The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-06-22
His Incessant Activity and Kindly Atti
tude Toward Authors.
(From Richard Henry Stoddard's Depart
ment in the New York Mail and
Exnress \

ment in the New York Mail and
Expressly
The English literary journals of the la.
test dates devote many columns to the
literary side of Mr.. Gladstone's character,
concerning which they are more at one
than his political career. Tn ey note the
super-abundant good nature with which
presentation copies of new books which
were showered upon him, and the use
which the writer's of these books or their
publishers, made of his letters of ac-
acknowledgement, which were generally OF
a fattering nature. "Mr. Gladstone, !"
one Of these journals declares, "helped to
make many authors famous. He read az
erything that came into his hands, and,
with piles of volumes about him, he cried
out continually for more Lord Beacons-
field said OF himself that he wrote book
when he wanted to read one; and there is
attributed to his pen q stock-letter he is
| supposed to have sent to authors who
forwarded him their books-a letter in
which he equivocally said he would lose
no time in reading them AS matter of
fact, Lord Beaconsfield rarely acknowl-
edged volume from stranger. Mr..
Gladstone frankly liked people to give
him books, and he generally took the
trouble to tell them so. If it was not a
letter. it was postcard, that the happy
author got generally to the great gain of
the publisher.
"For Mr.. Gladstone was name to sell
by, espeoially-let the irony be noted-in
the case of fiction. He gave John Ingle-
SAINT gay lot of sales, if short one;
Mdlle Ike is still indebted for his intro
duction for new friends; in the author of
Robert Elsmere, as 80 years earlier in
the author of Ellen Middleton, > he dis
covered the true preacher in the guise of
novelist, and in the vestments of the f.
male sex and he had a hail .fellow-well-
met for Hall Gaines Christian. Many
OF the literary opinions of Mr.. G Maidstone
ran to the length of magazine articles, or.
like his appreciation of Dean Hooke's
memoir. were offered in lectures. Such
announcements have their place in vol.
umes." The writer then proceeds to
mention one of these announcement"
in the shape of an elaborate critique, in
the Quarterly Review, in 1S45, of 1.-THE
Life of the Rev. Joseph Blanco White"
who Is chiefly remem bered by a sonnet
on Might, " which Coleridge praised te-
yond all measure, in which oritique he
ranked Shelley among those Opponents
OF the Christian faith who do not disguise
the bitterness OF the fruits which they
have reaped from the poisoned seed Of
their false imaginations -
Generally infallible, Mr.. Gladstone o.
casionally revised his first impressions,
and notably SO in the case of Lord Ten
nyson's Maud" concerning which he
wrote an unfavorable notice in the Quar-.
terly Review in 1855, and % years after
ward his retraction of the views therein
expressed in the following letter, which
soothed Its supersensitive author: 81 can
now see, and I at once confess that feel
ing which had reference to the growth of
the warSspirit in the outer world at the
date of that article, dislocated my frame
of mind, and disabled me from dealing
even tolerably with the work as a work
of imagination. Whether it is to be de-
sired that a poem should require from
common men good deal of effort in or
der to comprehend it; whether all that