New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-03-06
4 ILTEpARY IILEI.

LIIEk4KI LIDLiA
1t is, unhappily, not the privilege Of the
American public to read many of the leading
articles of Tie London Ddiiy Telegraph. That
prosperous but sensational newspaper has be-
come celebrated throughout the British isles
for style of writing which iFreverent wits
have compared to q young lion lashinS his
tail. On all topics Of general eXcitement-a
Queens speech, "A boat race, MURDER or "a
German victOry-it il the custom of those brill
liant fellows of The Telegraph to strike an at
titude and give voice. Such language! such
noble rage! such tear-compcllng pathos
such colossal brains. a column of The
TELEGRAPH on such occasions is as good
AS a Bowery play-bill or a dime novel,
or a cyclopGdia in fifty volumes. These
writers know everything, from the Old ked
Sandstone period to the era of William L.
Gladstone They make nothing of quoting
half dozen languages in a single leader, and
ailude an the most familiar manner to MI SORTS
of obscure celebrities. from PtOlemy Softer to
1upper from Leo the Isamian to Mrs. Leo
Hunter. They izz and cOruscate like first
class fireworks, aad like fireworks they leave
nothing behind but darkness, for no man ever
yet understood what Telegraph leader meant.
The style is something like II mixture of The
Herald and The World; compound, so to
speak, of mush and spangles, astonishing to
look at and quite impossible to digest. The
great cxamplay-not to say the originatOr-of
this kind of literature and exc the pattern of
the Special Correspondent who, in certain
American newspapers, has grown to
be such IN insuiferable nuisance, is Mr..
George Augustus Sala. No man living
can quote So many big names in para
graph, guSh so much about nothing, or write
nonsense with such a magnificent appearance
OF saying good thing. He has been the
main stay of The Daily Telegraph for the last
fourteen years, and during that time has
written, as he swears, about three thousand
leading articles, "on all social topics especially
" connected with the ameliOratiOn of the con-
" ditiOn of the people, and above all cduca-
4" ton" Such young lion as this might have
terrified, we should think, even a literary re-
viewer; but Mr.. Saa has been criticised, and
has sued his critic for libel.
The offender was Mr.. j. Hahn Frswell, who has
lately Published volume on "Modern Men of
" Letters" dealing in a very free, not to say
impertinent manner, with the personal as well
as literary character of many eminent persons.
He has made bold to describe Mr.. Sala rs
man Of scholarship and ability, "yet a driveler
" of tpsy, high-hown, and high-falutin' nom
sense" Bohemian of the worst school
literary Bardolph, with cock cye-this being
an exquiSitely playful allusion to one Of
Mr.. Sala's physical defects-an adyenturer, a
reckless spcndthrift, a manufactures of lmid
romanccs, buccaneer He intimates that
"the genius gets into the hands of the Jews,
/" is often drunken, always in debt sometimes
:" in prison, and totally disreputable, living a
tort ct d trarerS the rules of society" We
must confess this is going rather too far, and
we are not at all surprised that Mr. Sala should
have hailed the publishers, MeSSIs. StoughtOn
& Holder before the Court of Queens
Bench, and asked verdict and exem-
plary damages from a sympathizing jury of
his fellow -countrymen. Mr. Sala testified that,
though his style might possibly be called sensa-
tional and his cyesight imperfect, and though
he was occasionally in the hands of the
jews" he was not always drunk, not al
ways i'll debt, nor sometimes IN prison ;"
while as to certain statements of Mr.. Friswell
involving his personal honesty, they were dis
tinctly disproved. Mr.. Sala got verdict for
$500; and considering the celebrity which he
has acquired by the suit, and the increased in
terest which will hereafter be manifested by
the public at large whenever he lashes his tail
in the columns of The Daily Telegraph, we are
inclined To think that he never earned $500
more easily in all his brilliant and busy life.
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Those BObemians are getting too smart to live