ceed without preparatory study and selfculture directed to the precise end in view. Of this, however, we will say more in subsequent pages.

One of the reasons which tell against the mere outside adventurers is this-that every editor is surrounded by known and tried contributors, who now and then wish to recommend or bring forward others. Friendly feeling weighs with editors, like other people; and so it ought. You, the outsider and stranger, may send a fairly good paper to a given periodical; but unless it is very decidedly better than any which the literary adherents of the periodical contribute, among whom are personal friends of its managers, why should the editor give you the preference? He may be ever so ready to give you a chance; but, alas, it is morally certain that he has arrears, perhaps six months long or more, of good articles from valued contributors, some of whom are pressing him, more or less gently, to give them a preference.

Besides this, there is the policy of the periodical to carry out, or its character to maintain. This is a matter upon which the managers must be the judges, without appeal; and they will mentally have their own notions of the way in which the subject-matter should be, so to speak, mixed or beaten-up. The nicest shade of difference or resemblance or relevancy or irrelevancy (with reference to other articles or to current topics) may determine the acceptance, the rejection, the insertion, or the delay of an article. Then, again, reasons of personal feeling often induce a kind and conscientious editor to "pack" his periodical in a manner which he would, for its immediate prosperity's sake, prefer to avoid. That is, he may feel it his duty -nay, even in rare cases, his interest-to insert articles which the general principles of his procedure would certainly exclude. He might know that the public had had too much, for instance, of the Irish Church question, and yet be in such a position with regard to the author of an article toomuch on that subject as to feel that it would be unkind or even unfair to refuse that article. In fact, the considerations which determine the packing of a magazine are incalculably intricate.

The question of the value of personal influence in advancing the beginner who is attempting to find his way into literature, has always, so far as my reading goes,

been untruthfully described. We have been constantly told that in literature introductions are of no use; merit everything. But why should literature be unlike any other thing under heaven in this respect? Put the case of obtaining an audience wholly irrespective of profit. Here, the speaking-trumpet that falls to a man's lot is of the very utmost moment. If he happens to have something strikingly appropriate to say of an immediately exciting topic, he has a chance of being able to get a good speaking trumpet. I am thinking now of the "Letters of an Englishman," which, as far as I know, were at once admitted to the Times solely on the strength of their merit and their applicability. But it is very rarely that so many favorable conditions concur as happened to unite in that particular case. In ninety-nine instances out of a hundred the value of an introduction in getting a writer a good speaking-trumpet is immense. A celebrated name is a kind of introduction which will illustrate the subject very well. Mr. Matthew Arnold, for example, inherits a name which is historical, and which has all the effect of most powerful introductions. Apart from his genuine capacities and high culture, he had been immensely indebted, as a political and social critic, to the speaking-trumpet-the Pall Mall Gazette-which personal accidents placed in his power. There was not another organ in the world in which his peculiar communications would have been welcomed and would have found, at once, so favorable and so large an audience. The Pall Mall Gazette was itself an accident, and the circumstances that gave him his speaking-trumpet were a sort of accident and nothing else. For myself, while the most felicitous literary incident of my life was what people would call fortuitous as well—that is, I was indebted to no introduction for it-I assert that it is mere rant and fustian to deny the value of introductions in literary business matters. They will not procure success for bad work, but they give a particular piece of ordinary good work the exceptional chance which is necessary for the acquisition of a footing. And for business purposes that is everything. It is true, all this applies more to journalism than to other kinds of literary work. But this just covers the largest field of all, and the field in which the competitors are, upon a superficial

view, the most nearly equal. Now, the hasty view which, alone, an overworked editor is able to take of the pretensions of a new-comer is necessarily superficial. So very few persons have the requisite faculties for judging of poetry, that that is in a very peculiar position. Here, and in Here, and in the better sorts of fiction, introduction can do we may say-nothing. Perhaps a real gift for poetry, or a real gift for story-telling, is of all literary gifts the one that is most sure to find its own way. The number of persons who can tell a good story from a bad one is very considerable; so that though a new-comer, with startling peculiarities, may be snubbed here and there, the beginner in fiction, if really capable, stands a good chance. On the other hand, though the number of people who can tell poetry from mere good verse is few, it is easy, a certain degree of merit once reached, to get poetry printed. And then, the few who do know poetry have a quick scent for it. So those who have cast bread upon the waters in that kind may rest tranquilthey have been, or will be, found out. Besides, though it costs something, it is not so very difficult to get a volume of poetry into print now-a-days. And poetry is, I repeat, almost certain to be found out by somebody. This remains true, in spite of the fact that there is sometimes a conflict of verdicts. The least competent and most adverse critic of Keats and Wordsworth would not have denied, upon being pressed, that the differentia of their minds was poetic; the rest, it will be observed, was mere matter of (what is called) taste. The radical question put by the man who thinks he sings is, "Do you acknowledge this for singing?" All the praise in the critic's ink-pot that does not go to this point should be held worthless; all the blame that admits this point may be borne with, however unjust or foolish. The following passage is quoted from an American periodical of high standing:

"Perhaps no taste differs more than literary taste. Men of trained judgment and

rare culture differ from each other almost as much as the boor and the philosopher. This is shown in the popular magazines, not only

What the

The

This crude bit of comment may well be taken as an illustration of some of the foregoing hints. No doubt one magazine may reject what another will insert. 0: course a religious Review might decline what a secular Review might welcome. But that is not all, or half; for the question goes far beyond "literary taste." The condition of the editor's pigeon-holes is a ruling element in the case. Galaxy may reject a piece of "subjective" verse because it is already overdone with such matter, while Putnam may run short of it just then. Or, again, an article may be declined because if published in a particular magazine it might "take the edge off" an article or series of articles projected at the time. If an editor had engaged a well-known contributor to write for him a set of papers on a given topic. he would almost certainly decline to insert a casual paper on the same or a similar topic which happened to reach him at In fact, there are about the same date. a hundred, or a hundred thousand, ways in which a really good article may be "not suited to our pages."

There remains a most important subject; namely, that of the education or preparation for literary labor which one should in some way undergo before enter ing upon it. This, with the subject c what is called cliqueism, I beg leave to defer to a second chapter.

MATTHEW BROWNE.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE PORTRAIT.

PAUL was ushered into a room on the ground-floor of the house in Park Lane.

A gentleman sat near the fire at a small table covered with newspapers and reviews, but the room itself attracted Mr. Whitmore's notice before he so much as glanced towards its occupant.

It was large enough for a library, but there was a lack of books and bookshelves; there were cabinets filled with old china and other quaint rarities, a few good oil pictures on the walls, but the decoration of the room itself was more attractive than its contents: the walls were divided into large square panels, the dull red ground of these relieved at wide intervals by gold stars, the panel mouldings of satin-wood and ebony; the wainscoting was of pure ebony, and the mouldings at top and bottom of satin-wood. The ceiling was covered with arabesques in blue and red, relieved by gold bosses.

It was too full of color and splendor to be quite in good taste. But Paul had not time to take in the details of this magnificence; he merely guessed that the proprietor of such a mansion must be very wealthy, and that he was probably fond of

art.

There was a complacent, well-kept air about Mr. Downes, which gave the notion of acquired wealth; his clothes, his very hair and whiskers, had the look of being newly put on.

"Good morning, Mr. Whitmore"-he bowed, but not as to an equal; "you painted a portrait for my cousin, Mrs. Winchester, which I am much pleased with; Mrs. Winchester recommended you to me, in fact. You are a portrait painter, I conclude?”

"No" (a smile began to curve Paul's mouth), "I am not a portrait painter; I painted Mrs. Winchester to please a friend of mine."

Mr. Downes looked slightly discomposed.

"Ah! but you will have no objection to paint Mrs. Downes, I suppose?"

"I object to paint a mere portrait, but I shall be glad to make a picture of

Mrs. Downes so long as I do it my own way."

"Dear me, what a very foolish person -he does not know how to get on in his profession at all." Aloud Mr. Downes said: “Ah, indeed, I leave you to settle that part of the business with Mrs. Downes; I fancy no one can help making a picture of her."

Mr. Downes went to the bell and rang it. "She's a beauty, I suppose," Paul thought; "or her husband thinks she is."

"When will it suit you to have the first sitting, Mr. Whitmore? Mrs. Downes will prefer being painted at home."

"Yes," said Paul, "that will suit me best." Since his marriage he had avoided receiving sitters at the studio in St. John Street. "This day week about this time-I could not begin sooner."

Mr. Downes sent up a message to his wife, and while he waited for the answer he graciously condescended to show Paul his pictures.

Here he admitted equality; and Paul's manner softened as he grew interested, for some of the pictures were remarkable ; but still his first impression of Mr. Downes remained, and when he went away that gentleman repeated to himself—

"Very foolish, conceited person that; I shall not tell Elinor how abrupt he is, or she may change her mind about the portrait. She was unwilling enough at first to let him do it, but I must have it. I never saw a picture that I liked so much as that likeness of Henrietta. He's clever; but what high-flown nonsense these artists talk! They should be thankful to get a commission instead of laying down the law how it shall be executed. Lucky for Mr. Whitmore that I saw his likeness of Henrietta before I saw him.

Mr. Downes was very much in love with his wife, and he considered the artist a fortunate fellow indeed who was honored by a commission to paint her loveliness.

He went up to her sitting-room to ask her if she were quite sure that the day he had fixed suited her. But when he opened the outer door there was a sound of angry voices; he drew back and shut it again.

"Poor dear Elinor, I never heard her speak so loud before. I feel sure that Miss Coppock is tiresome; really Elinor's championship of that woman is most surprising; I can't bear the sight of her, she is so ugly. I believe all ugly females should be destroyed when children: we might copy the Greeks in this respect with advantage."

When Mr. Downes reached his writingroom again, he looked round it with complacency.

"Ah! I saw that fellow's eyes taking in the decoration. Yes, I don't fancy many rooms in London will beat this style of thing as a whole. I wish I had shown him the other rooms-and yet I don't know; those sort of people live in such a small circle, and have such restricted notions, that he might think I was proud of my house. Well, considering what a sum it has cost to ornament it in this way, I suppose a mere vulgar, moneyed man would be proud."

Mr. Downes went back to his newspaper with the comfortable reflection that, at any rate, his hands had never been soiled by making money.

His wife's words, if he had heard them, would have troubled him more than their loudness of tone did.

"I thought it was quite understood, Patience, that you are to forget all I do not wish remembered. Mr. Whitmore will paint my portrait quite as well as any other artist, I suppose; and if my husband chooses him, I really cannot refuse to employ him."

Mrs. Downes, as she spoke, stood looking at herself in a tall narrow mirrow between the windows of her room. It was difficult to feel angry before such a lovely picture; her long trailing black velvet robe gave her height, and suited perfectly with the calm dignity with which she reproved Miss Coppock; the only betrayal of anger had been in the raised tone of voice.

Miss Coppock was seated by the fireside, warming her feet; she had regained her old paleness, but all evenness of skin had left her face, and her eyes had lost their fire; her dress was ill chosen-a ruby silk with elaborate trimmings and frillings; its want of repose added to her gaunt, haggard appearance.

At Mrs. Downes's last words a slight flush came into Patience's face.

"Oh, Patty, how can you! Why ar'n't

you honest? You know you want Mr. Whitmore to see your grandeur.”

Miss Coppock,"-Mrs. Downes turned her head, so as to get a distinct view of her face in a new position,—“I wish you would try to remember my name; pet names are well enough for children, but I have left off being a child."

"You never were a child :"-this was muttered. between Patience's set teeth: she made a struggling effort to compose herself before she answered.

"I don't often advise you now; I'm willing to admit you are capable of guid ing yourself;" a sudden parting of Patty's lovely lips gave a hint that she too had been mastering some impatience; “butat your age, you can't know men as well as I do, and I'm sure it's neither fair to your husband nor to Miss Beaufort-I mean Mr. Whitmore's wife-for you to give him these sittings."

"You said something of this kind once before, Miss Coppock, and I told you then that you mistook your office. One would think"-Patty broke out in a laugh, which brought back all the old winning look into her face-"you'd been born in Spain. where, I believe, women always have a female gaoler; but as I'm not likely to forget my position or what I owe to it, you needn't play duenna, or whatever it is, here. Now don't be cross; if you didn't run away so pertinaciously as you do from Mr. Downes, I should say you were in love with him; you are always taking his part."

It was happy for Patience that Patty's mind was bent on deciding which was the best side of her own face; and she did not look round at her companion. The blood rushed up to Miss Coppock's forehead, the dull eyes lightened for a moment with an expression that was very like hatred for the bright, beautiful creature sunning herself in the glow of her own reflected loveliness actually feasting on the picture made by her flower-like skin and blue eyes and fair gleaming hair. A casual looker-on might have thought Mrs. Downes had a danger ous companion, and that in all probability this ugly, ill-tempered woman would work her a mischief: but if the looker-on ha waited, this idea would have fled. Every movement of Mrs. Downes was soft and easy, in keeping with the exquisite repose of her beauty, but there was nothing undecided about her. She walked across the room to the sofa with a firm step, ar