WRITERS OF MISCELLANEOUS PROSE
1. Gilbert K. Chesterton was born in London in the year 1874. He was educated at St. Paul’s School, then studied art, but ultimately became a journalist. He wrote much literary and miscellaneous prose for journals, and distinguished himself as a writer of much ingenuity, topsy-turvy humor, and a robust, rampageous style. His books of verse, such as Gray-beards at Play (1900), The Wild Knight (1900), and Wine, Water, and Song (1915), are quite excellent in their way: clever and vigorous, skillfully constructed, and genuinely funny. His novels are fine-spun webs of ingenious nonsense, and include The Club of Queer Trades (1905) and The Man Who was Thursday (1908). His literary and miscellaneous work, often apparently willful and inconsequent, is usually sane and substantial at bottom. His critical work is well represented by his books on Dickens and Browning, and his miscellaneous writing, gloriously Chestertonian, by Tremendous Trifles (1909) and A Shilling for my Thoughts (1916).
2. Hilaire Belloc, the son of a Frenchman, was born in France in 1870. He was educated in England, served two years with the French Artillery, and finished his education at Oxford University. Mr. Belloc has contributed to most kinds of literature. His serious verses are noteworthy for their ease and vigor, and his nonsense verses, such as A Bad Child’s Book of Beasts, are excellent fooling. As a humorist Mr. Belloc specializes in a super-solemnity of manner while he is stating the most ridiculous problems. His humor, however, rarely lacks the sharp stab of satire. His novels, like those of Disraeli, are a shrewd commentary upon our political life. They have an unwinkingly solemn humor, biting scorn scarcely concealed, and a clear and incisive style. Mr. Clutterbuck’s Election (1908) and A Change in the Cabinet (1909) come high in the thin ranks of the first-rate political novel. His miscellaneous work is often clever, whimsically learned, and often distinguished by the same parade of grave nonsense. On Nothing (1908) sets him high among modern essayists. His two travel volumes, The Path to Rome (1902) and The Pyrenees (1909), in spite of their somewhat labored mannerisms, deserve to become classical.
3. Lord Morley (1838–1923) is the sole writer of serious miscellaneous prose that we have space to mention. He was born at Blackburn, took his degree at Oxford, and became a journalist of a Radical and philosophical type. He was in turn editor of more than one important review, entered Parliament (1883), and was closely associated with Mr. Gladstone during the struggles over the Irish Home Rule Bills. He held high offices under the Liberal Government, was created Viscount Morley of Blackburn (1908), and on the outbreak of war in 1914 retired from public life.
Lord Morley wrote a great deal of literary, philosophical, and miscellaneous work, distinguished by its scholarly care and accuracy, by a deep but placable seriousness, and by a strong and flexible style. His monographs on Voltaire (1872), Burke (1879), and Walpole (1889) are models of what such brief works ought to be; his Life of Cromwell (1900) is a sane and scholarly treatment of a difficult subject; and his monumental Life of Gladstone (1903), though it lacks proportion in some respects, is a well-filled storehouse of historical fact, and, on this side of idolatry, a reverent tribute to a great man.