The Press.
London, England, 1853-12-03 00:00:00

786

•
would make the fortune of a " Liberal " attor-
ney at a general election. Of "Quacks " we
need say nothing.
Under " Reprints " any one can easily see
what a large quantity of advertisements are
taken. Then coulee a whole class of epheme-
ral publications, pamphlets, and avowed corn-
piletions of the beissorsemd-paste school,
which cannot be ranked as literary " works,"
but which deceive the eyes of the careless, by
the space they occupy in the columns of a
journal and the shelves of a bookshop.
Thus it will be aeon that the space left to
" Authors Proper" is much smaller than would
be supposed. Publishers ate not in want of
authors. "Vanity Fair," " The Trade," " Edit-
ration," " Professional Puffers," consume
enough of their paper bought at wholesale
and sold at retail prices, their eremites, their
establishment, time, influence, tee. Re., to
citable theta to do without applying for the
aid of professional "authors." So that, in the
literary market, the needy divine, the Wrangler
fresh &um Cambridge, or the Templar strug-
gling to the bar, have to encounter competi-
tion with Miss Decourey Fitztitiget, Sir itiek-
son Thompson, and all those classes who pay
instead of being paid. This state of facts
which has grown up of late years makes au-
thorship a worse eursuit than ever. •
So limited is this class of "Authors Prt quer "
that BOW of our readers will not have much
trouble in recounting most of their mutinies.
So moderate are the gains from literature that
even those who have won great reputation us
protessionel anthers have embarked noel
other vocations. Mr. Thaekeray has turned
lecturer; Mr. Dickens carries on lluagehad
Words ; Mine Elie* Cook also has her weekly
journal ; Mr. and Mere. Hall have their monthly
periodical ; Mr. Albert Smith has his " Mont
Mane." Other authors, also, who stood some
years since upon their claims as independent
writers, have merged into journalism of various
kinds, sonic as proprietors or editors, and
others have embarked in trade and commerce,
and given up "the Row."
In short, the " literary profession " (exclu-
sive of journalism) is much more narrow, as
we have shown, than might be sapposed.

Poems. Ily Matthew Arnold. I,ondoi I :
I •Onglilail.

Mn. Mamma is not among those gentlemen
who write verses and publish them under the
belief that the word poems on the tialtnmge
and rhyme within constitute pi't'y. Mr.
Arnold is a poet. The preface of his present
work is an essay, most ably written, to prove
that the theory of the Greeks in poetry is
superior to that of the moderns. The moderns
make the parts which should. be accessory and
subordinate superior to the whole. Thus,
speaking of Elhakspeare, Mr. Arnold says:—
But to these mama characteristics of all great poets
ho added • special one of his own; a gift, namely, of
happy, abundant, and ingenious expression, eminent
and unrivalled: so eminent as irresistibly to strike
the attention first in hint, and even to throw into com-
parative shade his other excellences as a poet. here has
been the mischief. These other excellences were his
fundamental excellences as a poet; what distinguishes the
artist from the mere amateur, says t ioethe, is Architectosierl
in the highest sense ; that power of execution which
creates, forms, and constitutes : not the profoundness of
single . thoughts, not the richness of imagery, not the
abundance of illustration. But these attractive aceess.ories
of a poetical work hying more easily seined than the spirit
of the whole, anal their accessones being liassemma by.
Shakspeare in an unequal degree, a young writer having
recourse to Shalupeare as his model runs great risk of
being vanquished anal absorbed by them, anal, in otiose•
quenee, of reproducing, &mooting to the measure of his
power, these', and theme stone. Of this preponderating
quality of Shake arc's genius, fteeonlingly, almost the
whole at modern English poetry has. it appears to me, felt
11w inthamtee. To the exclusive attention on the part of
his imitation to this it is in a great &me owing. that of
the majority of modern poetical works the details alone ore
xiduable, the oomposition worthless. In matting them olio
is tually reminded of that terrible sentence all a
m French poet—it At tout ee roil, wig

makeirraorement ;ea rteM ti dire.
Mr. Arnold, to exemplify his meaning, men-
tions the poem of "Isabella," by Keats, which be
" thinks contains a greater number of Nippy
" single expressions which one could quote t
" all the extant tragedies of Sophocles." lint NO
loosely, to form a story, are thew happy ex-
pressions put together that the effect of the
adios as a whole is "absolutely null." The