Ephemera Critica; Or, Plain Truths About Current Literature

by John Churton Collins

Walk with respect behind, while we at ease

Weave laurel crowns and take what name we please.

'My dear Tibullus!' if that will not do,

Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you."

And there is this advantage. If a sufficient number of magicians can, or will, combine, these illusions may not only serve each magician for life, but become, for a time, simply indistinguishable from realities. Now, as we said before, we see no great harm in this. It is, to say the least, a very amiable and brotherly employment; and were it quite disinterested and honest, it would be closely allied with that virtue which St. Paul exalts above all virtues. But everything has or ought to have its limits. When Boswell attempted to defend certain Methodists who had been expelled from the University of Oxford, Johnson retorted that the University was perfectly right—"They were examined, and found to be mighty ignorant fellows." "But," said Boswell, "was it not hard to expel them? for I am told they were good beings." "I believe," replied the sage, "that they might be good beings, but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field, but we turn her out of a garden."

To our certain knowledge many of those who owe their reputation to the art to which we are referring are good beings, and we have little doubt that most of those who are least scrupulous in practising it are good beings also. Indeed it may be conceded at once that there is always a strong presumption that members of Mutual Admiration Societies belong to this class. On the reciprocity of essentially Christian virtues their very existence depends. Whatever may be thought of their heads, their hearts are pretty sure to be in the right place. They may, it is true, act more in the spirit of the precept that we should do unto others as we would they should do unto us than in that of the precept which pronounces that it is more blessed to give than to receive. This, however, is a trifle—one of those distinctions without differences which are so common in Christian ethics. But for ourselves we must, as we have said before, discriminate. To the cow in the field we have no objection; it is of the cow in the garden that we complain.

To drop metaphor: there are certain spheres of literary activity in which the circulation of mutual puffery by this clique or by that clique can do comparatively little harm to any one or to anything. There are some subjects on which every reader is not only perfectly competent to form his own judgment, but is pretty certain to do so. He may amuse himself by seeing what the critics have to say, and he may be induced by them in the first instance to turn to the book which is in question, but he is practically unaffected by any opinions unless they happen to coincide with his own. Such is the case with books of travel, with novels, and, as a rule, with poetry. Here the arts of the log-roller are as harmless as the frolics of whales with tubs. No one takes what he sees seriously except those who are engaged in the pastime. If Mr. A cannot give the general public what it appreciates, nothing that Mr. B can say will cajole that public into believing that it has what it has not. Mr. C and Mr. D may vociferate, till they are hoarse, that "Mr. E is the subtlest and most discriminating critic that the English-speaking world has ever known"; but if Mr. E's eulogies of Mr. C's verses and of Mr. D's novels are not corroborated by the general reader's independent judgment, the fame of Messrs. C and D will not extend beyond their clique. If in poetry or prose fiction trash succeeds, as it undoubtedly does, it succeeds not because of the skill with which it has been puffed, though this may be a factor in its success, but because it hits the popular taste. The public is seldom deceived except when it wishes to be deceived. Log-rolling has much to answer for: it loads our bookstalls with nonsense and rubbish, it impedes the production of sound literature, it degrades the standard of taste, it degrades the standard of aim and attainment, and indirectly it is in every way mischievous to literature. But we very much question whether in the case of publications which appeal directly to general readers, and are within the scope of their judgments, the fortune of a book is in any way affected by the arts of the log-roller. Amusement mingled with impatience is probably the prevailing sentiment when Mr. C and Mr. D are loud in each other's praises. We remember the amœbæan strains of Hayley and Miss Seward in Porson's epigram:—

Miss Seward: Tuneful poet, Britain's glory;

Mr. Hayley, that is you.

Mr. Hayley: Ma'am, you carry all before you;