile effort, I have little doubt, and I can only plead infancy as an excuse; alleging further in mitigation of sentence that it is better to write burlesques in your first than in your second childhood. I have also a vague recollection of commencing a five-act tragedy in blank verse on a Greek subject, opening after the approved formula with a chorus of revellers R., and a chorus of priests L., chanting amœbean strains. The five acts never got any further; providence (in the guise of laziness) intervened; and the portion of my dramatic works to which I look back with most unmixed satisfaction is precisely the unwritten four acts and seven-eighths of that Hellenic tragedy. “Il est si facile de ne pas écrire une tragédie en cinque actes!” said some Frenchman; thereby showing a deplorable ignorance of human nature. On the contrary, it is no small distinction not to have written a five-act Hellenic tragedy in blank verse; and that distinction I proudly claim as mine. May the unwritten tragedy atone for the written burlesque!
     I have now, Mr Editor, confessed the worst, and can but throw myself upon “Inquisitor’s” mercy. If he insists on having my dramatic works burnt by the common hangman I am sorry to inform him that most of them are beyond his reach. I myself made an auto-da-fé of them years ago, and strewed their dishonoured ashes to the winds. As for the survivors they are such “very little ones” as to be, I trust, beneath the vengeance of a Torquemada.
                                I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
     London, July 5th, 1886.                           WILLIAM ARCHER.

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MR. ARCHER AS AN AUTHOR.
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     The letter from Mr WILLIAM ARCHER, which we print in another column, shows that he is as ready to answer personal inquiries as to criticise the drama of the day. Instead of fencing with the questions asked by our correspondent “Inquisitor,” Mr ARCHER “confesses the corn” (as an American would say) in the most open and complete manner. As answered Falstaff to Shallow, so says Mr ARCHER to Inquisitor:—“I will answer it straight;—I have done all this:—That is now answered.” It is true he makes a single exception in his confession. He, metaphorically speaking, has beaten the men, killed the deer, and broken open the lodge. But he will not own to having kissed the keeper’s daughter. In other words, though Mr ARCHER does not deny the soft impeachment of having adapted IBSEN, and does not wish to repudiate Australia; or, the Bushrangers, he will not own that he ever appeared as a “female impersonator.” He distinctly denies that he is the Miss ARCHER who once produced a drama of “the kind most dear to kitchen-maids” at the Gaiety Theatre. Mr ARCHER wishes it to be known that he has no connection with this authoress.
     Mr ARCHER has committed the unpardonable crimes of being a young man and of possessing the ability to write musical English. His judgments are often as reckless as his syntax; but both his literary style and his criticisms are pre-eminently attractive. As an agent for the ventilation of theatrical questions Mr ARCHER’S work is useful to the drama; as a solid and logical guide he has too much of the will-o’-the-wisp about him to be always reliable. His letter to us this week is a case in point. It is most pleasantly written, and tinged with a spirit of agreeable banter calculated to disarm hostility. We must not, however, allow Mr ARCHER to thus smilingly “put the question by.” His epistle suggests strange reflections.
     It is an old and stale sneer at the critic that he is an author who has failed. In a great many cases he is simply an author who has not succeeded. We believe that Mr GEORGE SIMS and Mr W. S. GILBERT both did theatrical notices before more profitable work occupied their attention. But the contrasts between Mr ARCHER the critic and Mr ARCHER the dramatist is somewhat startling. Mr ARCHER the critic is nothing if not elevated. He takes dramatic art very seriously. He is angry with Mr SIMS for not writing a second Lights o’ London, and says that Mr PETTITT “never had any artistic birth-right to sell.” These very bitter words are written in 1886. But it was, it appears, only five years ago that Mr ARCHER was a Philistine of the Philistines. In collaboration with a fellow criminal he wrote a melodrama of the “dynamite and railway accident” order, and had it produced at the Grecian Theatre. It is useless for Mr ARCHER to endeavour to commit infanticide on this offspring of his and somebody else’s brains. Australia ran for three weeks, not one, at the Grecian, as the advertisements in The Era during that length of time are extant to testify. For eighteen nights did this dreadful play run its baneful course, poisoning the artistic tastes of the inhabitants of the City-road. According to the account given of it by our critic, Australia was an abstract of all crimes that melodramatists are usually guilty of. His criticism says that it introduced “in its five acts and half-a-score tableaux, almost every kind of sensational incident popular in modern melodramas,” and “not a few of a novel kind as well.”
     The mere fact of Mr ARCHER’S failure as a dramatist is of no significance. The critical and the creative faculties are often divorced in an individual, and Mr ARCHER need be no worse a critic because he has not been successful as a dramatic author. But we should naturally have expected Mr ARCHER to have fallen by having aspired too high. On the contrary, he himself confesses that he failed through grovelling too low. He was under the delusion that “nothing was too bad for a Grecian audience.” This means that, believing (erroneously, as the result showed) that the taste of these audiences was degraded, Mr ARCHER and his friend Mr STANLEY deliberately set to work to pander and “write down” to it. What a contrast between the practice of the dramatic author and the preaching of the dramatic critic! We were prepared to hear that Mr ARCHER had tried his hand at play writing at some time or another; but we expected to discover that the rejection of some over-high and noble tragedy, or some super-delicate, too poetical creation of another kind had been the reason of his deserting production for criticism. It reminds us of the story recently published of the Strange Case of Dr. JEKYLL and Mr HYDE. On no other hypothesis than a supernatural one can we comprehend Mr ARCHER’S double dramatic existence. ARCHER-JEKYLL  writes high-flown critiques, and ARCHER-HYDE concocts melodramas, introducing not only all the sensational effects of transpontine realism, but others of a novel sort of artistic depravity as well. Mr ARCHER is not quite ingenuous in calling Australia a feeble play. If a drama which positively teems with hairbreadth escapes and startling situations, in which a Negro walks off the stage in a flour barrel firing shots rapidly through the holes in its sides, a drama where the air is thick with the smoke of revolvers, and a train is nearly blown up by dynamite, be a “feeble” piece, then commend us to the late T. W. ROBERTSON as a real “blood and thunder” melodramatist. Indeed, from the description which our representative gave of the amount of gunpowder burnt in Australia, it would seem that one of its “acts” might well have borne the title of Mr ARCHER’S other attempt—Auto-da-Fé.
     Mr ARCHER asks, “Is Torquemada satisfied?” If he is, we are not. We want to know the name of the manager to whom Mr ARCHER sent the first of the two one-act plays which he has written during the last ten years, and we should like (very much, indeed) to know the sort of play which Mr ARCHER keeps locked up in his desk. Would its production mark a new epoch; or is it a miniature Australia?

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Sophia

The Standard (13 October, 1886 - p.2)
[This letter was also printed in The Era (16 October, 1886).]

“TOM JONES AND SOPHIA.”
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE STANDARD.

     SIR,—My adaptation of “Tom Jones,” now running at the Vaudeville Theatre, has been so lavishly and generously praised by the Press in general, that I have no fear of seeming discontented or atrabilious, if I offer a few good-humoured comments in reply to one or two critics who accuse me of castrating and Bowdlerising a masterpiece. The fact is, I fail to see where my offence lies; save in shaping a popular and inoffensive play our of extremely different materials; and I contend, moreover, that I have in no respect perverted the spirit, while carefully suppressing the letter, of Fielding’s great fiction.
     According to Mr. Thackeray, no author since Henry Fielding has dared in fiction to pourtray “A Man.” I shall paraphrase this extraordinary utterance by asserting that no author since Fielding has dared to pourtray a coarse and filthy animal in a man’s clothing. If “Tom Jones” contained nothing save the brutal amours of its hero, if it were only a history of dirty liaisons and ignoble vices, if it were a picture merely of the manners of the pigsty and the customs of the stud stable, the book might lie (where many of Fielding’s contemporaries left it) in the gutter, and Henry Fielding might remain (what the good Mr. Richardson considered him) the laureate of the literary farmyard.
     But “Tom Jones” is great, not because of its uncleanness, but in spite of it; great in its pictures of rugged human nature, in its liberal humanity and tender humour, in the nobility and beauty which comes of “sweet reasonableness” and all-embracing sympathy. The character of Sophia Western, which I have transferred without a change from mud-bespattered pages, dominates my drama as it really dominates the novel—a type of female purity so fresh, so wholesome, and so original that it imparts to the entire work an atmosphere of purity which Clarissa Harlowe herself might share.
     I have not called my play “Tom Jones;” I have christened it Sophia; and I have found in Miss Kate Rorke perhaps the one living actress capable of realising to the life that beautiful ideal of maidenly virtue and power. With regard to Tom Jones, I have certainly purified that scapegrace a little to fit him for a young lady so infinitely his superior; but it is untrue to say that I have made him immaculate. I have again and again, in my first act, alluded to his escapades, although for dramatic purposes I have exculpated him from any amour with Molly Seagrim. It is not a pleasant thing to say, but I fear that some people have visited the Vaudeville in the hopes of finding Fielding’s coarseness made unpleasantly visible to the naked eye, of gloating over indecent suggestions, for which, however, I must refer them back to the book.
     For the rest, I like to see this jealousy for the reputation of a deceased author, this eagerness to have him honoured in all his nakedness. It contrasts so pleasingly with the contempt and indignation lavished upon him, and lavished upon all robust writers, by the virtue of contemporaries. Were Henry Fielding alive now he would be told, as Thackeray was told, that he was “no gentleman;” he would be informed, as Goethe was constantly informed, that he was a writer who delighted in filth for its own sake; he would be covered with the opprobrium of the superfine reviewer, and damned with the faint praise of the literary cliques. It is so courageous to grow eloquent over the virtues of dead authors, and so easy, again, to throw stones at authors who are still living. From his contemporaries Fielding received what all great writers must accept—
the scorn of mediocrity, the misconception of the uninstructed; indeed, it is not too much to say that, by adversity and the bitter blows of literary battle, his noble heart was broken. From posterity he doubtless receives his due, insomuch as the dilettantism which never honoured genius when living, which killed Goldsmith, slaughtered Keats, and tortured Shelley, while crowning with the laurel Sotheby’s asses’ ears and filling the stomach of Rogers with port wine, is so punctilious to preserve for the stage, in all his native strength, the eighteenth-century “Man” of Fielding’s creation.
                                                                             I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
                                                                                                   ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Vaudeville Theatre, October 11.

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The Stage (18 February, 1887 - p.11)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

“SOPHIA” IN NEW YORK.

     DEAR SIR,—Mr. Robert Buchanan, in a note to Col. Sinn, of Brooklyn, published in the New York Dramatic News, in discussing the subject of the careless production of his plays in the United States, says, incidentally, “Howard Paul, who saw Sophia at Wallock’s, says he would not have known the play, so badly was it staged and presented.” Will you allow me to contradict this statement? I have never seen Mr. Buchanan since my return to England, and the only occasion I ever spoke of Sophia as done at Wallock’s was to Mr. Alport, the acting manager of the Vaudeville, to whom I remarked that the part of Partridge was not so humorously acted in New York as it was in London. Of the “staging and presentation” I said not a word.—Yours, &c., HOWARD PAUL, Savage Club, February 15.

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The Era (19 February, 1887 - Issue 2526)

“SOPHIA” AT WALLACK’S.
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TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—In an extract from a private letter of mine, published in the New York Dramatic News, I am quoted as saying, incidentally, “Howard Paul, who saw Sophia at Wallack’s, says he would not have known the play, so badly was it staged and presented.” Mr Howard Paul is naturally annoyed at a remark which I may have made in a strictly private letter, but which was never intended for publication. I was certainly under the impression, however, that he had expressed some such opinion, though it now appears that the chief fault he had to find was with the performance of Partridge.
     I need hardly say that life and correspondence will soon become impossible, if every stray sentence or word in private letters is to be printed, apart from its context, and misconstrued. Colonel Sinn had asked me to let him produce my new melodrama in New York this season, and in refusing, because I could not personally superintend it, I remarked en passant that there had even been complaints concerning the New York production of Sophia, Now, of the management of Wallack’s Theatre I have not merely a high, but the highest opinion; and to Mr Lester Wallack personally I owe a debt of gratitude for many kindnesses. But I know Mr Wallack himself to be of my opinion—that no one understands so well as the author of a piece how it should be presented to the public. he himself is a consummate master of stagecraft, a perfect stage-manager; he casts his pieces perfectly, mounts them magnificently, and spares neither time nor money to make them succeed. I should be sorry with all my heart if any garbled words of mine should seem to reflect upon the cleverest, the most generous, and, in every respect, the most accomplished of American managers.                I am, &c.,            ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Vaudeville Theatre, February 17th.

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A Look Round Literature

The Pall Mall Gazette (7 March, 1887 - Issue 6855)

MR. BUCHANAN’S “LOOK ROUND.” *

“SOME of these opinions,” says Mr. Buchanan, in his Prefatory Note, “will doubtless awaken animadversion in quarters self-considered authoritative; but the literary Inquisition, like its religious prototype, will soon be a thing of the past. . . . At the same time, I have quite as great a distrust of my own discernment as of that of any of my contemporaries.” In this it is clear that Mr. Buchanan either says what he does not mean or means what he fails to say. He tells us that the opinions of his contemporaries are probably every bit as good as his own, and yet he resents by anticipation the cavillings of a certain “literary Inquisition.” What is this “literary Inquisition” which Mr. Buchanan threatens with swift extinction? Can it be periodical criticism? If so, what remotest analogy has it with the Holy Office? and on what ground can Mr. Buchanan declare it moribund? As for his “distrust of his own discernment,” that is all nonsense. He is “self-considered authoritative” (as he elegantly puts it), and why should he not be? No sane critic supposes himself infallible; but, on the other hand, no critic has any right to express an opinion at all unless he heartily believes in it. Mr. Buchanan is quite as ready as any one else to “back his opinion;” indeed, he sometimes backs it with unnecessary emphasis. In the present volume he “animadverts” pretty sharply upon the opinions of a good many very respectable people; why, then, does he cry out when his own opinions “awaken animadversion”? and why menace the animadverters with sudden death?
     The essays in this volume are for the most part reprints from magazine and newspapers. The first is a parallel between Æschylus and Victor Hugo, followed by an unsympathetic study of the character of Goethe, a paper on Lucretius and Professor Tyndall, notes on Rossetti, Thomas Love Peacock, Sydney Dobell, Charles Reade, Zola, and Whitman, “A Talk with George Eliot,” three essays on the modern stage, and a good deal of padding in the shape of ephemeral magazine articles and reviews which might well have been omitted. Mr. Buchanan loves to pose as a “literary Jacobin,” and seems to consider himself in a state of chronic revolt, we know not against what. He has a vivid admiration for all that is grandiose and symbolic in literature, a hearty contempt for mere observation and analysis, and a scornful hatred of science in so far as it conflicts with a certain optimistic theism of his own, which he would probably describe as Christianity. His physico-metaphysical polemics are out of date and unprofitable. They are mere skirmishes with over-hasty pioneers of science, or rather with incautious irregulars who straggle from the main body into the marshes of metaphysics. Mr. Buchanan considers that he has scored a triumph when he has landed his opponent up to his knees in the morass; blissfully unconscious that he himself is in up to the armpits. His literary judgments, though often perverse enough, are of more value, and so are his literary reminiscences. The paper on Peacock is delightful, the essay on Sydney Dobell is full of interest, the personal sketches of Charles Reade and Walt Whitman are worth preserving. One cannot but smile to think that a book in which the “pretentious and pedagogic Talent” of George Eliot is over and over again consigned to oblivion, may perhaps itself escape oblivion in virtue of two or three authentic glimpses of the Priory drawing-room which it affords us. The papers on the drama contain a good deal of sound criticism, as well as some swashing blows at that grotesque and deplorable survival, the Censorship of the stage.
     Mr. Buchanan’s printer has played him such strange tricks both in his English and in his Greek, that we hesitate which to blame when we find Frau von Stein figuring as “Fräulein Stein” and Lord Tennyson’s patriotism described as “actual Anglophobia.” It can scarcely be the printer, however, who conceived the quaint idea of speaking of “the whole Bostonian cosmogony, from Lowell upwards.” Fancy the glee of “the Savile Club cosmogony” on catching their Jacobin reviler in such a flagrant delict as this! “It is doubtful,” says Mr. Buchanan, “whether any Frenchman will ever understand the sea”—a piece of Rule-Britannia-ism (or shall we say “Anglophobia”?) which, if it comes to the notice of the Paris Figaro, cannot fail to heighten the irritation caused by Mr. Gilbert’s wanton insult to the French marine. Lastly, let the reader listen to this Buchananade over the grave of Napoleon:—“He had mounted the popular Monster, and although he seemed to curb and drive it, it took him pretty much where it pleased; and finally, in mercy to the man’s immortal soul, God made England pitiless and consigned him to St. Helena.” If it was thus that Mr. Buchanan nourished the name of God in his Adelphi melodrama, one can scarcely wonder that the Censor intervened.

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     * “A Look Round Literature.” By Robert Buchanan. (London: Ward and Downey. 1887.)

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The Pall Mall Gazette (9 March, 1887 - Issue 6857)

“THE LITERARY INQUISITION.”

To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

     SIR,—How dearly I love sweet simplicity when I meet it in a reviewer! Your guileless critic does not know what I mean by the “Literary Inquisition,” how anything in literature resembles the “Holy Office,” or what difference there is between such an inquisition and ordinary expressions of individual opinion. Surely, however, he is aware that certain bodies of literary men are banded together to hunt down heretics, to canonize mediocrity, and to hold heterodoxy of any kind up to derision? Surely he has read his Quarterly, his Saturday Review, his Blackwood, and “hoc genus omne”? Does he mean to tell me (without “putting his tongue into his cheek,” like a sly rogue as I fancy him to be) that any living writer can express his honest judgment on any possible subject except the musical glasses, without becoming a “marked man” and the victim of a constant and often successful persecution? If he does tell me so, and really means it, he ought to extend his information, and to do so he need go no further than the file of his own Pall Mall Gazette. I daresay there are blunders in my book. I am a bad reader of proofs, and while this work was being printed I was very ill. “Anglophobia” is an obvious misprint for “Russophobia.” I think the expression “Bostonian cosmogony” is a quotation from Whitman, who uses a queer vocabulary. I got from him also the delicious word “affetuoso,” over which my dilettante friends made such fun twenty years ago, thinking I meant it for very choice Italian. But “affetuoso” is a lovely word, whoever invented it. Your critic, however, is far funnier than I can ever hope to be, when he suggests that my religion is an “optimistic theism,” which I would “possibly call Christianity;” which is about as pertinent as to say that my religion is a monotheism, which I would “possibly describe” as a belief in the Trinity! However, I thank him for his praise, and also for his honest blame; and I have really only the one fault to find with him—that he is sceptical as to the existence of my “Inquisition.”—I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
     March 7.                                                                               ROBERT BUCHANAN.

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The Novelty Theatre

The Era (6 August, 1887 - Issue 2550)

THE NOVELTY THEATRE.
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—I see it stated in a contemporary that the stage of the Novelty Theatre is “about the size of a small drawing-room.” Permit me to say that the Novelty stage, like the auditorium, is one of the best in London, quite deep and large enough for any effects, save those elaborately mechanical ones of which the public is a little weary. Had this not been the case, Miss Jay would not have found the theatre suitable for her purpose, which is to produce strong and elaborate comedy and drama.
     The same authority, I think, suggests that it is Miss Jay’s intention only to produce plays from my pen. If this were so I fear I should have some difficulty in supplying her demand, for it will be part of her programme to avoid long runs, and so to establish a répertoire; and to realise this programme she will have to ask the co-operation of many authors. One suggestion of mine, which I hope she will carry out, is that she should give the use of the theatre gratuitously for matinées to such untried dramatists as may submit to her meritorious works.—I am, &c.,
                                                           ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Novelty Theatre, August 3d.

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Mr. Robert Buchanan and his Critics

The Morning Post (6 October, 1887 - p.2)

MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN AND HIS CRITICS.
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING POST.

     SIR,—In the current number of a weekly publication appears an interview with myself, entitled “Scholar and Theatrical Manager,” in which I am made to say so many belligerent things that I am naturally lost in wonder at my own audacity. I am quite sure my interviewer did not intend to misrepresent me, but he has unconsciously exaggerated some very harmless observations into positive jeremiads against critics and actors. For example, he makes me say that I “hate newspapers,” whereas what I said was that the fourth estate was likely, under certain forms, to become an even more terrible social tyranny than the priesthood; that “critics know not what they say or why they say it,” whereas I was alluding, not to critics in general, but to certain critics, who may here be nameless; and that I thought all actors “fools,” whereas I merely observed that many actors were a little uninstructed. It seems to be my fate to provoke the hostility of the Press, and here, I fear, is another casus belli. But I think it should be remembered by those who hate and abuse me, that I have been and am, like my father before me, a critic myself and a journalist; that I have never ceased to stand up for the rights and honours of my class, and that, in a notable instance, when a man who had once insulted and reviled me beyond measure (under deep provocation, however) was committed to prison for a supposed libel on one of the governing classes, I alone pleaded my enemy’s cause, and resented the outrage as an infringement of the privileges and rights of journalism. As to my anonymous interviewer, I know and feel that every word which he uttered concerning me, or which he supposed me to utter, was put down in kindness and sympathy, not in malice, and in asking you to publish this brief explanation, I do so with a feeling of ample gratitude for the terms in which he spoke of one who has had to outlive much misconstruction and much consequent persecution.—I am, &c.,
                                                                                                            ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Novelty Theatre, Great Queen-street.

[I have been unable to find the interview to which Buchanan refers in this letter.]

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What is a Tragedy?

[I must apologise for the confusing nature of this item. Buchanan’s letter, written on 7th July 1888, is in the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington. Although it was obviously written for publication in the press, I have been unable to find a copy. Also, there is some confusion over the timeline.

Hall Caine’s play Ben-my-Chree was first performed on  17th May 1888 at the Princess’s Theatre. By the beginning of June he had changed the ending, as commented upon in The Bristol Mercury and Daily Post of June 5th:

“The authorities of the Princess’s Theatre have bowed to the will of their patrons and now make the ending of “Ben my Chree” a happy instead of a fatal one.”

At this point Hall Caine must have written to the press (again, I’ve been unable to find a copy) and on 11th June, The Pall Mall Gazette ran the following item:

“Mr. Hall Caine is mildly distressed because the critics have called “The Ben-my-Chree,” even in its original form, a melodrama, and not a tragedy. He appeals to the definition given by Fletcher (late of the firm of Beaumont and Fletcher)—“Tragedy is a species of play which leads by a natural sequence of events to the death of the principal character”—and asks whether “The Ben-my-Chree,” as originally played, did not fulfil these conditions. There are three answers to this question: first, the definition is not Fletcher’s; second, it is not a good definition; third, “The Ben-my-Chree” does not come under it. The fact that one man has killed another in self defence is no good reason for his submitting passively to be “marooned,” or, so to speak, Robinson-Crusoed without a Friday; and the fact of his breaking through his boycott to take part in a preposterous ordeal by oath does not satisfy any one as a natural, far less a necessary, reason for his death. Without worrying about definitions, which are “kittle” things to deal with, Mr. Hall Caine may assure himself that the concluding scenes of “The Ben-my-Chree” were on altogether too low a literary plane to permit of their aspiring to the great name of tragedy.”

There was also an article about ‘happy endings’ published in the Liverpool Mercury on 13th June, which is available here.

In the July issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine another comment about the altered ending prompted a second letter from Hall Caine, which I presume is what Buchanan then responded to in his letter of 7th July. Yet again, I’ve been unable to find where Caine’s letter was published, although it was reprinted in The Era on 21st July. Therefore, we begin with the piece from The Gentleman’s Magazine, then Hall Caine’s reply (later reprinted in The Era) and finally Buchanan’s letter. Although the latter is included in the Letters from Collections section of the site, I thought it worth repeating here within some (hopefully, not too confusing) context.]

The Gentleman’s Magazine (July, 1888)

The Era (21 July, 1888)

WHAT IS A TRAGEDY?
_____

     Mr Hall Caine, the author of Ben-my-Chree, writes as follows:—“I see that in the July number of the Gentleman’s Magazine our old friend ‘Sylvanus Urban’ opposes the argument of a letter I wrote a few weeks ago on what I thought the transformation of Ben-my-Chree from tragedy to melodrama. So far as I can see, he finds no answer to his difficult question ‘What is a Tragedy?’ But, after quoting the Encyclopædic Dictionary, Professor Skeat, and Milton against my rendering of Fletcher, he seems to join hands with those who have told me (with rather unnecessary warmth) that tragedy is a ‘sacred name,’ that it is confined to what is ‘lofty and elevated’ in dramatic art, and that it ‘belongs to the great houses.’ Putting the dictionaries aside (and as many of them are with my definition as are against it), I am unable to see that by ‘general acceptance throughout Europe’ tragedy has been a ‘sacred name.’ Going no further than our own literature, we find that by ‘general acceptance’ tragedy has been allowed to include nearly every kind and quality of dramatic composition of which the end has been death. There have been good tragedies and bad; and in Shakespeare’s day the name of tragedy was no more ‘sacred’ than the name of comedy or tragi-comedy. The very titles given to the old plays show clearly that the word ‘tragedy’ was used by the old dramatists in a very simple and ingenuous sense. Thus we have The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, The Tragedy of Nero, The Atheist’s Tragedy, Baron’s Tragedy, The Revenger’s Tragedy, and The Tragedy of the Duchess of Malfi; just as, on the other hand, we have The Comedy of Old Fortunatus. Clearly the term ‘tragical’ was used quite without thought of ‘loftiness’ or ‘elevation,’ whether as regards diction or subject, and was simply meant to show that the dramatic action led up to and terminated in death. I see as little reason to think that Marlowe intended to indicate the ‘elevation’ of his subject as that so modest a man as John Webster wished to advertise the ‘loftiness’ of his diction. Indeed, I am convinced that if The City Madam had been tragical in its draft Massinger would not have been restrained from so describing it by any thought of the meanness of its dramatis personæ. In fact, the gods were not more lawful or essential than mean people to a tragedy written in the best days of English tragic art.
     “To come to the ‘general acceptance of tragedy throughout Europe.’ Faust is properly called a ‘dramatic mystery,’ because in its first part it is tragical in only one of its episodes—the episode of Margaret. The first part of Wallenstein, ending with the struggle between father and son (but not with death) is described in its early form as a drama; the second part, ending with the death of Wallenstein, is described in its early form as a tragedy; and yet the first part is in many respects loftier and more elevated than the second both as to action and diction. I think I am not wrong in saying that in Russia certain of Tourgenieff’s short stories (such as that of the porter and his dog) and some of Gogol’s (such as, if I mistake not, that of the poor official and his new overcoat) are with ‘general acceptance’ described as tragedies. And I would go so far in support of the definition given in the former letter as to say that tragedy is a term which is independent not only of literary quality, but even of literary form; that The Bride of Lammermoor is as much an English tragedy as Hamlet is, and that M. Daudet’s story of Fromont and Risler is as certainly a French tragedy as Mr Buchanan’s play on that subject is an English melodrama.
     “As for the definition that I rendered from Fletcher’s ‘Apologetical Preface,’ let any reader interested in the subject judge for himself how far my implication is justified by Fletcher’s description of tragi-comedy. And since there is now no definition of melodrama that fits the more recent developments of that species of play, let me make bold to offer one that shall be in the manner, and partly in the words, of the author of The Faithful Shepherdesse. A melodrama is so called because it does not bring its hero to his death (which is enough to make it no tragedy), and yet brings him very near to it (which is enough to make it no comedy.)”

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Letter to the Press - 7 July, 1888
(From the collection of the Folger Shakespeare Library.)

Corresp. Stage

What is a Tragedy?

                                                                                            Hamlet Court, Southend, Essex, July 7.

               Sir,—I think we are getting very “mixed” in our definitions when M^r Hall Caine describes my play of “Partners”, founded on Daudet’s novel of Fromont Jeune et Risler Ainé, as a melodrama, and thereupon suggests that a Melodrama should be so called because it does not end in the death of the leading character. The difference between Tragedy & Melodrama is in reality technical. The first is a form of art where the old unities of time & place are generally preserved, and where the action moves grandly & monotonously towards the final consummation, foreshadowed from the outset, of a sublime death; in which, moreover, all the interest is subordinated to the one central purpose, to the one solemn issue, generally spiritual & ennobling, & the very essence of which is moral or religious concentration. A melodrama, on the other hand, is a varied picture of life & incident, a mélange, a mingled web of thought, passion, & character, and may or may not end tragically,—the point being that its style & treatment, not its catastrophe, differentiate it from tragedy. The great Sophoclean Trilogy is tragedy pure & simple. Most of Shakspere’s serious plays, notably “Macbeth” and “Richard III,” are melodramas. Such masterpieces as “Hamlet” & “Lear” are of twofold character, extremely melodramatic in their style, highly tragical in a certain monotony of characterization and moral suggestion. Of course, the more popular & etymologically correct definition of Melodrama—ie. drama accompanied with musical effects—will scarcely serve us here; but it is a good & right definition, if we insert the word “varied” before the adjective “musical,” and imply that the drama itself is many-mooded.
          I learned with deep regret that M^r Hall Caine’s fine play, quite tragical in its character, had been vulgarized & made absurd by a “happy ending.” There is a superstition among managers that “happy endings” can reform a serious & monotonous theme, & render it pleasing to the vulgar; but the truth is, the public care little how a play ends, so long as it is not depressing, and deficient in relief, throughout. A very popular & not quite worthless play of the late Watts Phillips, “Lost in London,” is a case in point. The piece is a melodrama, though the end is tragical in M^r Caine’s sense, but the action throughout is all alive with life and comedy—effective if very conventional; so that average spectators enjoy it, and do not by any means resent the heroine’s pathetic death just before the fall of the curtain. I think M^r Caine should have nailed his colours to the mast, standing or falling by the absolutely & inherently tragic nature of his theme. To change the dominant note at the last moment into a doubtfully lively one, was something like singing through all the magnificent verses of the Old Hundredth, & then suddenly breaking into “Haste to the Wedding.” Fortunately, this is an error which can be easily corrected, for the preservation of a piece which has justly received high encomium.

I am &c.
Robert Buchanan.

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Shook and Collier

The Era (2 March, 1889 - Issue 2632)

THE DRAMA IN AMERICA.
(FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

     NEW YORK, MONDAY, FEB. 18.—

.....

     SOME time since Messrs Shook and Collier recovered $1,135.13 from Mr Robert Buchanan in their suit against him for the advance payment to him on account of the American society play he was to furnish them for the Union-square Theatre, and which they refused to accept on the ground that it was not an American society play. Hitherto, efforts to recover any of the amount have been vain. Recently, however, it was discovered that the production of Partners was under a contract by which Mr Buchanan received five per cent. of the gross receipts, and that $588 was here belonging to him. On Saturday an order was procured from Judge O’Brien requiring Mr Buchanan to show cause why a receiver of his property should not be appointed. In this order the playwright is referred to as an insolvent debtor.

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The Era (9 March, 1889 - Issue 2633)

THE AMERICAN MANAGER, OLD STYLE.
_____

TO THE EDITOR OF THE ERA.

     Sir,—America is still a long way off, and American ways, especially in the matter of law, are still far beyond the comprehension of purblind Europeans. The paragraph contained in your issue of to-day, and stating that a certain Judge O’Brien has issued an order to attach certain monies of mine at the suit of Messrs Shook and Collier, late of the Union-square Theatre, needs a little explanation.
     It appears, then, that during my absence from America a certain suit, which I thought had long been abandoned as ridiculous, has been decided against me. Several years ago I was requested by Messrs Shook and Collier to write them a play, and on my agreeing to do so they paid me a small earnest-fee of $750, requesting me at the same time to come out to New York City and superintend the production. Having other business in that quarter, I set sail in due course, and found on my arrival that, in defiance of my contract, a play by an American writer was already in preparation to open the season. I interviewed a gentleman sitting in his shirtsleeves in the near neighbourhood of a well-known “bar,” and was taken by him to interview an elderly gentleman-farmer living in retirement far up the Hudson River. These were Messrs Shook and Collier, theatrical managers. A very little observation enabled me to discover that these gentlemen, having discovered, as they thought, a gold-mine in a “native” drama for which they would have to pay very little, meant to throw me over. With this determination they got me to run through the rough draft of my play, and on that hint, informed me that it would not “suit” their theatre. I was not dissatisfied with this decision, as I had in the meantime had an opportunity of discovering that their management was going fast to the dogs; but when, a little later, the gentleman in the shirtsleeves demanded back my earnest money, I refused to “deliver.” Action at law followed. Messrs Shook and Collier, in the sweet spirit of Yankee law, tried to attach my effects in prospect of an issue in their favour; but as they were unable or unwilling to give bonds on their side, nothing came of this vexatious proceeding. By-and-by the active partner of the firm approached me again and asked me if I would dramatise for him “Our Mutual Friend,” making a leading part of the Doll’s Dressmaker, and concluding with what he called “an allegory”—meaning, as I found, an apotheosis. This I declined, but, in a moment of pity for the condition of his business, I showed him Alone in London, which he decided would not suit “American audiences.” The lawsuit ebbed away and was forgotten. Alone in London was produced by me in Philadelphia, and immediately secured by Col. Sinn, of Brooklyn, with a result which is well known, and may be best described in the statement that Col. Sinn is the possessor of a “running” theatrical gold-mine, while Mr Shook has sunk into private obscurity, and Mr Collier is occupied, I believe, in the congenial pursuit of managing, not a theatre, but a Turkish Bath.
     I did not expect to hear any more of Messrs Shook and Collier, and was rather surprised, when Partners was produced at the Haymarket a year ago, to receive a cablegram from Mr Collier, asking me to let him have the American rights. Curious to know if he was in a position to treat for a theatrical property, I cabled back demanding the usual deposit, and received a reply to the effect that he “could not pay anything down,” but would give a large “percentage.” I heard nothing more of my retired managers till, a few weeks ago, I saw in your columns a paragraph that Messrs Shook and Collier had recovered some thousand dollars from me on the score of that old suit. The affair had been decided against me on the showing that I had contracted to supply the partners with “a drama of American society,” and “had not done so.” Of course, in my absence, Messrs Shook and Collier had it all their own way. Up to the hour of writing I have received no official intimation of the judgment, but in a letter received from my friend Mr A. M. Palmer a few days ago, I am informed that any outstanding royalties in Partners are to be attached until the judgment is satisfied.
     Your American correspondent is most anxious to inform your readers that Mr Judge O’Brien, in his “order,” describes me as an “insolvent debtor.” Yet, as I have shown, no direct communication of any kind has reached me, and all I know of this “debt” has been gathered from your columns. As I began by saying, America is a long way off, and though I might easily upset an absurd judgment, it would cost no little trouble. In all possibility I shall let it pass. The sum, though small, may console Messrs Shook and Collier for their loss of the Union-square Theatre, and go to the working expenses of the Turkish Bath.
                                  I am, &c.,
                                                  ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     Vaudeville Theatre, March 2d, 1889.

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Henry Vizetelly

The Pall Mall Gazette (1 June, 1889 - Issue 7552)

MR. ROBERT BUCHANAN PROTESTS.

To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

     SIR,—Will you permit me, as an individual whose antipathies towards certain forms of literature are well known, but who at the same time has always advocated perfect freedom of literary utterance, to protest against the sentence just pronounced upon the publisher Mr. Vizetelly? I was among the first to protest, in your columns, against the sentence upon Mr. Edmund Yates, and I did so the more eagerly as I had already expressed my opinion, which any one had a right to do, of the kind of journalism with which Mr. Yates had for some time been associated. I now feel it my duty, as an author and a journalist, to demand whether questions of literary morality are to be determined by the police magistrate and the judges of the criminal court, whether that liberty of speech and printing which Milton demanded is to dwindle away into petty criminal prosecutions? If so, literature is doomed, and literary men had better emigrate en masse. The police espionage and persecution which now follows an unfortunate publisher will extend to the writers of books. I shall be able to indict and imprison Mr. George Moore for publishing his “Confessions,” and Mr. Moore may retaliate by giving me some months of durance for certain passages in “Foxglove Manor.” Nor will the matter cease here. Our prudential legislation is orthodox in religion as well as moral in literary taste; so that we may soon return to the dark days of Lord Eldon, and see philosophers and publicists criminally punished for opinions adverse to established creeds. Free thought and free literature will be paralysed by the shadow of a British jury, as the poor drama is still paralysed by the shadow of a Lord Chamberlain.
     It may be urged—and it has been urged—that the works of M. Zola overstep the limits of propriety, and may possibly, in English translations, be inexpedient. But my contention is that they are literature, and, as such, are not to be pronounced upon by criminal tribunals. Public opinion and public criticism are quite sufficient to preserve the standard of good taste, without the aid of the policeman. If the common hangman is to burn “La Curée” and “L’Assommoir,” he must also burn large portions of the works of Shakspeare and Chaucer, of the old dramatists, of Dryden, of Swift, of Byron, and of countless other masters of English style. If Mr. Vizetelly is to be martyred for publishing translations of Zola, Mr. Murray must be arraigned for continuing to publish “Don Juan,” Mr. — — for issuing Burton’s translation of “The Arabian Nights,” and Messrs. Bell and Co. for putting their names on the title-pages of the translations of Boccaccio and Heinrich Heine. Where the matter will cease it is quite impossible to judge—possibly with an Act of Parliament deciding that all books, original or translated, must be submitted to a committee composed of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Monro, and the editors of the Guardian and the Christian World.
     I know little or nothing of Mr. Vizetelly personally; but I am aware that he has been honourably connected with literature for many years. Among the publications recently issued by him are many works which are impeccable, even from the most narrow point of view. To class him with the traders in mere filth is to class Emile Zola with the producers of mere garbage. We have a right to proclaim (as I have proclaimed) that certain books are offensive, unpleasant to read, and written in bad taste—in other words, we have all a right to criticize them as literature. But criticism and free discussion are quite sufficient. The moment we go further and summon the policeman we attack the privileges of private judgment, and imperil the freedom of all literature.—I am, &c.,                                           ROBERT BUCHANAN.
     17, Cavendish-place, W.

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HOLYWELL STREET PANICSTRICKEN.
_____

CAPITULATION AT DISCRETION.
_____

MR. COOTE AS LITERARY CENSOR.
_____

     The imprisonment of Mr. Vizetelly has struck terror into Holywell-street, and the conviction has already had the most remarkable result. Mr. Coote, the indefatigable secretary of the National Vigilance Society, has had a deputation from some of the booksellers in Holywell-street, asking him to go and look through the stock they have, and let them know what they may sell and what they may not. They have also agreed to withdraw from circulation any book the character of which the Vigilance Society takes exception to. The proprietors of these shops have also paid him a visit, and offered to do whatever the Society wishes in order to avoid pains and penalties.
     Nor is it only Holywell-street that recognizes the new censor. The magistrate in a recent case ordered all the copies of books whose character was in dispute to be taken to the office of the Vigilance Society, where they remained until judgment was pronounced. As the judgment was adverse, all the copies have been destroyed. Mr. Vizetelly is not the only victim of Vigilance zeal.
     Another publisher who has been selling cheap editions of French novels has this week been convicted at the Old Bailey, and he has been to the office at 267, Strand, to say that he will at once withdraw the stock of books he has on hand, or about 100,000 volumes representing a first cost of nearly £2,000.
     Mr. W. A. Coote, the secretary of the Vigilance Society, received a representative from the Pall Mall Gazette with his customary urbanity.
     “No,” said he, “I don’t consider the sentence on Vizetelly severe. On the contrary, I think it served him right. Look over his catalogue, and form your own opinion.”
     “But how is it that you have singled out Vizetelly?”
     “As a matter of fact we have prosecuted other publishers. Vizetelly has devoted himself to introducing to the English market translations of the worst works of Emile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, and other French writers of what is called the realistic school. Why should England be flooded with foreign filth, and our youth polluted by having the most revolting and hideous descriptions of French vice thrust upon their attention? Vizetelly had almost the whole of this business in his hands, and supplied agencies in the provinces. We therefore determined to attack the head of this enterprise, with the result that he is now in gaol.”
     “Do you think these books really had a large circulation?”—“I am very much afraid they had. The business arrangements of the firm were very complete, and they forced their books in every direction. Vizetelly acknowledges an average of 1,000 a week of Zola’s works, and of the works of two other French writers he stated that he had sold about 200,000 copies in one year.”
     “What led you to this special crusade against this kind of stuff?”
     “It is one of the departments of our work. The old society for the suppression of vice was amalgamated with the National Vigilance Association some time since. The question of pernicious literature is occupying the attention of a very large section of the community at the present time. Not only is this the case in England, but the Continental mind is exercised about it. It is in contemplation to hold an international conference on the subject in the autumn. We have for months past been receiving letters in large numbers from influential people in various parts of England urging us to do something to put a stop to the circulation of such books, and we thought it better to go to the source at once. The prosecution is an object lesson in morality for the whole of the country, and will be a very salutary warning to unscrupulous publishers.”
     “Did the court order the destruction of the books?”
     “No. Counsel representing Vizetelly pledged his client never to publish or sell any translations of the French authors referred to; and, in order that there might be no mistake about what his client meant, counsel added, ‘neither expurgated nor unexpurgated.’”
     “But will publishers be liable if they sell copies they already have in stock?”
     “Oh, decidedly. Immediately we find any one selling copies of the works which have been condemned by the court we shall at once take proceedings against them.”

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The Pall Mall Gazette (4 June, 1889 - Issue 7554)

CORRESPONDENCE.

MR. COOTE AS A LITERARY CENSOR.

To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

     SIR,—Probably the best course to pursue would be to treat your article under the above heading with silence, but I have no wish that it should be generally accepted that my father obtained his living by the means of circulating that which is now condemned as impure literature: it is my desire therefore to put the following facts before your readers, and I trust you will give them prominent publicity:—That there are few men now living who, as my father has done, would have given over forty-five years of their lives to the interests of the literature of their country, or who would have worked indefatigably for the abolition of the paper duty, and the repeal of the newspaper stamp, as he in each case did.
     That he was the first to introduce to the English novel-reading public the celebrated works of Gaboriau, Du Boisgobey, Ohnet, Tolstoi, Dostoieffsky, and of many others of equally undoubted talent and purity, as a catalogue containing several hundred books will show. That the books withdrawn do not form one-fiftieth part of our list of publications, which comprises among others some of the works of Thackeray, Sala, Grenville Murray, F. M. Robinson, E. F. Knight, and my father’s own “Story of the Diamond Necklace” and books upon wines.
     It is much to be regretted that we can apply to the present ungenerous censorship words written more than forty-five years ago by the leading essayist of his time upon the question of general British morality. I refer to the words of Thomas Babington Macaulay:—
     We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. In general, elopements, divorces, and family quarrels pass with little notice. We read the scandal, talk about it for a day, and forget it. But once in six or seven years our virtue becomes outrageous. We cannot suffer the laws of religion and decency to be violated. We must make a stand against vice. We must teach libertines that the English people appreciate the importance of domestic ties. Accordingly, some unfortunate man, in no respect more depraved than hundreds whose offences have been treated with lenity, is singled out as an expiatory sacrifice. If he has children, they are to be taken from him. If he has a profession, he is to be driven from it. He is, in truth, a sort of whipping-boy, by whose vicarious agonies all the other transgressors of the same class are, it is supposed, sufficiently chastised. We reflect very complacently on our own severity, and compare with great pride the high standard of morals established in England with the Parisian laxity. At length our anger is satiated. Our victim is ruined and heartbroken. And our virtue goes quietly to sleep for seven years more.—From Macaulay’s Essay on Moore’s Life of Lord Byron, London, 1830.
     I am, Sir, yours obediently,
     London, June 1.                                             FRANK H. VIZETELLY.

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To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

     SIR,—Mr. Buchanan has no case. Whatever we may think of Zola’s books in the original, it is preposterous to speak of these wretched English translations as “literature.” Vizetelly has been convicted for selling, not literature, but filth. Do first-rate English renderings of clean French novels sell by the 100,000? Perhaps Messrs. Routledge would give us a few statistics? And what does Mr. Buchanan mean by dragging our great English classics into the controversy? The few “broad” passages in Shakspeare and Fielding are natural, incidental, unimportant, and therefore harmless. But as for Zola’s works their end and aim is beastliness; take away their atmosphere of indecency, and what is left? With regard to the “Decameron,” the publishers might well suppress the (comparatively few) unclean stories, without really injuring the book. But would not the sale fall off?—Your obedient servant,                               G. W.

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To the EDITOR of the PALL MALL GAZETTE.

     SIR,—I am very anxious to second Mr. Robert Buchanan in his protest against the sentence pronounced upon Mr. Vizetelly; and I wish, through the generous medium of your columns, to suggest that Mr. Buchanan should start a definite public protest, signed by all authors who are in sympathy with his way of thinking. What he says is perfectly true—that if this kind of thing is to go on authors will have to leave the country en masse. The Lord Chamberlain, the Vigilance Society, and the censorship of Mr. Mudie make it impossible to depict life as it is. All the same the public will have its natural food, and buys it from France. Such hypocrisy is detestable; and the sooner authors speak out for the privilege of literature to deal with all sides of the life that men and women live the better. If we cannot get that necessary freedom. the inevitable result is that when the International Copyright Bill is passed English authors will publish in America. I sincerely hope Mr. Buchanan will adopt my suggestion, and not let the matter drop.—Yours, &c.,
     34, Clarendon-road, Holland Park, June 2.                                MABEL COLLINS.

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The Pall Mall Gazette (26 June, 1889 - Issue 7573)

THE VIZETELLY PROSECUTION.

A PLEA FOR RELEASE TO THE HOME SECRETARY.

     A petition to the following effect is being circulated by Mr. George Moore:—Mr. Henry Vizetelly pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to having published certain obscene libels because he was warned by his counsel that it would be almost impossible to defend successfully any book accused of indecency before a tribunal composed of a dozen small tradesmen, all wholly unacquainted with literature. The books incriminated are by Emile Zola, Gustave Flaubert, Guy de Maupassant, and Paul Bourget, and have been praised by eminent literary critics as being works of art of a very high order. “Madame Bovary” would probably be placed in the first half-dozen best novels the world has ever produced if a consensus of literary opinion were taken. Under these circumstances, it would seem that the law relating to what may be published with safety needs amendment. At the present moment any one can commence a prosecution against a publisher. It is thought that English men of letters will view this censorship with the deepest distrust, and it is, therefore, proposed to organize a deputation to the Home Secretary to beg the immediate release of Mr. henry Vizetelly. (Mr. Vizetelly was not convicted for publishing “Madame Bovary.”)

THE VIGILANCE VIEW.

     The prosecution of Mr. Vizetelly (says the Vigilance Record) is not a check upon literature, but an attack upon a disease which threatens to destroy it. We are asked whether we propose to prohibit the English classics, and, if not, how are we consistent? We answer—we have no such intention. Substantially, we believe in the healthiness of English literature. There is a broad difference between coarseness and licentiousness. Among books which are licentious, there is a great difference between those which contain licentious passages and those whose principal motive and interest are vicious. Amongst the latter, even, some are less corrupting in effect than others; and, finally, there remains the great, practical question, how far their mischief is likely to spread amongst the population at large? The public taste in Anglo-Saxon countries is, we think, higher—in point of chastity at least—than that of the Latin countries. In putting a check upon translations from Zola and Maupassant, we are only doing what not only most of the American States, but the German Government, have already done. The literary merits of foreign books are apt to be blurred by translation; and, what is even of more importance, modern literature bears a relation to the national life, manners, and habits of thought which is not appreciable to the foreigner. In a realistic French novel the literature is far more, and probably the vice is less, to a Frenchman than to an Englishman, who will lose little—whatever he may gain—by total ignorance of the whole realistic school. In truth, nothing has been done, and nothing proposed, but to apply the old and wholesome English law against wholesale corruption of public morals. This we maintain. It is easy to talk nonsense about a censorship. No one suggests, no one would undertake so thankless and difficult a task. What can be done is to let books alone until they transgress the law against obscenity, and when they do, take them before a jury. It may be that a jury are not capable of defining indecency. Who is? And who, on the other hand, can define literature? The tribunal which protects public decency must act by plain, practical common sense, and we must be in touch with public opinion. Large scope is left for English writers, many of whom go quite far enough, and some of whom may possibly have to be restrained if they strain public patience, but who, on the whole, have abstained at least from gratuitous indecency for indecency’s sake, which cannot be said of M. Zola. The fate of Mr. Vizetelly fixes a low-water mark in public tolerance; let any English disciples of the French vicious school observe that there are limits which they must pass at their peril.

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In July 1889 Buchanan published his pamphlet, On Descending into Hell: a letter addressed to the Right Hon. Henry Matthews, Q.C., Home Secretary, concerning the proposed suppression of literature, in defence of Vizetelly (reprinted in The Coming Terror). He did not, however, sign George Moore’s petition, as he revealed in further letters to The Pall Mall Gazette in November.

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