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

32 Hugh Walpolevery good reasons. One is that he contributed nothingat all to the development of the novel. His stories were,I suppose, sentimental, melodramatic, false in dialogue,sugary in conclusion and wooden in character. I say 'Isuppose' because I have been told all these things aboutthem but have not, myself, read them since my childhood.And that is my second reason for saying very littleabout them here. Shades of cathedral closes, of readingin bed by the uncertain light of a tallow candle, of sittingelbows on knees in the midst of all the discordant babelof the Lower School Room while paper darts thickenedthe air and small boys toasted chestnuts over a reluctantfire—into the dust and discordance of scenes like thesecame Sarchedon with his majestic dignity, the Queen'sMaries with their fatal beauty, Royal Charles a prisonerin Holmby House, the cruel Roman mob turning thumbsdown as the gallant gladiator waits their judgment—andlast and best of all the breezes and English backgroundsof Katerfelto; brazenness was I suspect his finest virtue,gusto his grandest card. At least he has given me toomany gallant and romantic hours for me to dare ever todisturb those pages again.James Payn too! Did I not read Lost Sir Massingberdin the high branches of an apple tree and By Proxy on aglorious summer holiday on Talland Sands? I have mycopy of By Proxy yet, and there seems to me to lingerabout its pages a mingled aroma of hot sea sand, blackberryjam and shrimps. These pages also I will not disturb.Nevertheless I have not the same romantic delicacyfor Payn that I have for Melville. He did not mean somuch to me then nor I fear does he mean anything at allto anybody now. He was one of the stock novelists of hisday, a gallant, good-humoured, generous figure with noillusions about his talent. He is interesting to me in mypresent connection only because re-reading him to-day