The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1894-07-08
Agony Endured Over Their First
Productions.
WORK OF GREAT CRITICS.
SCARCELY ANY ARE WRITER'S OF
EMINENCE.
Political Observation-Disclosures
Croker-ShelIey and TennysOn-
Byron and Bronte-Hunt and
Observation-Disclosures Turn.

The world contains few spectacles
more pitiable than that of the young
ambitious author who, after incredible
pains and labor has finished his first
volume, has seen it go through the press
and then appear on the book stalls only
to receive a savage, slashing criticism
from some publication which by large
class of literary persons is looked up to
an authority in all such matters. Au-
thors are the most sensitive people in
the world, and withal as proud of the
first offspring Of their brains as d mo-
Their of her first-born son. AS a gen
eral thing they value their first publ
cations by the amount of labor, care and
anxiety bestowed upon them, and, as
no author is a proper judge of the merit
of mis- own writings, they are, not IN
atgray g disposed fse to regard them far ar
warrant. This being the case, they are
disposed TO look for equally favorable no.
tice from others. They expect criticisms;
that is, they say they do, but it is high
~ probable that no author ever published
his first book without, in his heart, ex-
pectng that the critics would wax en-
thusiaStic over its pages, and if here and
there they detected a fault or flaw they
would be so pleased with the genenal
tenor of the volume that they would pass
lightly and kindly over its defects. When
the contrary proves to be the case, as it
frequently does, the author RECEIVERS from
his fit of disgust and detection only to
a settled hatred for critics and criticism,
and equally to detest the one and loathe
the other. Not much experience with what
some author has called the "harDieS of
literature is required to induce a ready
belief in one of the sayings of Disraeli,
10 the effect that the critics are those
who, having themselves made failure
in literature, are unwilling to see any one
else succeed, and so descTy all merit, no
matter where or in whom it may be found.
THE GREAT CRITICS.
1t must be confessed that the history
OF literature, especially of English litera-
ture, during the present century has
gone far to confirm this apparently hasty
conclusion of the angry authors, for the
editors of the great British quarterly re-
views have been men who made no dis
tinguiShed success IN any line of litera-
ture but whose reputation, when they
had any, was derived purely from the eX-
ercise of their critical faculties; that is,
of their ability to pick flaws in the
works which were submitted to them for
judgment John Wilson Croker, of the
London Quarterly Review" was the au-
thor of a considerab BILE number of works
which are now known only by name
Everybody has read or at least has heard
of the savage criticisms he wrote for the
on be Fish P sta sh s alia of E Trs
gar "A Sketch of Ireland, Past and
Present" 1.-The Battle of Talavera.''
and his edition of "BoswelTs Life of
Johnson" is remembered, not because of
the fact that he prepared it for the press
but on account of the interesting nature
of the subject and the circumstance that
Macaulay devoted much space to paying
off old scores when he came to write a
review of it for the opposite quarterly
quarterly" wrote the "Baviad," the
'Meaviad," few transactions, and
edited several works of the early
none Of f his books tH are read G fot
day. and. indeed, so completely are
they forgotten that it is a matter of no
little difficulty to find them in any library.