The capital _and_ full-length portraits.

13. Whose attraction is _one_ neither mainly nor in any very great
degree one of pure form.

14. _Constantly right in general_.

These are merely a few examples of the style of Mr. Saintsbury, a writer
who seems quite ignorant of the commonest laws both of grammar and of
literary expression, who has apparently no idea of the difference between
the pronouns 'this' and 'that,' and has as little hesitation in ending
the clause of a sentence with a preposition, as he has in inserting a
parenthesis between a preposition and its object, a mistake of which the
most ordinary schoolboy would be ashamed. And why can not our magazine-
writers use plain, simple English? _Unfriend_, quoted above, is a quite
unnecessary archaism, and so is such a phrase as _With this Borrow could
not away_, in the sense of 'this Borrow could not endure.' 'Borrow's
_abstraction_ from general society' may, I suppose, pass muster. Pope
talks somewhere of a hermit's 'abstraction,' but what is the meaning of
saying that the author of Lavengro _quartered_ Castile and Leon 'in the
most interesting manner, riding everywhere with his servant'? And what
defence can be made for such an expression as 'Scott, and other _black
beasts_ of Borrow's'? Black beast for bete noire is really abominable.

The object of my letter, however, is not to point out the deficiencies of
Mr. Saintsbury's style, but to express my surprise that his article
should have been admitted into the pages of a magazine like Macmillan's.
Surely it does not require much experience to know that such an article
is a disgrace even to magazine literature.

George Borrow. By George Saintsbury. (Macmillan's Magazine, January
1886.)

ONE OF MR. CONWAY'S REMAINDERS

(Pall Mall Gazette, February 1, 1886.)

Most people know that in the concoction of a modern novel crime is a more
important ingredient than culture. Mr. Hugh Conway certainly knew it,
and though for cleverness of invention and ingenuity of construction he
cannot be compared to M. Gaboriau, that master of murder and its
mysteries, still he fully recognised the artistic value of villainy. His
last novel, A Cardinal Sin, opens very well. Mr. Philip Bourchier, M.P.
for Westshire and owner of Redhills, is travelling home from London in a
first-class railway carriage when, suddenly, through the window enters a
rough-looking middle-aged man brandishing a long-lost marriage
certificate, the effect of which is to deprive the right honourable
member of his property and estate. However, Mr. Bourchier, M.P., is
quite equal to the emergency. On the arrival of the train at its
destination, he invites the unwelcome intruder to drive home with him
and, reaching a lonely road, shoots him through the head and gives
information to the nearest magistrate that he has rid society of a
dangerous highwayman.

Mr. Bourchier is brought to trial and triumphantly acquitted. So far,
everything goes well with him.