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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 –