129.
one hand in the language of the promoter or on the other in meaningless stock phrases that indicate poverty of ideas; 46 it is discredited because the reviewer is too often “ garrulous, philo sophical, opinionated , indolent, untrained , and poorly paid ” ; it is discredited because the reviews are often confessedly written in haste and bear internal evidence of the truth of the confession ;47
it is discredited because of the editor 's shortness of memory; 48 it is discredited because often made an excuse of displaying the 46 Some of these phrases are: “ the book is welcome,” “ it is stimulating," “ it is suggestive," " it furnishes capital reading," " it has the charm of Stevenson ;" " the author is the American Maupassant," or " an American Dickens," or, " a new Mark Twain .” — “ Book Reviewing à la Mode," The Nation , August 17, 1911, 93 : 139 - 140. 47 " I have heard the editor of a scientific paper boast that he had dictated ,
in sixty minutes, reviews of eleven new scientific books, not one ofwhich he
had taken the trouble to read beyond the preface and the table of contents." - Bliss Perry, “ Literary Criticism in American Periodicals ,” Yale Review , July , 1914, 3 : 635 -655 . “ I reckon that on the average I review a book and a fraction of a book
every day of my life, Sundays included .” - Arnold Bennett, The Truth about an Author, p . 135. The author defends this on the ground that he is an expert and therefore able to do it . H . S . Edwards says that when Edward Tinsley opened a second -hand
book shop in London the proprietors of a morning paper arranged to send him all the books sent them for review “ and to keep up their value the
reviewers were specially cautioned not to cut the leaves !” — Personal Recollec tions, p . 136 .
“ The critical Reviewers, I believe, often review without reading the book through ; but lay hold of a topick , and write chiefly from their own minds. The Monthly Reviewers are duller men , and are glad to read the books through ." - S . Johnson , Boswell' s Life, II, 24 (Everyman 's Library) .
The charge that reviewers do not read the books they affect to criticize was current when Gifford reviewed Endymion in the Quarterly, April, 1818. 48 B . L . Gildersleeve notes the cases where the editor forgets to whom he
has sent the volume of a book first published and sends the subsequent volumes elsewhere, — the reviews are necessarily different in tone. — " The
Hazards of Reviewing,” The Nation , July 8, 1915, 101: 49 -51. Walter Besant cites a novel that “ was praised to the skies one week and
slated pitilessly a few weeks later in the same weekly !” - Autobiography, p . 193 :
J. M . Barrie reverses this incident and makes use of it in When a Man's Single. The London Times within a few weeks gave two distinct reviews of a book of Felix Whitehurst's, — “ the first review was not very good , but the
second was very good indeed .” — W . Tinsley, Random Recollections, I, 91 .
R . Bagot says that a London paper published a “ very flattering review ” of one of his novels and a few days later another review of the same novel “ than which nothing could have been more depreciatory .” — “ The Review
ing of Fiction,” Nineteenth Century and After, February, 1906 , 59 : 288 –
