On the _Examiner_ I felt free and unfettered, free to choose any topic that pleased me, and to treat it in whatever way seemed to me best. I have always thought that Minto’s great powers as a critic of literature have never been sufficiently recognised. His separate volumes on the Poetic Writers and the Prose Writers of England contain some of the best criticism of our time, and, in especial, the section in the former devoted to the tragedies of Shakespeare has hardly been equalled in fineness of perception and in sustained eloquence of style. Though in many ways characteristically Scotch, he had a liberal and supple mind, with a wide grasp and a generous outlook on political affairs, and an appreciation even of lighter works of literature that was hardly to be suspected from his grave and sober personality. Very delightful were the little smoking evenings he instituted in the offices of the _Examiner_, which were then situated near Wellington Street in the Strand. There it was that I first met the late Bishop Creighton, who was at the time a constant contributor to the paper. Theodore Watts-Dunton was also a pretty regular visitor on these simple social occasions, and there, too, I met that strangest of accomplished scholars, “Student Williams,” who had long been known as an Oxford coach, and who was now devoting himself to a journalistic career. It is strange to reflect what a complete revolution has overtaken English journalism in the period of thirty years that has passed since the time of which I am speaking. Literature and journalism have now almost parted company, and although the older tradition still honourably survives in individual instances, it is impossible not to be conscious that the function of a journalist, as it is now most widely accepted, has entirely changed its character. The sort of article that was eagerly sought for then is now rarely welcomed, and when we recall the names of the men who wrote for the _Saturday Review_, and the great body of accomplished writers who lifted the _Pall Matt Gazette_ in its earlier days into a foremost position among English journals, it will readily be conceded that the revolution is already complete. Reporting has largely taken the place of criticism, and the modern newspaper office, ordered on popular lines, more nearly approaches day by day to a powerful agency for private inquiry and detection. CHAPTER IV THE BAR