XIIa
It was in the month of September and the year 1883 that a small company of twelve or fifteen men met in Mr. Scoones’s chambers, Garrick Street, in order to form an association or society of men and women engaged in letters. What we were going to do; how we were going to do anything; what was wanted; why it was wanted—all these things were not only imperfectly understood, they were not understood at all. It was only felt vaguely, as it had been felt for fifty years, that the position of literary men was most unsatisfactory. The air was full of discontent and murmurs; yet when any broke out into open accusation, the grievance, in some mysterious way, became insubstantial, and the charge, whatever it was, fell to the ground. It was impossible to find a remedy, because the disease itself could not be diagnosed. Nevertheless the murmuring continued, and either rolled about the air in harmless thunder or broke out into epigrams. The discontent of authors may be traced back for a hundred and fifty years simply by the continuous beaded string of epigrams in which they have relieved their angry souls.
We began, therefore, in our ignorance, with one or two quite safe general propositions. Nothing could be more simple, more unpretending, or more innocent than the general propositions of the Society. We proposed, in short, three objects: (1) The maintenance, definition, and defence of literary property; (2) the consolidation and amendment of the laws of domestic copyright; (3) the promotion of international copyright.
This statement or announcement of intention, it was hoped, would give no offence and excite no jealousies. We were naturally, at the outset, distrustful of ourselves; uncertain as to the support we should receive; timid as to our power of doing anything at all; anxious not to do mischief. Later experience has partly removed this timidity. We have ventured, and shall now continue, to speak openly and to publish and proclaim aloud the whole truth connected with the literary profession.
Fortunately, we discovered very early in our proceedings that even a document so modest as our first circular was giving dire offence in certain quarters. It was more than hinted that the results to all concerned would be disastrous to the last degree. That was nine years ago. What things have been said and done since that time! Yet here we stand, not a whit the worse, any of us; and how much better we are now going to consider. I say that this was a fortunate discovery, because it showed us that we should encounter opposition whatever we might do or say. Literary property, we were given to understand quite clearly, was to be considered as a sacred ark which none but the priests—i.e., those who had it already in their hands—might touch. This opposition in some quarters took the form of personal appeals to authors not to join the new association, while in many cases the fear of giving offence and suffering loss in consequence caused—and even still causes—some to hold aloof.
Having, then, produced our prospectus, we set to work to gain the adhesion of as many leaders in literature as we could. Our first and greatest success—a success which won for us at the outset respectful consideration—was the acceptance by Lord Tennyson of the presidency. Had we elected, or been compelled to accept, any lesser man than the Laureate, our progress would have been far more difficult. With him at our head we were from the first accepted seriously.
Our next success lay in the extremely respectable and representative body of members who consented to join us as our vice-presidents. As a representative body, no list could have been more gratifying. Poetry was represented—to name only a few—by the second Lord Lytton, Sir Theodore Martin, and Matthew Arnold; science by Huxley, Lord Rayleigh, Michael Foster, Tyndall, Norman Lockyer, Sir Henry Thompson, and Burdon Sanderson; history by Edward Dicey, Froude, Sir Henry Maine, Max Müller, Sir Henry Rawlinson, Dr. Russell, and Professor Seeley; theology by the Bishop of Gloucester, Cardinal Manning, Dean Kitchin, Dr. Martineau, Archdeacon Farrar, Dean Vaughan, and the Rev. Henry White; the Army by Lord Wolseley, Sir Charles Warren, and Sir Charles Wilson; fiction by William Black, R.D. Blackmore, Wilkie Collins, Charles Reade, Charlotte Yonge; dramatic literature by Hermann Merivale, John Hollingshead, and Moy Thomas; journalism by George Augustus Sala; in fact, everything was represented.
In the first year of our existence, again, another very curious and unexpected piece of good fortune happened to us: Sir Robert Fowler, then Lord Mayor of London, invited the Society, as a Society, to a banquet at the Mansion House. The importance to us, at that moment, of such public recognition cannot be exaggerated. We were suddenly, and unexpectedly, dragged out into the light and exhibited to the world. And what with newspaper controversies, publications, public meetings, and public dinners, we have been very much before the world ever since. But our first public recognition we owe to Sir Robert Fowler.
As yet, however, we were an army of officers without any rank and file. We had to enlist recruits. It has been our object ever since, not so much to persuade people that we are proposing and actually doing good work, as to persuade them that it is the bounden duty of everyone engaged in the literary calling to support the only association which exists in this country for the maintenance and definition of their property. The slow growth of the Society, in spite of all the encouragement we received, shows the difficulties we had in this direction. Take the figures from the annual reports. In the first year, 1884, there were only 68 paying members; in 1886 there were only 153—and that in the third year of our existence; in 1888 there were 240; in 1889, 372; in 1891, 662; and in 1892, this year, up to the present day, there have been 870, which of course does not include 25 who have paid up life membership, 20 honorary members, and 50 who may or may not pay, and if they do not, will cease to be members. So slowly have we grown; so difficult has it been to persuade those who actually benefit by our labours openly to join our company.
We met at first in Mr. Scoones’s chambers. Garrick Street. After a few months we met in the offices of our first secretary and solicitor, Mr. Tristram Valentine. Then we took a step in advance, and engaged a modest office of our own. It was on the second floor of a house in Cecil Street, over the office of an income tax collector, who never asked us for anything. We had—when we took that step—really no more than one hundred members; some of us had to become life members in order to find the preliminary expenses. How modest that office was! How simple was its furniture! Yet it is never unpleasant for a self-made man to look back at the beginnings, or for the self-made society—which we certainly are—to consider the day of small things.
This was in February 1885, after more than a year of existence. We were still floundering; we were still in uncertainty; we had not yet found out even the first step in the right direction. Most fortunately we were prudent enough not to commit any extravagances. We were restrained from follies, I think, by the lawyers who were on our committee. Happily, we brought forward no charges, denounced no persons, and condemned no systems. We kept very quiet, considering the situation, making investigations and acquiring knowledge. Nothing, I now perceive, more clearly proves the general discontent among men and women of letters than the fact that, though we did nothing all this time—or next to nothing—our numbers, as you have seen, steadily, though slowly, increased. We had now, however, obtained the services—the gratuitous services—of a gentleman whose name must always be remembered in connection with our early history—Mr. Alexander Gait Ross, who became our honorary secretary.
At this time I, who had been preliminary chairman during the first organisation of the Society, retired, and the late Mr. Cotter Morison was elected chairman. Let me take this opportunity of acknowledging the resolution, the wisdom, and the moderation with which Mr. Cotter Morison filled that post. The mere fact that a man of his great personal character was our chairman greatly increased the confidence of the public. He resigned the post a year or two later, when he was attacked by the disease which killed him. Great as was the loss to literature by his death, it was a blow to ourselves from which it seems to me that we have never wholly recovered. Even now, in all times of difficulty, I instinctively feel that if Cotter Morison were only with us, the difficulty would be far more easily faced, and far more wisely surmounted. The place of Mr. Cotter Morison was taken by the late Sir Frederick Pollock, who, from the very beginning, had shown a keen interest in the prospect and progress of the Society. His tenure of office was short, and not marked by anything more than the steady advance of our objects. On his retirement, owing also to ill-health, the committee did me the honour of electing me to take the post.
Now, when it became gradually known that such a society as this existed, that a secretary was in the office all day long, and that he held consultations for nothing with all comers, all those who were in trouble over their books, all those who had grievances and quarrels, began to come to us for advice and assistance. In this way began that part of the Society’s work which is generally understood by the world; and in this way began our early troubles. Because, you see, it was a very easy thing to hear and to receive a case; the difficulty was how to find a remedy or to obtain justice where the case demanded either. We did sometimes find a remedy, and we did obtain justice in many cases. But partly from want of funds, and partly from the unwillingness of victims to take action, several cases fell to the ground.
After a little time we abandoned our first organisation of vice-presidents and committee, and substituted a council. We also incorporated ourselves into a company. We had the good fortune to secure the services of Mr. Underdovvn, Q.C., as our honorary counsel, and of Messrs. Field, Roscoe & Co. as our solicitors. Turning back to our first circular, and to the three divisions of work laid down, let us take the international copyright clause first. At the stage at which the American Bill had then arrived, very little could be done, except, as our American friends strongly recommended, to stop as much as lay in our power the calling of names. We had, in fact, as was pointed out by Mr. Brander Matthews and other Americans, been doing on this side exactly what the Americans were doing on their side—pirating books. It was absurd to keep calling the Americans thieves and pirates while our people did exactly the same thing on a smaller scale. It exasperated Americans and weakened the efforts of those who were manfully fighting in the cause of international honesty. Such influence as we possessed we brought to bear in this direction, with, one hopes and believes, a certain allaying of irritation.b
As regards the consolidation of the copyright laws, our action has been more direct and far more important. In fact, there are some who think that our action under this head is more important to the cause of literature than anything else that we have achieved or attempted, for in this direction there was no hesitation or any doubt as to what was wanted. Things chaotic had to be reduced to order, and only a new Act could do it. We appointed a copyright committee, consisting of Sir Frederick Pollock, Mr. Lely, Mr. Fraser Rae, Mr. Ross, and Mr. W. Oliver Hodges as honorary secretary, and with the assistance of Mr. Underdown, our honorary counsel, and Mr. Rolt, of the Inner Temple, a new Copyright Bill was drafted. This Bill was submitted to the London Chamber of Commerce for their consideration, and adopted by that body. It was then introduced into the House of Lords by Lord Monkswell, and read a first time. It will be a great thing in the history of the Society to record that it has actually accomplished the consolidation of the various Copyright Acts into one working and intelligible Act.c
Now all this time we were receiving continually accounts, agreements, letters, and cases. The daily correspondence had become very heavy. We therefore gave Mr. Ross a coadjutor in Mr. James Stanley Little, who was our secretary for two years. He retired owing to pressure of his own literary work, and was succeeded by Mr. S. Squire Sprigge, who remained with us for four years, until our work became too much for him, taken with his other engagements. He therefore left us, but remains on our committee. One must not omit to acknowledge that during his four years of office he was the spring and soul of the society, and that our rapid advance during that time is mainly owing to his energies. He was succeeded by Mr. G. Herbert Thring.
Meantime we had been slowly arriving at the comprehension of the fact that, in order to defend literary property, we must understand exactly what it is, of what extent, how it is created, how it is administered, how it should be safeguarded. The first step in advance was when, at a public meeting, held at Willis’s Rooms, we laid down the sound principle that publishers’ accounts, like those of any other enterprise in which two or more persons are jointly interested, must be subject to audit, as a simple right and a simple precaution. This right was publicly acknowledged by Messrs. Longman & Co., who were followed by other publishers, but not by all. Since then we have devoted a great deal of attention to ascertaining exactly what the copyright of a book and its publication may mean as actual property. There has been a stream of abuse, detraction, and wilful misrepresentation of our work poured upon us continually. Chiefly, we have been reviled for daring to ask what our own property means. This abuse shows, first, the hostility of those who desire to conceal and hush up the truth as regards the buying and selling of books. That is a matter of course; such hostility was to be expected, and, with all the misrepresentations that can be devised and invented, must be taken as part of the day’s work. It has been, as you perhaps know, a good part of my day’s work, during the last five years, to silence this opposition. I am happy to think that every such misrepresentation published in a newspaper or in a magazine has only resulted in an accession of new members and in an increase in public confidence. But, in addition to the opposition of interested persons, we have had to encounter a very unexpected and remarkable opposition from those who ought to be our own friends—certain authors and certain journalists. Into the history and motives and reason of this opposition I should like with your permission to inquire.
There has existed for a hundred and fifty years at least, and there still lingers among us, a feeling that it is unworthy the dignity of letters to take any account at all of the commercial or pecuniary side. No one, you will please to remark, has ever thought of reproaching the barrister, the solicitor, the physician, the surgeon, the painter, the sculptor, the actor, the singer, the musician, the architect, the chemist, the engineer, the clergyman, or any other kind of brain worker that one can mention, with taking fees or salaries or money for his work; nor does anyone reproach these men with looking after their fees and getting rich it they can. Nor does anyone suggest that to consider the subject of payment very carefully—to take ordinary precautions against dishonesty—brings discredit on anyone who does so; nor does anyone call that barrister unworthy of the Bar who expects large fees in proportion to his name and his ability; nor does anyone call that painter a tradesman whose price advances with his reputation. I beg you to consider this point very carefully, for the moment any author begins to make practical investigation into the value—the monetary value—of the work which he puts upon the market, a hundred voices arise from those of his own craft as well as from those who live by administering his property—voices which cry out upon the sordidness, the meanness, the degradation of turning literature into a trade. We hear, I say, this kind of talk from our own ranks—though, one must own, chiefly from those who never had an opportunity of discovering what literary property means. Does, I ask, this cry mean anything at all? Well, first of all, it manifestly means a confusion of ideas. There are two values of literary work—distinct, separate, not commensurable—they cannot be measured, they cannot be considered together. The one is the literary value of a work—its artistic, poetic, dramatic value, its value of accuracy, of construction, of presentation, of novelty, of style, of magnetism. On that value is based the real position of every writer in his own generation, and the estimate of him, should he survive, for generations to follow. I do not greatly blame those who cry out upon the connection of literature with trade: they are jealous, and rightly jealous, for the honour of letters. We will acknowledge so much. But the confusion lies in not understanding that every man who takes money for whatever he makes or does may be regarded, in a way, and not offensively, as a tradesman, but that the making of a thing need have nothing whatever to do with the price it will command; and that this price in the case of a book cannot be measured by the literary or artistic value.
In other words, while an artist is at work upon a poem, a drama, or a romance, this aspect of his work, and this alone, is in his mind, otherwise his work would be naught. But once finished and ready for production, then comes in the other value—the commercial value, which is a distinct thing. Here the artist ceases and the man of business begins. Either the man of business begins at this point or the next steps of that artist infallibly bring him to disaster, or at least the partial loss of that commercial value. Remember that any man who has to sell a thing must make himself acquainted with its value, or he will be—what? Call it what you please—over-reached, deluded, cheated. That is a recognised rule in every other kind of business. Let us do our best to make it recognised in our own.
Apart from this confusion of ideas between literary and commercial value, there is another and a secondary reason for this feeling. For two hundred years, at least, contempt of every kind has been poured upon the literary hack, who is, poor wretch, the unsuccessful author. Why? We do not pour contempt upon the unsuccessful painter who has to make the pot boil with pictures at 15s. each. Clive Newcome came down to that, and a very pitiful, tearful scene in the story it is—full of pity and of tears. If he had been a literary hack, where would have been the pity and the tears? In my experience at the Society, I have come across many most pitiful cases, where the man who has failed is doomed to lead a life which is one long tragedy of grinding, miserable, underpaid work, with no hope and no relief possible—one long tragedy of endurance and hardship. I am not accusing anyone; I call no names; very likely such a man gets all he deserves; his are the poor wages of incompetence; his is the servitude of the lowest work; his is the contumely of hopeless poverty; his is the derision of the critic. But we laugh at such a wretch, and call him a literary hack. Why, I ask, when we pity the unsuccessful in every other line, do we laugh at and despise the unsuccessful author?
Once more, this contempt—real or pretended—for money, what does it mean? Sir Walter Scott did not despise the income which he made by his books, nor did Byron, nor did Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, Charles Reade, Wilkie Collins, Macaulay, nor, in fact, any single man or woman in the history of letters who has ever succeeded. This pretended contempt, then—does it belong to those who have not succeeded? It is sometimes assumed by them; more often one finds it in articles written for certain papers by sentimental ladies who are not authors. Wherever it is found, it is always lingering somewhere; always we come upon this feeling—ridiculous, senseless, and baseless—that it is beneath the dignity of an author to manage his business matters as a man of business should, with the same regard for equity in his agreement, the same resolution to know what is meant by both sides of an agreement, and the same jealousy as to assigning the administration of his property.
Again, how did the contempt rise? It came to us as a heritage of the last century. In the course of our investigations into the history of literary property—the result of which will, I hope, appear some day in a volume form—I recently caused a research to be made into the business side of literature in the last century. Publishers were not then men of education and knowledge, as many of them are at the present moment; they were not advised by scholars, men of taste and intuition; the market, compared with that of the present day, was inconceivably small; there were great risks, due to all these causes. The practice, therefore, was, in view of these risks, to pay the author so much for his book right out, and to expect a successful book to balance, and more than balance, one that was unsuccessful. Therefore they bought the books they published at the lowest price they could persuade the author to accept. Therefore—the consequence follows like the next line in Euclid—the author began to appear to the popular imagination as a suppliant standing hat in hand beseeching the generosity of the bookseller. Physician and barrister stood upright, taking the recognised fee. The author bent a humble back, holding his hat in one humble hand, while he held out the other humble hand for as many guineas as he could get. That, I say, was the popular view of the author. And it still lingers among us. There are, in other callings, if we think of it, other professional contempts. Everybody acknowledges that teaching is a noble work, but everybody formerly despised the schoolmaster because he was always flogging boys—no imagination can regard with honour and envy the man who is all day long caning and flogging. The law is a noble study, but everybody formerly despised the attorney, with whom the barrister would neither shake hands nor sit at table. Medicine is a noble study, but the surgeon was formerly despised because in bygone days he was closely connected with the barber. Do not let us be surprised, therefore, if the author, who had to take whatever was given to him, came to be regarded as a poor helpless suppliant.
The kind of language even now sometimes used illustrates a lingering of the old feeling. We constantly read here and there of the generosity of a publisher. My friends, let us henceforth resolve to proclaim that we do not want generosity; that we will not have it; that we are not beggars and suppliants, and that what we want is the administration of our own property—or its purchase—on fair, just, and honourable terms. Let us remember that the so-called generosity must be either a dole—an alms—over and above his just claim, in which case it degrades the author to take it, and robs the publisher who gives it; or it is a payment under the just value, when it degrades the publisher who gives it, while it robs the author who takes it.
I return to the history of the Society. When our office was discovered, so to speak, by the outside world, I have said that there began to be poured in upon us a continuous stream, which has never ceased, of agreements, accounts, proposals, estimates, and letters between publishers and authors. From the examination and the comparison of these documents, from other matter obtained of printers, from communications made to us by persons formerly engaged in publishing offices, and from every possible source of information, we arrived at a knowledge of the business side of literature which is certainly unrivalled by that possessed by any man, even by any man actually engaged in publishing. We know especially by experience that a system which demands blind confidence on one side not only invites a betrayal of that confidence, but must inevitably lead to such a betrayal. There is no body of men in the world who can be trusted not to cheat should a man say to them, “Take my property. Do what you please with it. Bring me what you like for my share. I shall never inquire into your statements or audit your accounts.” This is what has been done, and is still done everyday. That man invites fraud who says beforehand that he will not question or doubt the returns.
This being so, we were not at all surprised to find that frauds were being carried on very extensively. Not universally. We have always most carefully made that necessary reservation. We have been constantly accused of charging all publishers as a body with dishonesty. I say again, that five or six years ago, when we had acquired some knowledge of what was going on, we found—with this reservation always carefully insisted upon—a wide spread practice of fraudulent accounts. Is it necessary to enumerate the methods pursued, which were as various as the tricks of the conjurer? There was the overcharge of the cost of production—very common indeed; there was the charge for advertisements which never appeared, or were exchanged and never paid for—also very common; there was the insertion of an enormous estimate of cost of production in the agreement, which the author, after he had signed, could not set aside; there were clauses in the agreement so worded and so mixed up that the author did not know what he gave away; there were charges for things that ought not to be charged—publisher’s reader, publisher’s lists, publisher’s travellers, all kinds of things; there was the royalty so designed as to give three times and four times—any number of times—to the publisher that it gave to the author; there was the purchase of a valuable work for next to nothing. One could find instances by the dozen on looking into the Society’s case books, but very considerable improvement has taken place of late in respect to these methods, solely in consequence of the action of the Society.
Without going into court more than once or twice (though in a great many instances an action has been proposed as an alternative) we have succeeded not only in procuring substantial justice in many cases for our clients, but we have also done a great deal to put a stop to the former prevalent abuses. A point in our favour has been the extreme moderation of our demands. We have claimed, in fact, so far, only three points: (1) That we must have the right of audit; (2) that in any agreement based on royalties we must know what the agreement gives to either side; and (3) that there must be no secret profits. We prepared and published a book, the like of which, it is certain, has never before appeared in any country. It was called the Methods of Publishing. In this book a specimen of every known form of publishing was taken from agreements and accounts actually in our possession. Nothing was invented; they were actual real agreements that were quoted. With each agreement the meaning of the various clauses was explained. It is a book of the greatest value to everyone who wants to know how to conduct his own business for himself, and desires to avoid pitfalls and traps and the many dangers pointed out. This book, however, useful as it was, proved to be insufficient. There was still wanting something to supplement the information contained in it. By the comparison of any agreement submitted to an author with the corresponding agreement contained in this book, he might come to a pretty safe conclusion as to the value or fairness of his own. But he wanted more; he wanted to know, as nearly as possible, the cost of producing his own book, the manner in which it was placed upon the market, and the results under certain given conditions. That information we found for him. It cost us a very great deal of patience and of time. You can hardly understand the trouble it was to get at the figures; at last they were obtained and passed by three—or perhaps four—firms of responsible printers. Of course, we do not say that we have found the exact cost, because there is no such thing. A printer’s bill is elastic, and varies from firm to firm, and time to time; but the figures are, if anything, above the mark, and some accounts have been sent in to us where the details were below our figures.
By the publication of this book, called the Cost of Production, together with that called the Methods of Publication, we have, I submit, rendered a very signal service to the independence of the author. He now understands what kind of property he holds in his MS. He can say, “Should this work prove successful—commercially successful—it will produce so much for the first thousand, so much for the second, and so on. What share does the publisher claim for the distribution, collection, and administration of this work?” At all events, if circumstances oblige him to take what is unfair, he will know it; he will speak of it—the thing will become noised abroad, the reputation of that publisher will suffer. What we have done is to throw light—always more and more light—into every part and every detail of our own business. We have enabled authors, in a word, to meet men of business as men of business.
I hasten to complete this history by the brief record of the points of less importance. We have ascertained, by an inquiry conducted for us in the most important colonies, that there was, before the passing of the American Copyright Act, a considerable trade in pirated books. We have called the attention of the Minister for the Colonies to this trade, and steps have been taken to stop the piracy. We have investigated and published an account of the administration of the Civil List from its beginning. We have founded for our own purposes a paper which is devoted entirely to the accumulation of facts and the dissemination of teaching in our own business relations.
Our office has become the recognised refuge for all who are in trouble or doubt. People come to us for advice on all subjects connected with literary property. The cases always in the secretary’s hands average at any moment about a dozen. As fast as one is cleared off, another one comes in. The correspondence increases daily; from all parts of the country and from the colonies the letters pour in.
We have been accused of fostering the ambitions of the incapable, and of helping to flood the market with trash. Far from it; we dissuade by every means in our power the incapable; we have readers who give them the plain truth; we advertise warnings against paying for the publication of MSS. But I confess that we can do little to keep down the swelling stream of aspirants. Thousands of pens are flying over the paper at this moment and every moment, producing bad novels and worse poetry. We check some of them; the rest must learn by bitter disappointment. Do not, however, let us talk about flooding the market; that is a mere conventional phrase. Thousands of bad books may be produced, but they never get circulated; nobody buys them; they drop still-born from the press; they swell the statistics alone.
To sum up, we have taken steps to reduce our copyright law from chaos to order; we have investigated and made public the various methods of publishing, and have shown what each means; we have placed in the hands of every author the means of ascertaining for himself what his property may mean; we have examined and exposed the facts connected with the Civil Pension List. What do we intend to do in the future? Here I must speak for myself. First, I look for the enlargement of the Society to four times, ten times, its present numbers. Everyone who writes—the journalists who lead the thought of the world, the teachers of all kinds, the scientific men,the medical men, the theologians, the creators in imaginative work—everyone who writes a single book should consider it his duty to belong to us. With this extension of our numbers we shall create funds for special purposes, for fighting actions if necessary. There are certain disputed points which can only be settled in the courts. We shall give our journal wider aims.
I should very much like to see established an institute akin to the Law Institute, but what I want, even more than the institute, is a Pension Fund. That, I see plainly, is above all to be desired. I want a Pension Fund such as that which the Société des Gens de Lettres in Paris has established, where everyone in his turn receives a pension, and it is not a dole or a charity, but a right. The member is not obliged to take that pension; if he chooses, he can refuse it; then it goes to swell the pensions of those who want the assistance. We have been too much occupied during these last years for this fund to be so much as started. Perhaps, however, the committee may see their way at no distant period to attempt the thing. A Pension Fund is absolutely necessary for the completion of the independence of literature.d
There were many other societies in which I was interested. Those which were strictly philanthropic I reserve for another chapter. I was initiated into freemasonry as far back as 1862. On my return to England I joined a lodge. I have never been an enthusiast for the rites and ceremonies of the craft, but I have always understood its great capabilities as a social and religious force. Properly carried out, the freemason has friends everywhere, and in case of need, brethren of the same fraternity are bound by vow to assist him. Every lodge is a benefit club; the members are bound to each other by the vows and obligations of a mediæval guild. The craft has developed a species of doctrine, vague and without a defined creed, which is to some of its members a veritable religion. It is, above all, a religion which requires no priest, no Church standing between man and his Creator; it does not recognise any superstitious or supernatural claims. It is therefore a bulwark against the Roman Catholic religion or any Romanising practices; and, as such, is very properly excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church.
The origins of Masonry are imperfectly understood. This I had always felt to be a serious defect, although, the craft being what it is acknowledged to be, the origin is not an essential point. However, there was existing a small—a very small—society called the Masonic Archaeological Institute. Of this I became the honorary secretary. We had papers read; some of them were useful, some were rubbish; after a while I handed over the papers and my office to Mr. Haliburton, of Nova Scotia, who was then living in London, and I heard no more about the institute, which died a natural death. But some eighteen years later there was established an archaeological lodge consisting of nine persons, of whom I was one. It was proposed to carry this on as a medium for historical papers on all points connected with the craft. The secretary, one of the nine, has developed this lodge until it has, besides its original members, some two thousand corresponding members scattered about the whole world. Once at Albany, New York, I received a visit from one of the corresponding members, who got together a few Freemasons of that city to give me a welcome. The thing was a trifle; but it made me realise the great success and the widespread influence of the Lodge “Quatuor Coronati.”
One more society. In 1879 or 1880 a little company of a dozen or so met at a certain tavern and dined together, the dinner being the foundation of the Rabelais Club. This for eight years or so was a highly flourishing club. We dined together about six times a year; we had no speeches and but one toast—“The Master.” We mustered some seventy or eighty members, and we used to lay on the table leaflets, verses, and all kinds of literary triflings. These were afterwards collected and formed three volumes called Recreations of the Rabelais Club, only a hundred copies of each being printed. Among the members were Edwin Abbey, R.C. Christie (author of the life of Etienne Dolet), George Du Maurier, Thomas Hardy, Bret Harte, Colonel John Hay, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Irving, Henry James, C.G. Leland, Earl Lytton, Lord Houghton, James Payn, J.E. Millais, Professor Palmer, Sir Frederick Pollock, Walter Pollock, Saintsbury, Sala, W.F. Smith (latest and best translator of Rabelais), R. Louis Stevenson, Alma-Tadema, Toole, Herbert Stephen, H.D. Traill, and Woolner.
The Recreations contain a good deal that is indifferent and a good deal that is good. Among the latter is some truly excellent fooling by Sir Frederick Pollock; there are verses by Du Maurier; there are verses by Professor Palmer—notably a short collection called “Arabesques from the Bazaars,” supposed to be narrated by one Colonel Abdullah. Of these I quote one called:—
THE STORY OF THE ASTROLOGER.
“Alack a day, for the days of old
When heads were clever and hearts were true,
And a Caliph scattered stores of gold
On men, my Ali, like me and you
“Haroun was moody, Haroun was sad,
And he drank a glass of wine or two;
But it only seemed to make him mad,
And the cup at the Sakis’ head he threw.
“Came Yahyae in; and he dodged the glass
That all too near his turban flew;
And he bowed his head, and he said, ‘Alas!
Your Majesty seems in a pretty stew!’
“ ‘And well I may,’ the monarch said;
‘And so, my worthy friend, would you,
If you knew that you must needs be dead
And buried, perhaps, in a day or two.’
“ ‘For the man who writes the almanacks—
Ez Zadkiel, a learned Jew—
Has found, amongst other distressing facts,
That the days I have left upon earth are few.’
“ ‘Call up the villain!’ the vizier cried,
‘That he may have the reward that’s due,
For having, the infidel, prophesied
A thing that is plainly quite untrue.’
“The Caliph waved his hand, and soon
A dozen dusky eunuchs flew;
And back in a trice before Haroun
They set the horoscopic Jew.
“ ‘Now tell me, sirrah!’ says Yahya, ‘since
From astral knowledge so well you knew
The term of the life of our sovereign prince,
How many years are left to you?’
“ ‘May Allah lengthen the vizier’s days!
His Highness’ loss all men would rue;
Some eighty years, my planet says,
Is the number that I shall reach unto.’
“A single stroke of Yahya’s sword
Has severed the Jew’s neck quite clean through—
‘Now tell me, sire, if the fellow’s word
Seems, after that, in the least bit true?’
“Haroun he smiled, and a purse of gold
He handed over to Yahya true;
And the heedless corpse, all white and cold,
The eunuchs in the gutter threw.
“What loyalty that act displays,
Combined with a sense of humour too—
Ah, Ali! those were palmy days!
And those Barmecides, what a lot they knew!”
In 1889 the Rabelais Club fell to pieces. Perhaps we had gone on long enough; perhaps we spoiled the club by admitting visitors. However, the club languished and died.