Page:Men of Letters, Scott, 1916.djvu/231

205 SIR W. ROBERTSON NICOLL I DESIRE to speak to-day^ of the latest work of a writer who has just been declared, by the readers of a certain magazine (casting their votes into the ballot- box of its columns), " the greatest of all living Scots- men." My own knowledge of great Scotsmen would have been too limited to allow me to decide how far this claim for " Claudius Clear " (for it was he) is a just one — but it is impossible for any one not to see in this general conviction of his supremacy, this admiration cherished by so many thousands of human beings, a clinching proof of the extraordinary character of his power. Every Thursday, in The British Weekly, Sir W. Robertson Nicoll addresses an audience far more numerous, far more responsive, far more eagerly in earnest, than that controlled by any other living critic. He praises a book — and in- stantly it is popular. He dismisses one, gently — and it dies. He controls the contents of the book- shelves of a thousand homes — they change beneath his fingers like bright keyboards — and every alteration means the modification of a mind. What Claudius Clear reads on Wednesday, half Scotland and much of England will be reading before the end of the week. So that it is plainly a matter of high importance, as well as of immense interest, to consider the quality ' In The Liverpool Courier, 1913. 205