New-York tribune., 1902-07-13

ture mildly to remark that FIaubert does not
remain the supreme novelist. In fact, to call
him that and especially with Balzac In ones
mind, Is TO come very near TO the unintelli-
gcnce for which the anonymous contributor has
so lofty contempt. We will not protest that
the laurel in this case should go to Balzac. We
simply point out that to place Flaubert upon
the topmost pinnacle is to make him a figure
OF fun.
An observer of the art of illustration It Is
cultivated in these modern days must often
have wondered just what might be at the bot
tom of the inadequacy which seems to afiict
some Of the cleverest practitioners of that art.
Again and again n book a magazine is pub
lished with a special flourish of trumpets in
honor OF the artist responsible for certain of
the illustrations. When we turn to the pictures,
often first rate in technique, we are just as
likely as not to find them out of all keeping
with the text. The draughtsman seems some
times not simply to have ignored the text, but
TO have deliberately miSreprcscntcd the authors
meaning. We suspect that what really causes
this is neither CarcleSSnesS nor malice, but too
much ambition. The illustrator is anxious
TO make an effect that will attract attention
to his own work that he treats the author as
almost a negligible quantity. The hypothesis
is strengthened by two books which have lately
come under our notice One of them is
viewed to-day another page, Mr. Barry
Pains "The One Before; the other is Mr..
JacobsS amusing novel AT SunWiCh Port"
The illustrator Of the first of these books, Mr..
Tom Browne, is q maker of unpretcntiOus
little pen sketches. Mr.. Will owen. who made
the drawings for the second. is an artist of the
same sort. Neither could be called brilliant;
neither seems anxious to rise above very
modest plane. But both are clever both enter
heartily into the spirit Of what they are asked
TO do, and both are phcnOmenaIly successful.
Thus we see that upon occasion, Mt least an
absence of high erected ambition leads to bet
ter work than is done by men who take them
selves with excessive seriousness
Mr.. C. S. Street is proposing to rejoice our
hearts with "a Book of Essays" in which he
will give us twenty-three papers grouped under
the headings, London" Books and Men" and
Various" In note printed in 1.-THE Academy
and Literature" he says Il am aware that
some critics object to ones making n volume
OF such things. Indeed they dol But il is
surely severe on a poor writer that he should
be denied judgment, such ii may be- on
his work as a whole I'VE do not see why it
is so severel In any case / have good prece-
dents" Now when Mr.. Streets book appears
we hope to find it good. 1t may very easily
be good. We have read some interesting es-
says of his. But we wish he would not talk
about his 'precedents" We hear too much of
that sort of thing. Whom does he happen TO
have in his mindl Sainte- Beuve, no doubt. and
Matthew Arnold, and Lamb, and Hazlitt. and
Andrew Lang, and so But it has often
struck us, when certain essayists of the time
have. like Mr.. Street talked OF their prece-
dents-meaning those supplied by such men as
we have just mentiOned-that they were pre-
sumptuOus, TO say the least They are very
like the mediocre novelist who asks that he
may have the license that was granted to
Fielding, like the versifiers who twaddle
sweetly about using this that form which
has been cOnsecratcd by the genius of a master.
Precedent in literature, in short, is not thing
lightly to be invoked.