could interest her ladyship in a scheme for the recovery of some buried treasure. He did not stay long, and Lady Bilberry said I ought to have known better.

'Somerville and Ross'

MISS SOMERVILLE in her explanatory preface speaks of the contents of this volume* as 'a casual collection of by-products,' and claims for them no merit save their candor and the fact that 'each represents an impulse yielded to without resistance, an inspiring interval of escape from the duty of the moment.' We know from Irish Memories that the two cousins often wrote at high pressure, but here, as elsewhere, they seem incapable of the slipshod fluency associated with literary pot-boiling. Even the slightest fragments included in this volume show the mastery of phrase, the unerring choice of the right words which suggest ease but only come from an immense capacity for taking pains. These are not chips from a literary workshop, but, with one or two exceptions, finished work, brilliant in style, rich in suggestiveness. Of the pieces now printed for the first time the most remarkable is the story "Two Sunday Afternoons' by Miss Martin. Based on what she had seen and heard in Dublin during the dark time of the Invincibles, 'it seemed to her too sordid and tragic, and she put it away and gave up the intention of publishing it.' Sordid and tragic it is, but it deserved to be reprinted if only as a standing proof that such themes can be treated with dignity and compassion. The core of the tragedy is revealed in the opening scene in St. Stephen's Green:

To the passer-by she was merely a clumsy girl, with a large head, sprawling on the shoulder of a dingy artisan, yet love and its dreadfulness were there expressed, a fire struck from the heart of life, to burn itself out in slow despairs or mild regrets, or in some sudden agony or extinction of death, such as it is best not to foresee.

*Stray Aways.

Of Martin Ross's other single-handed contributions we may notice the wonderful monologue of the Irish peasant woman in 'At the River's Edge,' who was illiterate yet full of unconscious poetry, and vivid phrases, as in the portrait of the old priest:

He was a great priest and after he died, it's what the people said, he went through purgatory like a flash o' lightning; there was n't a singe on him. Often me mother told me about a sermon he preached, and I'd remember of a piece of it and the way you'd say it in English was ‘O black seas of Eternity, without top or bottom, beginning nor end, bay, brink nor shore, how can any one look into your depths and neglect the salvation of his soul?'

From her pen, too, are the delightful papers on 'Quartier Latinities'— the diet and diversions of art students, the humors of shopping, and of the French families at play in the Luxemburg Gardens. The paper on the Dublin Horse Show in 1913, reprinted from the Spectator, is journalism, but journalism in excelsis. The work done in partnership includes the review of Dr. Joyce's English as we Speak It in Ireland from the Times Literary Supplement, which is not only a sympathetic yet discriminating notice of an admirable book, but the best summary ever written of the genesis and the genius of the AngloIrish language. To the same partnership we owe the charming carnets de voyage inspired by a trip to Denmark in 1895 and the humorous, half-rueful record of their experiences as Unionist canvassers at an election in East Anglia. Miss Somerville's own contributions triumphantly stand the test of comparison with the work done in collaboration. We may especially single out her study of Sir Jonah Barrington in 'Ireland Then and Now,' and, better still, the paper on 'Stage Irishmen and Others,' where the 'cool, temperate humor' of Miss Edgeworth is contrasted with the extravagances of

Carleton, and full justice is done to the signal virtues and limitations of Gerald Griffin. We have also to thank her for the spirited, faithful, and humorous illustrations which enrich a delightful volume.

America Explained to Britons (From Mr. Santayana's Character and

Opinion in the United States.)

'WE must face the fact,' Mr. Santayana says, 'that civilization may possibly be approaching one of those long winters that overtake it from time to time. Romantic Christendom picturesque, passionate, unhappy episode may be coming to an end. Such a catastrophe would be no reason for despair; under the deluge, watered by it, seeds of all sorts would survive against the time to come, even if what might eventually spring from them should wear a strange aspect. In a certain measure, both this destruction and this restoration have already occurred in America.' America may prove a microcosm, a sort of prophetic convex mirror. If, he goes on, there is forgetfulness and callow disrespect for what is past or alien, there is also a vigor, goodness, and hope such as no nation ever possessed before. 'In what sometimes looks like American greediness and jostling for the first place, all is love of achievement, nothing is unkindness.' Americans are a fearless people and free from malice, as may be seen in their eyes and gestures, even if their conduct did not prove it. Their soil is propitious to every seed, and tares must needs grow in it. 'In the classical and romantic tradition of Europe, love, of which there was very little, was supposed to be kindled by beauty, of which there was a great deal; perhaps moral chemistry may be able to reverse this operation, and in the future, and in America, it may breed beauty out of love.'

American Movies on the Wane

Is the British public tiring of the American film?

The extensive dismissals from the studios of Los Angeles, reported in the Daily Chronicle yesterday, make it clear that there is not the demand for American pictures which existed a few years ago.

'People who have seen really good British pictures cannot stand the rubbish which has been coming from America lately,' the proprietor of a cinema theatre told a Daily Chronicle representative yesterday.

They are tired of the monotony of the cowboy or social drama film.

Mr. C. M. Hepworth, the wellknown English producer, said that he believed that Americans no less than English people were tiring of American films of the present quality.

'Some are very good,' he said, ‘but the American system is purely commercial. Films are sold before they are produced, so what incentive is there for the producer to put his best work into the picture? One company at work in this country has sold films for release in 1923 which have not yet been produced.

'English cinema proprietors who book bundles of American films which they have not seen have only themselves to blame if they lose their audiences. With the good films are many so poor that no intelligent person can enjoy them.

'People are expressing their dissatisfaction with many of these films, and are demanding something better.'

Mr. Alfred Lever, general manager of the Stoll Film Company, said that there was little doubt that the American market was suffering from overproduction.

'America used to look to England as a great market for her pictures,' he said, 'but England is now producing

better pictures than America, and English people who have once seen the films of their own country do not want conventional American pictures. In the last twelve months America has been sending us very poor pictures. Hence the slump.

'We are showing America what we can do, for this company has set up an American organization, and is releasing one Biritish picture every week in the States. Some of our films are also going to France.'

An official of the Famous-Lasky Film Service agreed that America has overproduced films.

"The tendency now is to produce big pictures which, like plays, will run for months at a time, instead of for three or six days,' he added.

Sir Philip Gibbs as an Editor

THE Review of Reviews is to be congratulated on securing so capable a writer for the editorial chair as Sir Philip Gibbs; although our cleverest of war correspondents has yet to prove his worth in the new sphere which he has chosen. If he succeeds, it will be in the face of considerable handicap, for no publication is so closely associated with the personality of one man as the Review of Reviews. During his lifetime it was the mouthpiece of its founder, W. T. Stead, and for many years after his death his spirit pervaded its pages.

Few papers depended so much on the editorial personality as the Review of Reviews, and it will be hard for Sir Philip Gibbs to live that down, man of wide and large sympathies though he is. Personality may be a source of strength or weakness to a paper, the former when it is both fearless and honest, the latter when the pen runs away with its holder. W. T. Stead was a faddist, and the world loves such. He was also an inventor, in the newspaper sense, like Sir George Newnes. Thus his paper was himself, and it was only when his mind took the queer bent of his later years that the Review of Reviews failed to command attention.

'The Headland'

MRS. DAWSON SCOTT's remarkable book is to have an American edition. It is the story of a debased household, one of them an unspeakable degenerate, recounted with the highest literary

art.

News of Miss Ellen Terry

THE art of Miss Ellen Terry will be preserved for posterity by the cinema. Some years ago she appeared in a film, Her Greatest Performance, and she has recently taken the part of Mrs. Bernick in the screen production of Ibsen's Pillars of Society. The part is a very small one but it is enough to show the ease and dignity of Miss Terry's stage presence.

FRIENDLY chance threw in my way an old brief. What a vast amount of biographical and social history lies hidden in these foolscap folios tipped on to the solicitors' slag heap after the fires of litigation are burned out and forgotten! What would we give, for instance, for Mr. Saint John's brief in Hampden's case with the defendant's own suggestions of the line to be taken by his advocate, or for Brougham's brief in Queen Caroline's case, or Campbell's brief in 'Norton v. Melbourne!' The true story of many a cause célèbre is never made manifest in the evidence given or in the advocates' orations, but might be recovered from these old papers when the dust of ages has rendered them immune from scandal.

The title of this particular brief is: '1877 W. No. 818. In the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division. Whistler v. Ruskin. Brief on behalf of the Defendant. The Attorney General. With you Mr. C. Bowen.' I was deeply interested in this libel action at the time, as my father, Sergeant Parry, appeared with Mr. Petheram for the plaintiff and ultimately wrested from Sir John Holker the glorious victory of a farthing damages.

The unfortunate dispute which brought these two great ones into the

squalid purlieus of Westminster Hall was not based upon any mean personal antagonism but was a passing form of the eternal quarrel between those who worship the art of personal impression and those who demand a literary inspiration-a picture with a story. Could it have been tried before a tribunal of ‘amateurs' eager to give ear to the earnest pleading of the litigants good might have come of the contest, but before Baron Huddlestone and a Middlesex jury who cared for none of these things the trial was a sorry farce.

The trouble began in this way. Ruskin was at the zenith of his fame as an art critic and had adopted the public rôle of prophet. He was wont to attack all and sundry with a savage merriment which even his best friends at times resented. The story goes that he wrote to a friend hoping that a fierce criticism published by him on his friend's picture would make no difference in their friendship. To which his friend had the wit to reply, ‘Dear Ruskin - Next time I meet you I shall knock you down, but I hope it will make no difference in our friendship.'

In his own circle this kind of thing did not matter, but Whistler was not of the circle. Twelve years before, Swinburne had asked Ruskin to come with Burne-Jones and himself to

Whistler's studio, but the visit was never made. 'I wish you could accompany us,' he writes. 'Whistler, as any artist worthy of his rank must be, is of course desirous to meet you and to let you see his immediate work. As (I think) he has never met you, you will see that his desire to have it out with you face to face must spring simply from knowledge and appreciation of your works.' The prophet of Herne Hill was not inclined to come down into the studio and 'have it out' with the apostle of a new gospel, and the

men never met.

In the year 1877 Ruskin was writing his letters to workingmen which he entitled Fors Clavigera. The libel Whistler complained of appeared in Letter 79, and is dated 'Herne Hill, June 18, 1877.' That Ruskin ever thought of or intended to injure Whistler personally is unthinkable. If you read the whole letter, it is clear that the very mention of Whistler was almost accidental. He was striving to teach the lesson that true coöperation was not a policy of privileged members combining for their own advantage, but that we must 'do the best we can for all men.' This leads him to consider whether under present conditions any sort of art is at all possible, and he arrives at the characteristic conclusion that it is not. Music he finds is possible, and that is because 'our music has been chosen for us by our masters and our pictures have been chosen by ourselves.' If someone like Charles Hallé could guide us in our choice of pictures as he does in music, all would be well.

This of necessity brings him to the recent opening of the Grosvenor Gallery by Sir Coutts Lindsay, and giving him credit for good intentions he dismisses him lightly with the phrase that he is at present an amateur both in art and shop-keeping.' He then proceeds to tell his workingmen readers that the

work of his friend Burne-Jones 'is the only art work in England which will be received by the future as "classic" of its kind, the best that has been or could be,' and goes on to pronounce this final decree upon his pictures: 'I know that these will be immortal as the best thing the mid-nineteenth century could do.'

This first exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery was a loan exhibition, and considerable prominence was given to Whistler's nocturnes, including the Falling Rocket and Old Battersea Bridge. Whistler himself had designed a frieze for one of the galleries and he was treated as an artist worthy of serious consideration. The very fact of this being done in a gallery where his friend Burne-Jones's masterpieces are displayed excites Ruskin to a fit of uncontrollable anger, and with little attention to the context he concludes his panegyric of Burne-Jones with an almost irrelevant attack on Whistler. Nothing is said to the workingmen he is writing for as to why the pictures he dislikes are bad or what it is that is wrong about them. The paragraph suddenly introduces Whistler to an audience that probably knew little or nothing about him in the following

terms:

For Mr. Whistler's own sake no less than for the protection of the purchaser, Sir Coutts Lindsay ought not to have admitted works into the gallery in which the ill-educated conceit of the artist so nearly approached the aspect of wilful imposture. I have seen and heard much of Cockney impudence before now; but never expected to hear a coxcomb ask two hundred guineas for flinging a pot of paint in the public's face.

Time has shown that from the shopkeeper's point of view Sir Coutts Lindsay knew more about his business than Ruskin supposed, and the money taunt in the libel, which was wholly outside a critic's jurisdiction, gave an air of malice to the paragraph that was most unfortunate. In so far as money talks