The Sun.
London, England, 1852-09-14 00:00:00

TIJESDAy EVENING, SEPTEMBER 14,

ANECDOTES OF CRITICISM.
(From L liza Cook's Journal)
If, in criticism, there Wire les.,; brilliance end more
charity, better justice would be distributed between tt e
authors who write and the public who read. When I,
cut open the loaves of a new book,
as a reviewer, take up my ivory knife, and set down to
the genius, to attend upon my chair? lem afraid I
thick of anything but the unfortunate writer of the
work. My object is to flavour my "article," and if
supply relish to my periods; but if unhappily
our author" can supply spices, what do I invoke, as
well and good; he shalli
oftn gakinigngera
then the mere ground of the dish, and I serve him up.
with onions of
transmogrified from his original shape—
it ix;
ncloves
[ofsarcasm,but
satire,
My pen is no quill from the wing of a pacific my ink no odorous distillation from an Indian wood; the
.h
one is tempered steel- proper material to stab wit
—the other is uudi!uted gall to pour into the wound.
All around my table are the busts of brilliant, critics,
famous famous in their day, who,e trophies are bin' up"
of vituperation—never„stinging
review.";not,goose,he
pyramid or epics, essys, I
tics, histories, romances, and
disquisetions, ernaleatnated into solid bricks, by i
the,
pestle first, and preesure eext, of ••first-rve reviews.'
One Is, e realeleas sitesso helf fledged post;" another
o
"crushiree a 3 we;
segingebirel in its eststi" another
qusuctutig- the 1 ape of semi embitious studeta's inspi-
ration. Then I tong my ewe Cammer on the rock, that
se echo may come to me of lams, sod that my
vani•y n,ay be plumed by the icea that ,come poetaster,
or prosaic dullard efts been "ex iilaii4ed" by a blot of
the terrible is ins, black es Phleget hen before me.
Lately, however, I ',aye been rr escerig on the criticsl
tort and the creic'e reopoobib;lit. _
; tau. I am not g„irg to
write a ditquisitien on either. I have, for my own eai-
fication, e,,Peeted some anecdotes to illustrate what I
have been spying, and to show that intalebility is no
more an attribute of the editorial Wile than it is of
Peter's chair. The victims of
great reviews have
mounted to high fame in spite of their reviewers. Mt n
have fallen into ridiculous errors through their refusal
to acknowledge, or their inability to appreciate genius
when its work is presented tangibly to their observation.
There are some episodes in the history of criticism
which are universally known how, the living fire of
Keats's inspiration was " snuffed out" by an article in
the Quarterly; how Byron was hunted by the Scotch
reviewers until he stood at bay, and reviewed them in
their turn with a vengeance; how Swift cut to pieces a
whole army of scribes by means of
one satirical essay;
how Pope, with a single feather from the goose's wing,
wrote a sacrificial song for a hecatomb of detractors.
Other episodes, however, there have been, less known,
but no lees remarkable than these.
There never was, for instenee, a more extraordinary,
a more absurd, a more impudent criticisim, than that o'
Rymer upon the tragedy of Othello. He said it was
"a bloody farce, without salt or savour, that fills tbe head
with vsnity, confusion, tintamarre, and iingheisngke"
Now Rymer, its his time, was thought a judieieus man;
reviewed a geoid many books--pt rho oeeided the lite-
rary fate of several authors. Yet, if
the public accepted
his opinion, how much injustice was there not com-
mitted. Nearly equal in impertinence was the observa-
tion of Gifford, that Shalcipere was, as a poet, inferior
to Pope. This remark, however, from such a man,
though it startles, does not astonish us, Ile
was utterly
tucompetent to appreciate the richness. sweetness, and
beauty of that poetic neceer which Hewed from the lip,
of him who was our noblest muse. lie said, that the
only excellence of the dramatic minstrel, whose melo-
dies gushed as though "Ilyssus were in hit throat." wits
his wit, and that among his merits rhythmical modulation
was by no means to be included.
After this, I do not so greatly wonder that a dull,
dry, and dusty mathematician once told us that Milton',,
Paradise Lost is " worth nothing, because it
proves
nothing." This scientific pedant would have valued
mere highly the solution of an algebraical problem, or
an ingenious disposition of straight lines, curves, and
cones. Figures arithmetical he loved, but figures of
speech, or flowers of thought, he could by no possi-
bility understand. Perhaps he would equally have
scorned Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, of
which a contemporary critic said, with the most
amusing condescension,—" This little poem, how-
ever humble its pretensions, is not without ele-
gance or merit !" What, however, can surprise us,
when Goldsmith's reviewer in the Monthly set dowry his
Traveller as a " flimsy productisn;" when Wordsworth
has been described as the "verbose, dry, drab-coated
oroser of the lakes;" when Scott has been compared to
Homer; when Rogers has been eulegiLeu as
" superior
to Coleridge, Shelley, or Moore;" when Snakspere has
been sneered at by Ben Jenson as an ignoramus, be-
cause he makes Bohemia a maritime country; and when
it has been pronounced of Shelley's poetry. kid it was by
Gifford, that its chief characteristic is, " its total want
of meaning,The "
ttuth is, that there can be no absurdity imagined
which has not been perpetrated by critics, at one time or
moth, r. Time, however, cures the little stings inflicted
by the feeble. The day has gone by when readers of
.he Literary Gazette would submit to be told by that
journal that " Queen Mab" was " a mere mass of bloated
words," or that " AdonaL" exhibited nothing but " in-
curable absurdity." Fortunately also the day has long gone
by when that periodical would open its columns for any
critic to effuse through them such spleen of a malignant
soul. The " late remorse of love" has made ameuds to
the fame of the poet, and if the cheap flatteries of poste-
rity atone anything for the wrongs endured in lite, they
have been amply yielded in the " immortals" which
now grace the Roman tomb of Keats, and have made
another I.3eidas tihehey, who does rot " float upon
his watery bed without the weed of some melodious
tear,"

Byron and Wordsworth were harshly used by
their reviewers ; but they could themselves criticise
harshly, and let us odd, utjustly. The latter spent.
hours with
Thomas Roscoe, railing at Campbell, and de-
scribed the most megnificent lay of Burns as " over-
rated stuff—miserable insanity, without a thought, with-
out an icauge." We all re member how bittsrly be was
assailed by the rosiniug
poet of Newste4d Ab-
et-y, who seldom missed iho opportunity to aim a blow
at the—

Clumsy, frowsy poem, called the "Excursion,"
Writ in a terweer that is my aversion.
Or at " the warbling wag oot, r"whose ;bymes be cern-
pared to the cracking 01 a
- Ploughman's whip. From
Ihe same pen also descnded those rockier's lashes which
galled "Bob Southey,"_,. turncoat Southey', that incar-
nate lie,"..—epithets with which a
poet should never soil
nis page. Nor did Byron ever display himself more
unworthy of his get ius than when he spoke of the beau-
if ul writings of Dean Milman, us effusions from " the ex
of verse, who ploughs for ever
ylikened the stsuzis o line," th 'ugh he wasi
perhaps, more correct whsn he
likened biograi her to " gilded icic,es."
"
the author of Childe Harold was in the humour to utter
a sarcastic thing, he little eared on whom or what his
Arrows fell, whether on Campbell's "droutby hippoar,ebe,"
or Wordsworth's " crkz -(1 beyond ail hope ; ' or " drunken Coleridge," or .
' quaintand mouthy Southey' '
or Walter Savage Landor, that " deep-mouthed Bceo-
thin." Byron, also, if he could spit venom on an enemy,
waswas capable of superb laudation on a friend—as On
When, however,

The lyre and laureTlsoovff arehtroimumphaegtaisroe tn2g,,
He won them well and may he w
Em long!
This miscalled criticism, however, aids little the
victory of solid literature over the concoctions of
quackery. It is no less ridiculous than that of the
Irishman, who onco reviewed a poem in which the
word key was rhymed with sea. He seriously declared
"
it was a barbarous blunder, or at least a poet's license
carried beyond the limits of the most extended tolera-
tion. For," he concluded,
" to justify the rhyme, kay
must be supposed to be pronounced hee l''
,
This Milesiso critic was prof) big wise in his gene-
ration as his brother of the sans: a
cs-atts who tells us that
Churchill as a poet, is "drivelling' and dull,"—" by
nature uninspired, untaught by art." But P"rbel;" the
most offensive instance ot critical vulgarity was afforded
many years ago by the Dubin University Review, which
little resembled then the mild and equitable censor now
reigning under a similar title in the Irish copal. Tte
reviewer had exhau,ted his acidulous ink upon one ot
Campbell's poems ;
a Campbell should write ill,
Say; he had not a point belt to attack; a line remaining
to dissect. S
But his rancour was not yet satisfied. . o
from the book he turned to the author, and was suffi-
ciently he had not another fierce word to
dlerltly gross to tell his readers that there was no won-
der"eyes cold
thil_d, glassy, like those of a dead haddock." This, never-
theless, though more directlyEd was perhaps
less malicious express ,
than the insinuation of a famous London
reviewer, when, after speaking of Thalaba, be added
this ungracious sentence :—" Of Mr. Southeyhimself we
critique since be had
know nothing, and we desire to know nothing.'
Philosophers pretend to be careless of opinion; but
poets, whatever they affect, very seldom are indifferent.
Wordsworth professed never to read a criticism on his
own works; but Keats, as I have said, perished under
the hand of Gifford; Kirk White was blasted by one
almost to death
: B.
Lho.;weitvewr ; Havrkesvvorth is said to have died un-
der the who swarmed like wasps
assaults of reviewers,
andinto the sunshine
; a single stroke of raillery wounded Racine
stung him just as he was emerging
by Dennis; and' even Newton cut short a friendship of
of popularity • Pope writhed under the tortures inflicted
twenty years' duration with one who
had uttered an un-
favourable criticism on some of his works.
proportion
gave Kirk White a name;
reviewers, most owe their reputation to their critics. It
w,- He.„the Literary Gazette which won a laurel wreath for
to his genius, some esmuuothaeuythworhsohave been injured by their
it was Leigh Hunt who rescued John Keats from the as-
persions of those who wished to tie their heavy reviews
as the reviewer is great, does the exultation of the au-
thor he praises rise. Sheridan brt,ke into tears of joy
when he learned that Byron had uttered a laudation of
his powers. In some insteoces, indeed, the
and sink it into oblivion. And in
panegyric
of the •
Ilseitt, for example, amiably-disposed nas been as absurd, though not
so contemptible, as the detraction of the envious or un-
kind declared that the " Lao-
damia" was a poem fit only to be read in Elysium. It is
not easy to determine which is most injurious to the
author,—this unscrupulous rancour, or that inconsi-
d'rate Partiality; whe[her Turner lost more whop it
was said that his pictures were " mere daubs of yoke of
egg." or Rogers, when his compositlonS were described
as superior to those of Coleridee and Shelley.
Good poets are often bad critics. and sometimes false,beoause
jealous. Anna Seward,—who was bend;j
vain enough to boast that she could translate an ode of
Horace while curling her hair,—tells us that when
Darwin had published his " Botanic Garden," in
couplets, he never would read blank verse again.
Samuel Johnson, ends his review of " Paradise
Lost' by saying, that its perusal is rather a duty
than a pleasure; he also said that the diction
of Lycidas was harsh, and its rythm unpleasing: " he
would hang a dog that should read that poem twice."
" What then," asked a lady, " must become of me, who
can say it by heart?" "Die," replied the Goth, "of a
surfeit of bad taste." Now the contradictions of genius

are surprising when, in opposition to this, we find
Wanton declaring that your opinion of Lycidas decides
,
wuether you have a " true taste for poetry or not." But
I Boswell's bear could not appreciate Milton. As he con-
fessed to Beattie, he never read him through till be
wanted to get words for his dictionary. Of Shakspere's
sonnets he also wrote—" Of the best it can only be said
that they are not bad." Pope condemned the author of
Hamlet as writing in "the style of a bad age," and re-
Ben," too, was indifferent as a critic. S
gretNd that he had not copied Sackville more! "Rare
pleased him not, nor his manner." Sbakspere" wanted
art, and sometimes sense. Waller saw nothing in Milton
but "an old blind schoolmaster, who had written a dull
poem, remarkable for nothing but its length." Milton
preferred Cowley to Dryden. Dryden esteemed Catherine
Philips above S'ppho; and asked permission from the
penser's stanzas
bard of Paradise Lott to turn that poem into rhyme?
It was he, too, who eulogised Lord ELlifax as " the
kreatest and Lord Rascommon as equal to M-
I r,..,ce or Virgil. But these were flatteries which should
have made the receivers of thew blush. What, how-
ev,r, could be expeceil from a critic who admired that
Rymer aho tells us that the character of Desdemuna is
below that of arty
Gray thought Voltaire had no genius but for writ-
ing play s. and scorned tt-o reoct exqui-ite productions
of R in,seau. " David Hum, ," he raid, .4 was an infant
all his life, though unhappily he was taught to read and write."

Obviously, ther, fore, when vets begin predicting, and
annuttocin:4 the dis,rlbut ion ut renown, fur their curate®
puraries, it is not always true that—

The name
Of poet and the prophet is the same.
On the contrary, the most lauded writers have.
frequently had the most short-lived reputations
Pet- r Pit,dar. though translated into many languages'
is now decay irg in the dus'; and atter the ephemera;
brilliaEce or a few reasons' popularity, thousvnds of
names vanish and dissipate like vapours from the
hill. Maccabe gives a good satirical imitation of one
of there exuberant panevyrics. supposed to be a friendly
criticism from the Mudford Chronicle;—" Ferdinand
Count Schwellinbach.—A tale of the Sclavonic race.—
We welcome with delight this new proof of the genius
of the author of Baptista, or the Traitor's Grave. It is
indeed, an unlooked-forwaheeicehssioonurto
literature
t us truer e sh
happily
priloy-
man
abouteicds.ficltinon it, with
we find the broad and genial humour of
Fielding; the cutting sarcasm of Smollett; and the deep
tone of feeling and sentiment which pervades the works
of Sterne; the whole work-d up with a power which is
only displayed at intervals in the eplendid fictions of
Scott; and a sunny gleamirs which is only seen stream-
iarover the pftgeor Avon bard!" _

Exaggerated this may seem, but I have read as un-
diluted encomiastics on the must squalid performances in
oar own day, Criticism, however, is far more bonist
than it was fifty years ago, and fur more judicious. Good
writers may be "cut up," or, which is worse, they may
be riegtecteo, while quacks may be puffed into an evanes-
cent renown; but on tho whole, there is a temperate and
candid tone in the critical literature of the day. After all,
however, time is the great judge. Mighty floats of folios,

cia.AVtos, octavos, end shining but:Prtssed "twelves?'
are perpetually drifting into oblivion; but the stars of
real light shine with an eternal lustre. Dr. Howard,
11111111 g the reign of George the Second, collected copies
a more than tour hundred editions of _Horace. That is
the true monument of an atrhor's f awe. Meanwhile,

however, the critics have great power; they are improv-
tug their use of it, and it is to be hoped that this branch
of literature will rise to the elevatton it deserves to oc-
cupy• j, for one, since I began these remarks, have
mingled some honey with my ink, and taken the quill of
a dove instead of the steel pen, so that with this soft
quivering pinion,dipped in a phial of sweeter solution,
the books I review in future, shalt with more charity be
treated ! THE CRITIC REPENTANT.

18k?.

THE IN COME-TAX.

Those of our contemporaries who most loudly
clamour for a graduated income-tax, judiciously
evade the trouble of investigating the theory of taxa-
tion by an incessant appeal to common sense—or, in
other words, to the uninstructed popular judgment on
a purely scientific question. On the other hand, the
actuaries who were examined before the Committee
display abundant ingenuity and arithmetical skill, as
well as a general indifference to the practical difficul-
ties which might result from the adoption of their
proposals. Tneir calculations are unassailable, and
their conclusions infallible, on the assumption that
they have stated the question correctly. One of the
most judicious of their number observes, with con-
siderable acuteness, that the present impost is unjust
so far as it tails partly on income, and partly on pro-
perty. But. the whole of the arguments in favour
of gradca'ton are based on the assumption
that no distinction whatever ought to be made
between income and capital. The scheme fur
converting every income into a perpetuity, by
taeir.g only the interest on its assumed marketable
worth, is founded on a most arbitrary fiction. As an
ordinary rule, men live on their annual receipts, and
not on 3 per cent. of their saleable value. There are,
of course, exceptions, but all the actuaries in England
will fail to persuade any reasonable person that the
rare operation of cepitalivng a professional income
forms the rule of private economy. If, in point of
tact, a lawyer, aged 40, with an income of 1,0001. a-
year—which would be worth, as Mr. Williams in-
forms us, seven years' purchase—were considered by
himself and his neighbours as the owner of 2001. a
Year, the State might safely assess him at that sutn,in
the expectation that it would descend to his children.
But, in reality, the income is transitory, and so is the
per tentage levied by the tax gatherer ; nor would the
assessment be etric.ly just, even on the assumption
which we have suggested. Professional incomes have
been adjusted With some reference to the wants of
the recipient, as
position proportioned to his education and
, and assuredly the foundation of an heredi-
tary estate was never l cons 'dered one of the indispen-
sable necessaries of professional
existence.
The Popes of the
17th century were accused of
undue greediness when
-they created perpetual appan-
ages or principalities for their
ntephe
orillegitimate
i
sons. In England, however,
wouldt seem, accord•
ing to the judgment of some ofh
ecclesiastical incomes are principal] e witnesses, that
ntechnded to found
patrimonies for the descendants
ofYf principally intended i
e aincumbent.
A. bishop or a prebendary of TO is to be
fixed on the
the full
assumption that he will leave his familyvalue
of his preferment, subject to a small deduction for his
own life interest. Some of the richest prelates of
present day would, according to the scheme in
whichthe
all the actuaries concur, be assessed at not more than
one-fifteenth or one-twentieth part of their actual re.
venues. It is surprising that gentlemen mo competent
to calculate individual chances, should have forgotten
that a large number of casualties virtually amount to
a certainty. The entire income of the Church is a
perpetuity, though all existing incumbents may
possibly die to-morrow ; yet the witnesses deem
it demonstrably just—and some of our contemporaries
echo the assertion—that the revenues of the Cburcb,
as compared with hereditary property, should be at
once increased by a definite and calculable per ten-
tage. The incomes of the legal profession, being held
by a more insecure tenure, will doubtless receive a
still larger advantage. The landlord will not find
that, on an average of years, he pays less to his soli-
citor than formerly; but he will have the satisfaction
of knowing that he also pays income-tax for the
purpose of ensuring the lives both of attorney and
counsel. Nor will his steward fail to dative a similar
benefit. In former days, two or three per cent. on
the rental may, perhaps, have been considered a
sufficient remuneration for agency. But new
lights have arisen. The rental, being hereditary, is
subjected to income-tax; but service, prover-
bially, is no inheritance, and the steward's place
may not be worth three years' purchase. The tax,
therefore, is levied, lin his case, on the interest of
three times the annual value, while the employer
pays on thirty-four times his yearly revenue. Atter
the expiration of the three years, be must still pay
the same or another steward; but he will not the
less continue liable to the same disproportionate as-
sessment. Under such circumstances, one of two
results must ensue. Either a general readjustment
of salaries and of professional remuneration must take
place—or the entire sum paid by the community, in
the form of fees and wages, must be proportionally
increased by the exact amount which the actuaries
and their friends propose to deduct from the tax on
precarious incomes. Until this obvious consequence
has been explained and justified, theoretical reasoners
will concur in that disinclination to change which
practical politicians entertain on grounds of fiscal
convenience. It is scarcely necessary to add that
any diminution of salaries to meet a graduated in•
come-tax would itself prove that the new-tangled
system introduced an anomaly.
While the scientific advocates of fiscal inequality
are considering this diffisulty, we may conveniently
turn to the so-called objections of common sense—
one of which is urged by a correspondent of our own,
under the appropriate signature of " Ignoramus,"
who prefaces his remarks with the candid admissior,

"I am very ignorant." We have no doubt that
" Ignoramus" at least understands his OVVLI affairs too
well to have engaged in the ruinous transaction which
he has thought tit, to convert from an h) pothesig into
narrative. It will be observed that the bargain
which he &sot ibes was made "a short time since "

at a period, therefore, when the income- tax bad ex-
is,ed for ten years, and was likely to coninne for
•en years more. We can assure " Ignoramus " that,
although eminent actwies may have forgotten so
trifling a consideration, no purchaser of any securi'y
can be affected by an impsr, however urjust origi-
"llY, which existed at the time of the coninct.
Our correspond, nt, on his own showing, deliberately
incurred the loss of which he complains. Jr there
were an income tax ofso per cent. on short annuities,
a purchaser, with notice of the burden, could he in
no way injured or aggrieved. "Ignoramus" states

his ca,e thus:—
" 90/ per annum, dividend on 3:0001. Three per
Cent. Consols, has been my income hitherto, exempt
from tax. A short time since a friend, (,n the eve of
his departure from England, had immediate occasion
for 3,0001. I sold my stock; lent him the money at
the same rate of interest that it yielded in Consols
(3 per cent.), he givinc, me a charge upon his estate.
I was to be repaid in three years, 1,000/, in each year.
in the ordinary way the money wuuld have come
back to me thus :—End of
lat year 1,000/., with interest on 3,000/..... 1,090/.
21 „ 1,000/., If 2 0001 .... 1,0601
31 sr 1,0001. r 1,0001..... 1,0301.

In all 3,1801.
By re-investing in Consols 1,0001. of toe first receipt,
the dividend thereon, added to 601. of the second,
retained as incotne, would leave 1 0001. again to re-
invest; and the dividend on the 2,0001.. added to 301.
of the third, would leave another 1 000/, which, re-
invested, would replace me as I was bi-tore ; I in each
year having hid the same income, 901.
"But, to meet the convenience of my friend, I
agreed to take a charge on his estate entitling me to
receive 1.0601. in each of the three years, amounting
I
in the aggregate to the same sum of 3,180/. And
now find myself in this position :-.._if •
tax is continued at its present rate, and
the income-
to apply, as it now does, to temporary is made
_ porary as to
perpetual annuities, as some
pondents contend that it of your corres
n a
years—viz,,
et a froth
vi tax,z
ought, then, as I
have now an annuity for three ears of 1,060/.
3p
,elrBaonl.7i
nm ,t,
hnot
threee x :
91218, b 411519 b e
besidestaxed
00:
the dividends on the first two investments" "making?
all more than 951 ; and as I enotteke as my in-
come more than 90/.—in three yaears 2701.-00 w,hic-
this tax of 951 falls with a weit exceeding 3`" per
cent., I must, therefore, either limit my expenditure
to 551. per annum, or I must cut into the
PrjaciP
That such a transaction should have tsakwene placehave
during the existence of the income-
taxtt'oast inconve-
shown, practically impossible.
°let
the first imposi-
nience which could arise, except
oauragement of har-
den of the tax, would be the dile& It may, indeed,
gains in the particular form uPP
8 under the actual law, if pro-
be doubted whether, evenu
sum would have been
perly enforced, the
w, ,8 capital
replaced. Bat if the
liable to duty as ito-i aorannts" assumes, the in-
were interpreted as
resultti would only be attributable
convenience of the
eof
general terms. When Par-
to the unavoidable
tat
on annuities, it is not on the
liarnent inneetssauch incomes are mere instalments of
supposition that
purchase-money of an estate is paid
a debt. If the P instead
• 1 sums, of in one, it is evidently
in three annuli . .
• ble to the impost. The case suggested by our
not ha
correspondent is
• of a similar kind ; and a puzzle will
always arise as to the precise boundary line between
income and property. Thirty or twenty years ago
the Government Long Annuities were universally
treated as income ; and when the income-tax was im-
posed in 1842, by tar the greater part of that Stock
was held under the same character. No
has purchased since that year has a right to con3plain
of a tax which must have been taken into account in
his bargain. But, in 1852, the Long Annuities
which will expire in 1860 have naturally come to be
treated only as a matter of speculation, or,
in other words, as capital. The purchaser
at the present time intends to re. invest his re.
ceipts, after deducting the ordinary rate of interest—
in other words, he is practically acquiring a per-
petuity ; and so long as a belief in the permanence ofl
the present income-tax prevails in the market, he may
effect this object on as advantageous terms as if the
impost had never been devised. A respected cor-
respondent,
who signed himself " A Cipitalist," will,
we are convinced, not dispute this qualification of the
conclusions at which he arrived on the assumption of
a new tax being about to be imposed. As a general

rule, it may be said that the tax on incnme ought
not to be levied on propert.v. Short annuities, pur-
chased without notice of tin+ tax, may perhaps belong
rather to the head of capital than to that of revenue;
but life annuities, on the other' hand, and those which
may be expected to last during the life of the annui-
tant, belong to the bead of incon.,e. If the Legisla-
ture has failed to distinguish between these different
forms of investment, it is at least satisfactory to know
that the lapse of ten or eleven years, during which
purchases and sales have been made with reference to
the income-tax, has gone far to correct the anomaly.
—Chronicle.