W. E. Henley as Editor
When Robertson was appointed Principal of the Lahore University and resigned his position, W. E. Henley was brought in as editor of the magazine.
Henley's succession marked another stage in advance. He quickly infused vitality into the magazine, not only by what he himself wrote but also by gathering around him a great company of eminent writers and artists, including R. L. Stevenson and his cousin R. A. M. Stevenson, Richard Jefferies, Sidney Colvin, Mandell Creighton, Andrew Lang, Austin Dobson, and Comyns Carr. The artistic was now separated from the literary editorship, and was undertaken by Mr. Edwin Bale. The pictorial section had become highly important, the quality of the wood engravings had immeasurably improved, there was much fine drawing and careful painting.
Mr. Bale said of Henley that he had a fine instinct in art matters, but "the Barbizon School was his ideal in painting, and Rodin his god in another branch of art." The extent to which he carried his partiality and allowed it to influence his magazine was well illustrated in a remark made to Mr. Bale by George Howard, afterwards Earl of Carlisle. He said he liked to see the magazine month by month, and if he came across a page that hadn't on it the name of Millet or Rodin he read it, but such pages were few. Henley was a strong personality, a born fighter. "If you did not like him because of his prejudices," said Mr. Bale, "you had to like him in spite of them. He was the best of comrades, would fight for all he was worth for his ideals, and was always the same good-natured, genial creature when the fight was done as before it began."
A new feature of the magazine under Henley's editorship was the publication of original verse, surrounded by a design suitable to the subject of the poem, and among the early contributors some names appeared which have since become notable. One of Henley's greatest gifts. which found still more scope in later years, when he became editor of the National Observer, was the insight
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