Still the general truth remains that the primary function of the poet is to tell his story steeped in his own emotion, while the primary function of the prose fictionist is to tell his story in an objective way. Hence it is that in a general way the difficulty of the poet who turns to prose fiction lies, like that of philosophical or scientific writers, in suppressing certain intellectual functions which he has been in the habit of exercising. And the case of Scott, which at first sight might seem to show against this theory, may be adduced in support of it. For Scott’s versified diction, though concrete, is never more quintessential than that of prose; and his method being always objective rather than subjective, when he turned to prose fiction he seemed at once to be writing with his right hand where formerly he had been writing with his left. VIII. FRANCIS HINDES GROOME. (THE TARNO RYE.) 1851–1902. I. I have been invited to write about my late friend and colleague Francis Hindes Groome, who died on the 24th ult., and was buried among his forefathers at Monk Soham in Suffolk. I find the task extremely difficult. Though he died at fifty, he, with the single exception of Borrow, had lived more than any other friend of mine, and perhaps suffered more. Indeed, his was one of the most remarkable and romantic literary lives that, since Borrow’s, have been lived in my time. The son of an Archdeacon of Suffolk, he was born in 1851 at Monk Soham Rectory, where, I believe, his father and his grandfather were born, and where they certainly lived; for—as has been recorded in one of the invaluable registry books of my friend Mr. F. A. Crisp—he belonged to one of the oldest and most distinguished families in Suffolk. He was sent early to Ipswich School, where he was a very popular boy, but never strong and never fond of athletic exercises. His early taste for literature is shown by the fact that with his boy friend Henry Elliot Maiden he originated a school magazine called the _Elizabethan_. Like many an organ originated in the outer world, the _Elizabethan_ failed because it would not, or could not, bring itself into harmony with the public taste. The boys wanted news of cricket and other games: Groome and his assistant editor gave them literature as far as it was in their power to do so. [Picture: Francis Hindes Groome]