The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-01-04

| omitted to consider one of his great
est claims, his services and gifts as a
journalist, fer such was his chief voca-
ton, and he magIified it. He was pro-
iific and inventive. and in a certain sense
perhaps the discoverer of some features
common in modern journalism His va
r1ety was remarkable, and he very great
ly developed what is now known as So
ciety journa lism-giving social news and
disquisitions in a bright spicited style.
lie was also an interviewer, and built
no little upon what he heard. He was
bold. effective. ingenious and entertain
Ing. He held that "a good writer" was
one who wrote to please and to serve at
the same time
The late Prof William Mimic, a very
capable Scotch critic said of his tales
that tie art displayed sis simple, unique,
incommunicaLle. and lie was essentially
journal writing but for the day,
and for the greatest interest of the
greatest number of the day He car
ried his business shrewdness and calcu-
lation into his journalistic profession.
He wrote to make money Prof. Mimic
says that 'Defoe is sometimes spoken
OF as the inventor Of the realistic novel;
realistic biography would, perhaps. be
more strictly accurate description" 1t is
very certain that he frequently drew upon
his imagination for his alleged facts.
When the news came nearly two hun
dred years. ago to England that the Island
of st. Vincent had been blown up, Defoe
at once wrote vivid description of the
calamity, making a very real, although
a piece of brilliant circumstantal inven
-. He gave it as the truth, as he often
did with other imaginative displays, and
his books also abounded with this way
of writing for the entertainment of 9TH
ers. His great story, Robinson Crusoe,"
is very real, is filled with oiverting Ell
sodes given with all due verisimilitude.
He was of intense activity, prodigious
versatility, unconquerable Will, and ex-
IRENE restlessness. He was INSCRIPTIONS
and held that necessity makes an honest
man q knave." 1t rather furnishes the
necessary condition and temptation to
develop what is talent in man and to
reveal real character. l referred to his
mysterious DEATH He left his home,
lived in hiding away from his wife and
children, and died when he was some
seventy years of age at Moorfelds, at
boarding house, on 26th of April, 1871.
He did not die in poverty, but being in
debt it is thought he had gone off to avoid
annoyances from creditors. He loved his
family, and it was to save for them that
he was probably fugitive from those to
whom he was owing considerable sums
OF money. Whatever he was morally
however dencient III high principles and
q love of truth. he was a great man in
tellectually, and is no doubt one OF the
immortal few as to this life. We can
-
plague in London in 1865. In five weeks
between 22nd of August and 26th Septem-
ber-there was nearly 10000 deaths. The
average was nearly 5000 weekly. London
tehn ad about $780, 900 inhabitants. His
journal" of that most awful scourge
is full of human interest, as well as of
human suffering. He says everybody
was at peace; there was no occasion for
lawyers" and "only a nobleman or two
were left" He says that 'in our parish
of Aldgate, the dead carts were several
times. as I have heard, found standing
at the churchyard gate, full of dead
bodies; but neither bellman nor driver,
or any one else with it," Who the dead
were could not be known. They were let
down from balconies and windows.
Oliver Goldsmith in his first genuine
literary success-"E Enquiry into the Pres
ent State of Polite Learning in Europe,
published in 1759-made a vigorous at
tack upon the critics. He held that "An-
Gent learning may be distinguished into
three periods: it's commencement, or the
age of poets: it's maturity, or the age
Of philosophers; and its decline; or the
age of critics." Goldsmith had previous
ly essayed the role of critic, and thought
we'll then of the critics and their voca.
tion. When about to publish a work OF
his own, he changed his view, and ridi-
culed the office Of the critic. Good criti-
cism is always ia order. Unfortunately
men lack taste, or learning, or judgment
or honesty, or insight, and perpetrate
wrongs in the name of criticism, and
thereby do no little harm often. Genuine
criticism, to be worth any thing, must
be judicious, calm, penetrating and fair
and implies necessarily that there be q
standard. Unless critics are really fami-
liar with the great authors, what kind
of standard must they possess? No opin-
ion of the excellence, the quality of a
book can be valuable and safe, that does
rot imply high standard-a knowledge
of the best literatures-the best produc-
ticns of the masters, the men of power
Of theu~ht or genius. Ii you criticise
you must necessarily censurc sometimes
But this should not be the chief aim BY
any means. True, some wise criticism
Will strive to hold the scales evenly A
comparatively neglected Southern novel
ist of the old school, prior to the war
the late William Gilmore Simms, Soutl
Carolinian, said this as to criticism
Justly to discriminate firmly to estab
iish, wisely to prescribe, and honestly
to award-these are the true aims anC
duties of criticism" Wisely, felicitiousl,
stated! The books abound with example:
of crude or improper criticism. Som
great writers have been often poo
judges DR.. Johnson gave some very re
markable deliyerances, and his critica
notes on Shakespeare are often absurd
Even so great a writer and gifted
scholar as Macaulay held opinions o
some books that would be deemed absurd
later. I do not take time to cite speci
mems. 1t is very certain that a review
er is very fallible and uncertain.
Lord Jeffrey was a capital writer, al
able man, cultivated lteratus and yet
he cfrau0o hI,odorc in com.