Among the minor entertaining experiences in the life of a critic are the appeals made to one's "quality of mercy" by the tender green goslings in authorship, who fondly imagine that by a coaxing word, or a flattery delicately turned, they can persuade Us to praise them. I saw a young woman striving to beguile my friend Lang in this way on one occasion, using sundry bewitchments of eye and gesture for the accomplishment of her fell purpose, and I caught a fragment of her soft yet desperate petition. "I am sure you will say a good word for my poems, Mr. Lang!" Her poems! ye gods and goddesses! A woman's poems, and--Andrew Lang! Surely a Mephistophelian "ha, ha, ha!" rang out in the infernal regions of log-rolling at such a ridiculous combination, for when ever did the "Sign of the Ship" wave hopeful encouragement to a female rhymester? No, no; Lang, like myself, must know better than to give any foothold to the "vapid" feminine climber who wantonly attempts to scale Parnassus (a mountain exclusively set apart for the masculine gender), and threatens to overcome our "intensely moving, intensely virile stern strength;" _vide_ publisher's advertisements of our ever-glorious Kipling. Another curious feature of the critical disposition is our rooted dislike to be known as critics. In this we somewhat resemble those dear old robbers of legendary lore who went out pillaging and murdering merrily by night, and were the most perfect fine gentlemen in the daytime. Such altogether fascinating fellows they were! But we play our parts almost as cleverly, and I am sure with quite as much ease and charm. In polite society we claim to be "literary men"; the term is delightfully vague and may imply anything or everything. Some of us, however, say boldly out and out that we are not critics, but poets--_i.e._, not judges, but criminals. We feel quite proud and glad when we have said this sort of thing. Take my amiable acquaintance, William Sharp, for instance. _He_ says he is a poet, and he has a most refreshingly ingenuous and positive faith in his own statement. Few agree with him, but what does that matter, provided he is happy? Then there is Edmund Gosse; he also says he is a poet, and so he is, in a pretty daff-a-down-dilly, lady-like fashion. Only he sits as critic on other poets occasionally, and, strange to say, is never able to find anything in their productions quite equal to the sounds once evoked from "Lute and Viol." "Young" McCarthy, Justin Huntly (he is only called "young" lest he should be mistaken for "old"), he who uttereth oracles concerning plays and playwrights, he not only says he is a poet, but he once went so far as to call himself Hafiz--Hafiz in London. Yes; very much in London. Between the real Hafiz and the sham is a "great gulf fixed," and the ghost of the Persian singer is more valuable to literature than all the McCarthy substance. Now as to Edwin Arnold--Sir Edwin Arnold, C.S.I. (it never does to forget his