,
in the fray with the critics, he is, incidentally, as it
were, somewhat roughly handled, the over-enthusiasm of his
professional admirers must bear the blame. There is much
prentice work in 'Lads' Love,' some strenuously enforced
emotion, which is not genuine, and a congenital
misunderstanding of the essential difference between tedium
and humour; but if the whole of Mr. Crockett's work had
reached its level, the protest against his reviewers would
have stood in need of modification.]

Mr. Ian Maclaren, though he is distinctly an imitator, and may be said
to owe his literary existence to Mr. J. M. Barrie, is both artistic
and sympathetic. His work conveys to the reader the impression of an
encounter with Barrie in a dream. The keen edges of the original are
blurred and partly lost, but the author of 'Beside the Bonnie Brier
Bush' has many excellent qualities, and if he had had the good fortune
or the initiative to be first in the field, his work would have been
almost wholly charming. As it is, he still shows much faculty of
intuition and of heart, and his work is all sympathetically honest His
emotions are genuine, and this in the creation of emotional fiction is
the first essential to success. Here is another case where the
hysteric overpraise of the critics has done a capable workman a serious
injustice, and but for it a candid reviewer could have no temptation
towards blame. His inspiration is from the outside, but that is the
harshest word that can honestly be spoken, and in days when literature
has become a trade such a judgment is not severe.

IX.--DR. MACDONALD AND MR. J. M. BARRIE

When one calls to mind the rapid and extensive popularity achieved by
the latest school of Scottish dialect writers, one is tempted to wonder
a little at the comparative neglect which has befallen a real master of
that _genre_, who is still living and writing, and who began his work
within the memory of the middle-aged. With the single exception of 'A
Window in Thrums,' none of the new books of this school are worthy to be
compared with 'David Elginbrod,' or 'Alec Forbes of Howglen,' or 'Robert
Falconer.' Yet not one of them has failed to find a greater vogue or
to bring to its author a more swelling reputation than Dr. Mac-donald
achieved. Perhaps the reasons for these facts are not far to seek. To
begin at the beginning, Sir Walter, who created the Scottish character
novel, h