Page:Notes by the Way.djvu/280

 210

��NOTES BY THE WAY.

��Epigram on The Saturday.

��The editors of The Saturday.

John Douglas Cook.

��Philip Harwood, formerly sub- editor of The Morning Chronicle.

��Walter Herries Pollock.

Frank Harris.

Harold Hodge.

��Sir James

Fitzjames

Stephen a

contributor.

��Mr. Richard H. Thornton, of Portland, Oregon, sent to 'N. & Q.' an epigram on The Saturday which had appeared in The Arrow on the 13th of September, 1864. The Saturday had remarked that " critics play much the same part now which the Sadducees did." The epigram, which was inserted in ' N. & Q.' for the 20th of December, 1902, ran :

Our hebdomadal caustic, severe upon quackery,

Was christened The Superfine, long since, by Thackeray ;

Men considered its bitters too nauseous and tonic,

So some called it Saturnine ; others, Sardonic ;

But wait long enough, a good name 's to be had, you see,

For it writes itself down as The Saturday Sadducee I

Of John Douglas Cook, the first editor, the * D.N.B. ,' from information supplied by Beresford Hope, says :

" Though not possessed of much literary culture, Cook had a singular instinct for recognizing ability in others and judgment in directing them, which made him one of the most efficient editors of his day."

He edited the paper till his death on the 10th of August, 1868.

Cook was succeeded by Philip Harwood. The ' D.N.B.' states that about 1849 he joined Cook as sub-editor of The Morning Chronicle.

" The Chronicle proved a great literary, but not a great commercial, success ; and upon its relinquishment by the proprietors in 1854, Harwood followed his chief to The Saturday Review"

and was sub-editor until 1868, when he succeeded as editor upon the death of Douglas Cook. He

" had the character of being the best sub-editor ever known, and if as editor he did not very powerfully impress his personality upon his journal, he faithfully maintained its traditions, and did all that could be done by the most sedulous application and the fullest employment of his ample stores of political knowledge .... Personally he was a most amiable man, retaining much of the manner of the presbyterian minister of the old school."

The Saturday Review of December 17th, 1887, contained an obituary notice of him.

Walter Herries Pollock, who had been sub-editor, succeeded Harwood, but left in 1894, when Mr. Frank Harris, the founder and editor of The Candid Friend, became the fourth editor of The Saturday. On his retirement in 1898 the present editor, Mr. Harold Hodge, took the chair. He is in the prime of life, having been born in 1862. He was educated first at St. Paul's School, and from there went to Oxford. On leaving college he devoted himself to social work in East London, and especially to the housing question.

One of the earliest and ablest contributors was Sir James Fitzjames Stephen (1829-94), of whom the ' D.N.B.' says :

�� �