The Press.
London, England, 1857-02-21 00:00:00

BEING A LETTER OF ADVICE FROM AN OLD HAND TO A YOUNG WRITER.

My Dear Young Friend,—The fault, I repeat it, of all you inci-
pient—l was not going to write insipid—fictionists is, that you insist
upon drawing upon your own invention, which must be at best a bank
of very limited issue, instead of looking into society for your characters
and incidents. You ask me to be frank, and I take you at your word.
I have read your chapters of a Minister's life ; and, in charity to you,
I have put the MS. where my housemaid will find nothing but
ashes to-morrow morning. You had better let the subject alone. Sir
Bulwer Lytton is a dangerous personage for you to come after, my dear
boy, and Ido not think that you will easily eclipse "My Novel." But
at least write truthfully; and I do solemnly assure you that the mid-
night meeting of your Secretary of State with the burglars in the
Thames Tunnel, and the Opposition Bishop disguising himself as a
policeman, is far from a natural event. The satire, if any, would be
unfelt.

But, my dear boy, if you must treat such subjects, take your notions
from what is going on around you. The real events of the day are far
more singular than any of your ideas. Sir George Grey, I dare say,
was never in the Thames Tunnel in his life, and probably never spoke
to a smaller rascal than an Irish Lord of the Treasury, nor, probably,
did the Bishop of Exeter ever try on the uniform of A 150. But if
they had, the story, though bizarre, would be simply dull. You want
to show a Minister doing some extraordinary feat, and you can think
of nothing better than that?
Let's see whether an old hand can help you. Nov, if I wanted to
describe a Minister doing a strange thing, I should in the first place
try to give an idea—artistically—of the immense responsibility of his
position, of the tremendous interests in his hands, of the solemn and
sacred character of the national honour, of which he was custodian.
Very well. Then, of course, I should not seat him, as you have done,
at a window, looking on the moon and apostrophising the stars, be-
cause a man when he becomes an English Minister is usually at an
age when he is liable to rheumatism, and when he is too sensible to
address anything that cannot possibly hear him.
But I will tell you what I would do. I would show the Minister
in his place in the House of Commons during a grave debate upon the
foreign policy of the nation. I would cause some one or other of the
speakers to make a statement touching some act of the Cabinet—say
the assenting to some treaty which, rightly or wrongly, pledged two
or three great countries to a policy the reverse of that which the public
supposed to be in course of adoption. I would show the startled
audience eager for an explanation. Then, my dear boy, if I wanted
thoroughly to " surprise "--mark you. I would make my Minister
burst out into an insulting tirade against the speaker who had thus
exposed his policy. I would make him launch all sorts of coarse and
commonplace jokes against him, and then, when the impatience of
men, angry at being treated like schoolboys, showed itself in menacing
murmurs, I would make my Minister solemnly deny that any such
treaty existed, and charge his accuser with inventing or retailing a
Romance.

You will reply to me, for you are a smart fellow, that such a thing
is scarcely credible, that it is not likely that the destinies of a country
would have passed into the hands of a man who could so treat such a
subject. I answer that you do not use your eyes and ears. And if
you startle at this incident, what will you say to the next I should
introduce, namely, on another night the bringing the same parties
together, rnd the making the accuser give the date of the treaty—the
date of the very document that did not exist? Then I would have
another dramatic surprise. My Minister should admit that he had
been aware that such a treaty had been drawn up ; it was not a treaty,
he should urge, only " a convention," but—

" It was never Signed
Here, I think. I could end a chapter with the cheers of the Minister's
friends, the derisive laughter of those who heard a statesman venture
to allege that a signature, more or less, altered a policy, and the graver
bearing of more thoughtful men, who saw a bad sign for the nation in
the fact that her guides and rulers could snatch such a miserable and
technical triumph.
Still you think the incidents improbable. Once more, my
boy, use your eyes and ears, and then see what I would do on a third
night.

I would bring down my Minister once more, and I would make
him who on the first night had showered ridicule, and utterly denied
the document's existence, and talked of romance, and on the next night
had sheltered himself under the plea that the document had not been
signed, rise and say,
" I have to beg pardon for a mistake. The convention was
signed."

And you say, my boy, that I should place the Minister in too
humiliating a position, that no man who could play such antics with
fact and truth would be tolerated in office, that, in short, I should
exhibit him in so ridiculous and contemptible a light that the scenes
would be improbable.

All I can say is, my dear young friend, read the Parliamentary
debates of the present session, and don't teach your grandmother to
suck eggs. Your sincere well-wisher,
HumniaNT Birnis•

Paternoster•row, Saturday.