R,CHARD MONCKTON MILNES was born in the year - OUDL Home

82 George Saintsburyedgedness of the classification, that authorities in crickethad ranked him as 'a change bowler' and he never lostinterest in the game or (though to a somewhat less extent)in several others, during the whole of his life. In whatused to be, and perhaps always should be the greatest ofall Press subjects whether on the more abstract or stillmore on the party side, he could with difficulty be got toshow any interest. I used to say of him that he couldn'tbe a Liberal and wouldn't be a Tory. He did not withany willingness treat religious subjects, while Science inthe more limited sense but with the largest capital, wasnot his business, yet the Encyclopaedia held few othersubjects on which he could not write something worthreading.I do not know in what paper Lang made the first ofhis many thousand appearances in periodicals. He had,I think, family connections with the Saturday Review,which had already for some years exemplified and harbouredthe great though rather indefinable change inEnglish journalism. New papers, which did not alwayslive to be old, were constantly starting in the late 'sixtiesand early 'seventies: and to one of them at least—mostvirtuous and hospitable but ill by any profit rewarded,though it kept itself alive and contributed to the alivekeepingof its contributors for a considerable period—tothe Academy, he was, I think, a supporter from the beginning.But the fact was that no editor who had the veryslightest fitness for his business could hesitate aboutannexing anything of Lang's that was offered to him andpromptly demanding more. I have had myself no shortor small experience of editing or assisting to edit; a verylarge experience in contributing; and, until quite recently,what it is not, I think, extravagant to call animmense experience in reading this division of literature.I do not hesitate to say that, allowing for his not taking