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MASTER-SPIRITS
BY
ROBERT BUCHANAN
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‘Good BOOKS are like the precious life-blood of MASTER-SPIRITS’
MILTON
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HENRY S. KING & CO.
65 CORNHILL & 12 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON
1873
PREFATORY NOTE
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THE contents of the following volume are reprinted from the ‘Contemporary Review,’ the ‘Fortnightly Review,’ the ‘St. Pauls Magazine,’ ‘Good Words,’ and the ‘Athenæum.’ They comprise the lighter and more generally interesting of the writer’s contributions to periodical literature; and they will be followed, after an interval, by a collection of his more strictly critical and philosophic papers. They may be accepted as mere desultory notes on literary subjects of permanent interest, by one whose real work lies in another field.
The writer has to entreat the reader’s indulgence for verbal blunders, if such exist, as the state of his health at the present date does not admit of laborious verification of quotations.
R. B.
GREAT MALVERN: July 1, 1873.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION: CRITICISM AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS . . 1
THE ‘GOOD GENIE’ OF FICTION (CHARLES DICKENS) . . 18
TENNYSON, HEINE, AND DE MUSSET . . . . 54
BROWNING’S MASTERPIECE . . . . 89
A YOUNG ENGLISH POSITIVIST . . . . 110
HUGO IN 1872 . . . . . . 143
PROSE AND VERSE (A STRAY NOTE) . . . . 168
BIRDS OF THE HEBRIDES (WRITTEN ON BOARD THE ‘ARIEL’) . 187
SCANDINAVIAN STUDIES:
I. A MORNING IN COPENHAGEN . . . . 211
II. THE OLD BALLADS OF DENMARK . . . . 225
III. BJÖRNSON’S MASTERPIECE . . . . 247
IV. DANISH ROMANCES . . . . 277
POETS IN OBSCURITY:
I. GEORGE HEATH, THE MOORLAND POET . . . . 303
II. THE LAUREATE OF THE NURSERY . . . . 327
NOTE:
HUNTER’S RETROSPECT . . . . 341
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[Notes:
Master-Spirits was published at the close of 1873. Buchanan started the year in Scotland, spent a lot of it taking the water cure at Great Malvern and ended it with a move to Ireland. Part of him was also in America - at least in spirit - putting the final touches to his second anonymous ‘American’ poem, White Rose and Red. This was well-received but, after managing to conceal the secret for a matter of twenty-one months, rumours started to spread and Buchanan’s great trick was revealed. To capitalise on the publicity, Buchanan persuaded George Barnett Smith to write him a puff piece in the Contemporary Review and also persuaded the publisher H. S. King (who had taken over much of Strahan’s business) to bring out a collected edition of his complete works in five volumes, three of poetry, two of essays and criticism. The poetry was published in January, 1874, but the advertised volumes of prose, never appeared. However, Master-Spirits was published by H. S. King, and, although it is a collection of pieces, originally published in a variety of journals, it is interesting on a couple of points, especially in regard to the Fleshly School affair and the fuss made over Buchanan’s use of a pseudonym. Master-Spirits contains three pieces which were originally published pseudonymously. ‘Criticism as One of the Fine Arts’ first appeared in the August, 1872 issue of The Saint Pauls Magazine under the name of Walter Hutcheson. And Walter was also responsible for ‘Prose and Verse’ which appeared in the September, 1872 issue of the same magazine. But, perhaps more interesting is the fact that ‘Danish Romances’, part of the ‘Scandinavian Studies’ section of Master-Spirits first appeared in The St. James’s Magazine in November 1865 under the name of Newton Neville, which was a pseudonym Buchanan had been using even before he came to London, when he was editing The West of Scotland Magazine and Review, towards the end of 1859. Because of the number of Scandinavian items in Buchanan’s early work I thought it might be useful to list these on a separate page, which I’ve added to the ‘Scandinavian Studies’ section.]
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