reviewer that he has a catholic taste , that he sees that books are
written to many standards, and that every book, almost, is meet for some. It is not his business to break things on the wheel; but to introduce the book before him to its proper audi ence ; always recognizing, of course, sometimes with pleasant
subtle irony, its limitations.” 88 But if, on the other hand , this temptation to excessive leniency were to be resisted and “ I were to tell the truth ,” says one mem
ber of the guild , “ as forcibly as I could wish to do, about the books sent to me for review , in six months my proprietors would
be in the bankruptcy court." 89 And the sympathetic reviewer with fair intent may in turn justly claim the sympathy of his
readers, as does Lord Acton in his statement of his position ,90 and Mrs. Lynn Linton in her indignation over what she deemed
the unfairness of an author to the subject of his biography.91 The reviewer himself sometimes pleads for his craft as does
Boynton in discussing the reviewer " whose critical integrity
finds itself wavering under, it may be, the fourfold pressure of author, editor, publisher, and the public. He is not a judge, or a mere fabricator of book notices . It is not his business to help the sale of books, or to coddle sensitive writers, or to make
everybody feel comfortable about everything ; discrimination is always offensive in one quarter or another ; and the reviewer, like other critics, discriminates, or is lost.” 92 88 « The Hack Reviewer,” The Unpopular Review , April- June, 1916 , 5 : 379- 391. 89 J. C . Collins, op . cit., p . 23.
90 " If books are to be noticed at all, it must be done uprightly and with even scales. I sat down with the best resolution of speaking favorably of Robertson , who had begged for a notice, but I found so little good to say that I am afraid he will hardly be grateful and that we have not much
assisted the sale of his book." - Abbot Gasquet, Lord Acton and His Circle, P . 131.
91 Dickens sent Forster 's Life of Landor to Mrs. Lynn Linton to review for All the Year Round . In it Forster had seemed to her to show a despicable “ want of loyalty to the man , dead , whose feet he had kissed while living " and she began her review , “ The Life of Walter Savage Landor has yet to be written ." This offended Dickens who returned the article with a letter in
which he says it could hardly be otherwise than painful to Forster that he should insert in his magazine an account of Landor without a word of com mendation for a biography that had cost a world of care and trouble . G . S . Layard , Mrs. Lynn Linton , 160- 162.
92 “ Reviewer and Critic ,” Journalism and Literature, pp . 217 – 226 .
