lived to suffer, and felt all that he wrote. There was a marvellous
range in his interests. He had read much, he improvised magnificently,
and there was hardly anything that he could not have done if only--but,
alas! it is idle mooning in the land of Might-Have-Beens!

The collected essays included in this volume were contributed by Mr.
Runciman to the pages of _The Family Herald_. In the superfine
circles of the Sniffy, this fact is sufficient to condemn them unread.
For of all fools the most incorrigible is surely the conventional
critic who judges literary wares not by their intrinsic merit or
demerit, but by the periodical in which they first saw the light. The
same author may write in the same day two articles, putting his best
work and thought into each, but if he sends one to _The Saturday
Review_ and the other to _The Family Herald_, those who relish
and admire his writing in-the former would regard it as little less
than a _betise_ to suggest that the companion article in _The
Family Herald_ could be anything but miserable commonplace, which
no one with any reputation to lose in "literary circles" would venture
to read. The same arrogance of ignorance is observable in the
supercilious way in which many men speak of the articles appearing in
other penny miscellanies of popular literature. They richly deserve
the punishment which Mr. Runciman reminds us Sir Walter Scott
inflicted upon some blatant snobs who were praising Coleridge's poetry
in Coleridge's presence. "One gentleman had been extravagantly
extolling Coleridge, until many present felt a little uncomfortable.
Scott said, 'Well, I have lately read in a provincial paper some
verses which I think better than most of their sort.' He then recited
the lines 'Fire, Famine, and Slaughter' which are now so famous. The
eulogist of Coleridge refused to allow the verses any merit. To Scott
he addressed a series of questions--'Surely you must own that this is