school-
girls, all the autograph-hunters, all the begging-letter writers, all the
ambitious young tragedians, and all the utterly unheard-of and imaginary
relations in Kamschatka or Vancouver's Island with whom the wide world
teems. Lord Tennyson has endured these people for some fifty years, and
now he takes a decided line. He will not answer their letters, nor
return their manuscripts.

Lord Tennyson is perfectly right to assume this attitude, only it makes
life even more hideous than of old to Mr. Browning and Mr. Swinburne.
Probably these distinguished writers are already sufficiently pestered by
the Mr. Tootses of this world, whose chief amusement is to address
epistles to persons of distinction. Mr. Toots was believed to answer his
own letters himself, but the beings who fill Lord Tennyson's, and Mr.
Gladstone's, and probably Mr. Browning's letterbox expect to receive
answers. Frightened away from Lord Tennyson's baronial portals, they
will now crowd thicker than ever round the gates of other poets who have
not yet announced that they will prove irresponsive. Cannot the Company
of Authors (if that be the correct style and title) take this matter up
and succour the profession? Next, of course, to the baneful publisher
and the hopelessly indifferent public, most authors suffer more from no
one than from the unknown correspondent. The unknown correspondent is
very frequently of the fair sex, and her bright home is not unusually in
the setting sun. "Dear Mr. Brown," she writes to some poor author who
never heard of her, nor of Idaho, in the States, where she lives, "I
cannot tell you how much I admire your monograph on Phonetic Decay in its
influence on Logic. Please send me two copies with autograph
inscriptions. I hope to see you at home when I visit Europe in the
Fall."

Every man of letters, however humble, is accustomed to these salutations,
and probably Lord Tennyson receives scores every morning at breakfast.
Like all distinguished poets, like Scott certainly, we presume that he is
annoyed with huge parcels of MSS. These (unless Lord Tennyson is more
fortunate than other singers) he is asked to read, correct, and return
with a carefully considered opinion as to the sender's chance of having
"Assur ban-i-pal," a tragedy, accepted at the Gaiety Theatre. Rival but
unheard-of bards will entreat him to use his influence to get their
verses published. Others (all the world knows) will send him "spitefu