Robert Louis Stevenson started as a "poet," I believe. Now he has become the "Thucydides of literature"--_vide Pall Mall Gazette_. Such nice, pretty classical names the _Pall Mall_ discovers for its particular darlings. Has the _Pall Mall_ read Thucydides? I rather doubt it. I have, and find no resemblance to Mr. Stevenson. And, truth to tell, I preferred Mr. Stevenson's past poetry to his present prose. Yet why should I murmur, remembering the sweet, sound slumber into which I fell over "The Wrecker"--that trying mixture of Marryat and Clark Russell. I think it is a capital story for schoolboys though, and that is why the _Pall Mall_ admires it. I am not a schoolboy; the _Pall Mall_ is; a dear, bright, gamesome, peg-top-and-marble creature, who thinks the greatest joke in life is to break a neighbour's window or ring a neighbour's bell, and then run away laughing. Its animal spirits are too delightfully boisterous for it to appreciate any sort of deep sentiment; a story of strong human passions, or a romance in which love has the most prevailing share, would not appeal to its unlessoned fancy. And, very naturally, it appreciates Stevenson, because he gives it no hard, uncomfortable life-problems to think about. Another "poet" who calls himself so is Hall Caine. He says the "Scapegoat" is not so much a novel as a drama, and not so much a drama as a "poem." Very good indeed! Excellent fooling, upon my life. Hall Caine can be very funny if he likes, though you wouldn't think it to look at him. When he called his story of the "Bondman" a "New Saga," it was only his fun. His wit is quite irrepressible. Among other humorous things, he has had his portrait taken in a loose shirt and knickers, seated facing the bust of Shakespeare, like a day-labourer fronting the Sphynx. It is altogether refreshing to find a Lilliputian literary ephemera so entirely delighted with himself as Hall Caine. He is much more convinced of the intrinsic value of his own genius than Oscar Wilde, with less reason than Oscar for his conviction. Oscar is a really clever man; Hall Caine tries to be clever and does not succeed. Oscar is a born wit, moreover, and though he does crib a few _bon-mots_ from Molière and a few paradoxes from Rochefoucauld, what does it matter for the English who do not understand French, and have to get "books of the words" in order to "follow" Sarah Bernhardt. Besides, Hall Caine borrows from the French also; the plot of his "Scapegoat" is taken from the French, so one of my critical friends assures me, and critics are always right. Francis Adams (also a "poet") "went" for Hall Caine not long ago in the _Fortnightly_--a regular good knock-down thrust it was, too. But Adams's prowess is of no avail in these things. The more you abuse a fellow, the more his books sell. The best way to utterly damn an author is to say that his novels are "nicely written," "prettily told," "harmless fiction," or "innocuous