don it was a miracle. If Mr Kipling had
been able to improve on _Plain Tales from the Hills_ as much as
Shakespeare improved on _Love's Labour's Lost_, as much as Shelley
improved on _Queen Mab_, Robert Browning on _Pauline_, Byron on _Hours
of Idleness_, he would to-day be without a peer. Mr Granville Barker
is often cited as a classical modern example of precocity, but he was
twenty-four when he wrote _The Marrying of Anne Leete_. Mr Henry James
was twenty-eight before he had published a characteristic word. Mr
Thomas Hardy at twenty-five had only printed a short story, and he was
more than thirty when his first novel appeared. Mr Kipling came upon
the public in 1886 without a preliminary stutter. Mr Kipling at
twenty-two could write as craftily as Mr Kipling can write after nearly
thirty years' experience. We shall not be greatly concerned in these
pages to trace the progress of Mr Kipling's craft and wisdom. He was
always crafty and always wise. He had done some of his best work at
thirty. He recalls Hazlitt's curious saying that an improving author
is never a great author. Mr Kipling is not an improving author. There
has been a little moving up and down the scale of excellence; many
things hinted in the early volumes from _Plain Tales from the Hills_ to
_Many Inventions_ are developed more elaborately and surely in later
volumes; the old craft has come to be used with an ease that has in it
more of the insolence of a master than was possible in the author of
1887. But so far as literary finish is concerned, _Plain Tales from
the Hills_ leaves little to be acquired. Already Mr Kipling wields his
implement as deftly and firmly as many a skilled writer who was
learning his lesson before Mr Kipling was born. Few authors have so
surely scored their best in their earliest years. Authors are
considered young to-day at thirty. Mr Kipling at that age had already
written _The Jungle Book_.

This does not, of course, imply that all Mr Kipling's stories are of
equal merit. On the contrary, we shall henceforth be mainly concerned
with looking for the inspired author under a mass of skilful
journalism. It is not a simple enterprise. Mr Kipling is so competent
an author that he is usually able to persuade his readers that his
heart is equally in all he writes. Moreover, Mr Kipling has fallen
among many prejudices, literary and political, which have caused his
least important work to be most discussed. For th