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to supplant by literæ fictitiæ. He even takes for granted a knowledge of Greek and Latin. How many of our young and cultured critics of to-day could construe a sentence of Xenophon? Novels (with a little very modern and minor poetry) serve their turn. They could not answer this excellent question: How far do (1) Mr. Delvile, senior, (2) Mr. Dombey, embody the magnanimous character of Aristotle's Ethics? And can we recognise in either the former or the latter more than an ideal and practically unattained standard of the virtue they embody?' • The magnanimous man is ὁ μεγάλων αὑτὸν ἀξιῶν, ἄξιος ὤν: he who justly thinks no small beer of himself.' Both Mr. Delvile and Mr. Dombey thought no small beer of themselves-on different grounds, indeed, but on grounds wholly inadequate. They are about equally incensing. But, clearly, the eager students of literæ fictitiæ cannot fairly be asked to know anything about Aristotle. I myself was lately compelled to lecture in a large provincial town, and offered the manager a long string of subjects, from Psychical Research to the Decline of British Bowling, the town being the centre of a famous cricketing county. However, I was told that they wanted a lecture on Novels. Novels, and nothing else, spell culture for the modern public. I rather baffled them by lecturing on the Poetics of Aristotle, and the application of his ideas to recent fiction. Except for a few bold spirits they had to sit it out; but culture was thus merely forced by a kind of violence on readers of the cheap magazines. We cannot force them to come into a school of literæ fictitiæ on classical principles.

Again, the founder of the school occasionally asks other serious questions.

'What moral features appear inseparable from the ideal hero of Charlotte Brontë, as arrived at by abstraction from the three prominent male characters in "Jane Eyre," "Shirley," and "Villette"?'

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They are all harbitrary gents,' and Miss Brontë's ideal hero seems to have been a high-handed personage-one who would let a lady'know he was there.'

Once more: Mark the progress of society towards philanthropy by comparing (1) the tone of Fielding's novels, (2) of the earlier and later works of Dickens.'

In fact the tone is much the same: Fielding always taking up the cause of the poor and oppressed. But Fielding published

a definite system for dealing with pauperism, while Dickens, with Mr. Bumble, was content to cry that whatever is, is wrong. The student might have been asked to compare Smollett's moral objections to the existence of hospitals, probably to be accounted for by some personal feud with some other physician. The medical studies of Roderick Random might also be compared with those of Bob Sawyer.

What peculiar conditions of English society may be supposed to have produced the "gentleman highwayman"? Trace the history of this institution from the time of Smollett to that of Bulwer,' we might now add, of Mr. Marriott Watson.

This is an interesting question. The gentleman highwayman was evolved during the Hundred Years' War. Among other gentlemen High Toby men we may name Monstrelet, the Burgundian chronicler; Sir Thomas Gray, the author of 'Scalacronica'; and William Selby, who stopped the Cardinal and was hanged by David II. The 'Verney Papers' give us the gentleman highwayman of the Restoration, and Evelina miraculously converted a Scotch gentleman who had invested his last remaining capital in pistols, and was about commencing footpad. This is a delightful field wherein to expatiate.

As to pathos, the following questions are admirable :

'Compare, with a view to ascertain the relative excellence of their authors as pathetic writers, the death scenes of Clarissa Harlowe, Ruth, Paul Dombey, Guy Morville, Eva St. Clair, Le Fevre.'

In my poor opinion, Richardson is victorious in this contest, to which the death scene of Colonel Newcome is not admitted, perhaps because it had not yet been published. One might add the question, What pathetic death-bed scenes occur in Scott, if any?' The pass-man is asked to 'give instances from "Guy Mannering" of the true sportsmanlike spirit which characterises the author.' The reference is to Bertram and the brock. But Scott was too good a sportsman to make use of death-bed pathos. His moribunds, like Marmion and Frank Bothwell, die as they had lived, hard,' and sword in hand. This topic might be pursued to great length, and we may partly estimate an author's character by the frequency or absence of his pathetic death scenes. I know not if the death scene of old Dumbiedikes is to be reckoned pathetic: it is, a little, I think: sɔ is that of the elder Croftangry.

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Enumerate instances from your books where the pathos of a passage either arises from, or is heightened by, the agency of any of the brute creation, and analyse the source of the emotion in these instances.'

The combined death-beds of Dora and of her dog at once occur to the memory; Dickens was double-barrelling his emotional resources by killing-off hound and mistress simultaneously. Sir Henry Lee, in Woodstock,' dies with circumstances of good taste, and his dog Bevis does not long survive him; but practically no pathos is extracted. Dickens was wiser in his generation.

When our examiner asks us to point out any general affinities between the humour of Madame d'Arblay and Dickens,' he sets an easy question, for Mr. Briggs's style is precisely that of Mr. Jingle, and the rowdy Brangtons are not alien to the method of Dickens. Both Dickens and Madame d'Arblay owe a good deal to Smollett; but both were, as a rule, more truly humorous, in proportion as they were much more humane. Not one of the three shrank from caricature. The later writers illustrate a question set, on which a book might be written:

'Does the history of prose fiction up to the present time afford any grounds for conceiving its course to be subject to a law of recurrence in a cycle?'

Probably it does. We begin with romance and come to realism, and, by a natural reaction, we return to romance. Smollett had scarcely pronounced romance to be dead when he tried a little of it himself, in Ferdinand, Count Fathom,' and then came Horace Walpole with The Castle of Otranto,' and Mrs. Radcliffe. American novelists were proclaiming the death of romance just when it was reviving under Mr. Stevenson and many others. This cycle must revolve into itself while novels are read.

Fiction, Mr. Howells and others assure us, has become a much finer art in the course of the present generation. It has usurped the functions of prophecy, science, religion, and government, also of biblical criticism. Consequently papers of much larger scope ought now to be set, and we may offer a few questions more or less on a level with the high tide of progress. Thus:

1. State and discuss Miss Corelli's theory of a molecule, distinguishing, if possible, a molecule from a microbe.

2. Criticise Mr. Hall Caine's biblical knowledge with reference

to his theory of the destruction of Sodom. How far is it in accordance (a) with the Hebrew traditions, (b) with the evidence of the monuments, (c) with the higher criticism?

3. Distinguish realism from naturalism: incidentally contrasting the realism of Furetière with that of Mr. W. D. Howells. 4. Discuss the handling of the supernatural' by Scott, Mr. Henry James, and Mr. Rider Haggard.

5. Criticise the use of hypnotism by modern authors. How far is its treatment by Mr. George Macdonald and Mr. A. E. W. Mason in accordance with the teaching (a) of the Salpetrière, (b) of the Nancy schools?

6. Give a recipe (a) for an historical, (b) for a prehistoric, (c) for a scientific novel, (d) for a novel of the future.

7. Briefly sketch a romance intended to demonstrate the genuine and archaic character of the Book of Deuteronomy, showing how you would work in the love interest.'

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8. State the etymology of the word boom.' Show how a boom may best be organised. Mention the earliest known date at which the pulpit was used as an engine for booming a novel.

9. Compare the relative value, as boomsters, of the pulpit, the statesman, and the press.

10. Compare the merits, in original historical research, of Dr. Conan Doyle, Mr. Anthony Hope, Mr. Stanley Weyman, Sir Walter Scott, and Thackeray.

11. 'I never learned grammar.' Illustrate the truth of Scott's remark from his novels, and criticise the grammar of Thackeray, Miss Corelli, Dr. Conan Doyle, and Ouida, with special reference to their quotations from foreign languages.

12. Discuss American historical novels; mentioning, if you can, any examples in which Washington is not introduced.

13. Illustrate the progress of the species by the vast distance which severs the novels of Hawthorne from those of Mr. Winston Churchill (Americanus).

14. Discuss the theory that Esmond' is a work by many various hands, giving reasons for your opinion, and drawing inferences as to the unity of the Iliad.

ORIGINAL COMPOSITION.

1. Write a poem of not more than one hundred lines, on Purity, selecting Tess of the D'Urbervilles' as an ideal example of the virtue.

2. A poem, in Latin hexameters, conveying the probable sentiments of the Pope as regards Miss Marie Corelli.

3. Surrender,' a poem in the manner of Mr. Kipling, adding a glossary of technical terms, and a brief etymological analysis of such slang expressions as you may think it reasonable to employ.

4. An essay on the theory and practice of the happy ending, criticising the opinion on this subject of Charles II., and giving examples of tragedies with happy endings, in the drama of the Restoration, and in the novel of Pendennis.'

5. An essay on novels in dialect, with special reference to (a) American novels in dialect, (b) the Kailyard school, (c) the novel in Yiddish, (d) the novel in Hindustani. Is it your opinion that the legislature should interfere to abate any or all of these-novels?

6. Essay on the probable effects on English fiction of the institution of an Academy. Illustrate from the example of France, and cite novels of immaculate propriety written by authors (previously improper) under academic influence.

7. Write a letter from Henry Fielding to Mr. George Moore on the principles and practice of the art of fiction, or from Sir Walter Scott to Sir Walter Besant on the topic of publishers.

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

1. The probable consequences of a strike of novelists.

2. The advantages and disadvantages, if any, of employing an authors' agent.

3. Apply Ricardo's theory of rent to authors' royalties, showing, if you can, that their ratio depends on the profits of the authors most entirely destitute of culture.

4. Has an author a legitimate claim on his publisher for unexhausted improvements, and how does this bear on press corrections?

5. Apply the theory of unearned increment to sixpenny editions of novels.

6. In cases of collaboration, calculate the ratio of profits which should accrue to the collaborator who writes the book, and give means of discovering which collaborator merely looks on.

7. Discuss the theory of doing without a publisher, and give any reasons that may occur to you for the practical rarity of this method.