a tale of modern life no trick could well be stagier. Besides the incomparable Margaret--of whom it does one good to hear Mr. Besant say, "No heroine in fiction is more dear to me"--Reade drew some admirable portraits of women; but his men, to tell the truth--and especially his priggish young heroes--seem remarkably ill invented. Again, of course, I except _The Cloister_. Omit that book, and you would say that such a character as Bailie Nicol Jarvie or Dugald Dalgetty were altogether beyond Reade's range. Open _The Cloister_ and you find in Denis the Burgundian a character as good as the Bailie and Dalgetty rolled into one. Other authors have been lifted above themselves. But was there ever a case of one sustained at such an unusual height throughout a long, intricate and arduous work? HENRY KINGSLEY Feb. 9, 1895. Henry Kingsley. Mr. Shorter begins his Memoir of the author of _Ravenshoe_ with this paragraph:-- "The story of Henry Kingsley's life may well be told in a few words, because that life was on the whole a failure. The world will not listen very tolerantly to a narrative of failure unaccompanied by the halo of remoteness. To write the life of Charles Kingsley would be a quite different task. Here was success, victorious success, sufficient indeed to gladden the heart even of Dr. Smiles--success in the way of Church preferment, success in the way of public veneration, success, above all, as a popular novelist, poet, and preacher. Canon Kingsley's life has been written in two substantial volumes containing abundant letters and no indiscretions. In this biography the name of Henry Kingsley is absolutely ignored. And yet it is not too much to say that, when time has softened his memory for us, as it has softened for us the memories of Marlowe and Burns and many another, the public interest in Henry Kingsley will be stronger than in his now more famous brother."[A] A prejudice confessed.