In the June ‘National Review’ in addition to Mr. Toole's essay on ‘New Humour and Non Humour’ (write on, write ever thus, Mr. Toole!) there is a very pleasing study of ‘The New Literary Era,’ by Mr. Arthur Waugh. The professional aspect of literature engages Mr. Waugh's attention. He ‘says what he ought to have said,’ and is very polite to professionalism, but one fancies that he is not in love with it. ‘We have left behind all the possibilities of literary sweating’ he says. Perhaps Mr. Besant is not entirely of this opinion. The sommités of literature are not ‘sweated,’ but the persons who produce ‘novelettes,’ and many translations, are still paid at rates probably much out of proportion to the profits. The reason, as in all cases of ‘sweating,’ is that almost anybody can do the kind of thing – the empty novelettes, the artless renderings from the French. This labour market is overstocked. If Miss Jones refuses to write two hundred pages for thirty pounds, why Miss Smith will do it, and no mortal can distinguish between the work of Miss Smith and the work of Miss Jones. It is all writing, but none of it is literature: it is hardly to be called skilled labour. Therefore dealers in these wares will pay the lowest prices, and what is that but sweating, and how are you to cure it, as the victims cannot strike and howl in the streets? How can you cure it, for the world can wag on without halfpenny novelettes and bad translations? There is no competition among purchasers for the novelettes and the perversions from the French. As far as literature is concerned, people who write these, generally speaking, should not be writing at all; these things should not be done.

Turning to authors more fortunate, by dint of luck or merit, one doubts if they ever were much sweated. True, Ronsard complains that publishers ‘take everything and give nothing,’ but the Prince of Poets lived on eccle siastical revenues, and probably there was no great purchasing public for the Prince of Poets. Rabelais, one feels sure, never heard of royalties; his would have been immense. We do not learn that he was opulent, or that his publishers made fortunes.