ART. XII.-MR. R. L. STEVENSON'S NOVELS.

1. New Arabian Nights. (London, 1882.)

2. Treasure Island. (London, 1883.)

3. Prince Otto. (London, 1885.)

4. The Dynamiter. By ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON and FANNY VAN DE GRIFT STEVENSON. (London, 1885.)

5. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (London, 1886.)

6. Kidnapped. (London, 1886.)

7. The Merry Men, and other Tales and Fables. (London, 1887.)

8. The Black Arrow. (London, 1888.)

9. The Wrong Box. By R. L. STEVENSON and LLOYD OSBOURNE. (London, 1889.)

10. The Master of Ballantrae. (London, 1889.)

IT is an interesting exercise for a student of literature to attempt occasionally to form an estimate of an author whose work, however popular and notable it may be at the moment, has not yet stood the test of time or received the certificate of enduring excellence which posterity alone can give. It is an interesting exercise, but it is a venturesome one. The qualities which secure immediate success are not always those which conduce to permanent popularity, and, on the other hand, a man may have the gifts, or some of them, which are the special possession of the immortals, and yet not have them to a sufficient extent to secure for him a place in their number. Anyone that has been acquainted with English fiction for a dozen years can look back to at least half that number of novels which have made a great name for themselves, and which were received as notable additions to the literature of our country. Where are they now? Will our grandchildren read them, or any of them, in the years to come? Will they know even the names of them, the names which have been on the lips of everyone during the past decade-John Inglesant, Democracy, Treasure Island, King Solomon's Mines, Robert Elsmere? One of these is dead already; no one thinks now of Democracy. Two are dying, nor do we suppose that anyone expects their authors to leave a permanent mark upon English literature. John Inglesant, with much that was of only temporary interest, and appealing as it did in a great measure to a transitory phase of thought, has also considerable literary merits which may secure for it a moderate amount of

continued vitality. But only of the author who first won general recognition by the publication of Treasure Island can it be said that people look to him with some hope that he may take a permanent place in the records of the novelists of this present age. What is the ground of this hope, and what is the prospect that it may be realized?

It is indeed difficult to apply the standards of literary criticism to the work of a contemporary writer. An author may win, and deservedly win, great popularity by an able treatment of the questions which are exciting the chief contemporary interest; but if that is the sole merit of his work it must inevitably disappear with the advent of other times and other interests. This is especially the case with controversial works, and with novels which, like Robert Elsmere, depend chiefly for their interest upon controversial matters. A historian represents ably and faithfully the point of view of the best historical insight and research in his day; but other men will stand upon his shoulders and take his place with the readers of a subsequent generation or century. With novelists especially it is easily intelligible that the favourite of to-day will be found tedious to-morrow. They, more than any other class of writers, are dependent on ephemeral sources of interest. They represent the thoughts, the manners, the language of one particular period, which are not the thoughts, manners, or language of the periods which succeed. Even the greatest of them suffer to some extent from this cause. The heroes and heroines of Richardson and Miss Burney talk in language which to us it appears wildly impossible that reasonable persons should ever have employed; and there are some, we fear, who experience a like impression even from the writings of Miss Austen and Sir Walter Scott. Each succeeding generation adds something to the load which, through no fault of his own, hampers the novelist of the past. For the antiquarian he remains always as a valuable witness to the manners and customs of a bygone age; but he must possess genius of a high order, and appeal to something more than temporary interests if he is to be a living power with the readers of the century which succeeds his own. The fame of a poet of the first rank does not appreciably alter after his position has been once secured. Spenser and Milton stand to-day where they stood when the century began, and where they will stand when the twentieth century is drawing in turn to its close; but by that time will not Thackeray and Dickens be as Fielding and Smollett are now-read by the literary few, not by the reading many? Shakespeare will be read not

less, if the English language remains, when another three hundred years have passed since he took his place at the head of the literature of the world. Can the same be said even of Sir Walter Scott?

Therefore, in a sense, the novelist's duty is done if he has appealed successfully to the audience he is immediately addressing, or at least if he has retained his hold on the generation with whose thoughts and language he is directly in touch. But there is a real, if qualified, immortality which the greater novelists of past generations have won ; and if the time is yet too short since the birth of the English novel, in anything approaching its present form, to determine how long a novelist's reputation can continue, still it is no small thing to be as Fielding or Richardson, as Jane Austen or George Eliot, as Thackeray, or Dickens, or Scott. Is there any possibility that the author of the works whose names stand at the head of this article will hold place among or near such names as these, or will his reputation fade even with the generation that is growing up while he is writing? What are the qualities which have given him success, and are they such as to secure for him an honourable place in the estimate of the generations which are yet to come?

It is only of comparatively recent years that Mr. Stevenson has taken the high place which he would be universally allowed to hold among the novelists of the present day, but his first appearance in literature dates back to a somewhat earlier period. Long ago the observant had been attracted by the originality and literary grace of Virginibus Puerisque, and fascinated by the quaint narrative of the Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes. From these Mr. Stevenson passed, eight years ago, into the realm of fiction by the publication of the New Arabian Nights; but it was the appearance of Treasure Island in 1883 which first made his reputation with the general public. The first volume contained evidence of one of his most characteristic qualities, his delight in fanciful extravagance of story, a graceful playing with his subject which interests and amuses the reader without rousing his excitement or sympathy to any painful extent. The second showed his power of constructing a thrilling narrative and of giving life and reality to the language and actions of the characters created by his imagination. The success of Treasure Island was followed by an experiment of a very different kind, which occasioned great searchings of heart and much perplexity among Mr. Stevenson's new-found admirers. Treasure Island was a genuine, straightforward, exciting story, which

men sat up all night to finish and could understand from title page to conclusion; but in Prince Otto they were never sure how far the author was serious, which of the principal characters they ought to sympathize with, or what was the ultimate drift of the history. It appeared as if it ought to have a moral, but what was it? Or was the author laughing in his sleeve at their efforts to find a moral or understand its meaning? Looking back on it from a greater distance of time, it appears that the book was written largely under the influence of Mr. Stevenson's half-serious, half-dilettante fancy. It is partly a genuine study of character, but the author has a slightly cynical and patronizing manner with his puppets, which makes it difficult for the reader to take them quite in earnest. The conflict of these two sides of Mr. Stevenson's genius prevents the book from being entirely satisfactory, but it remains a very pleasing and readable work if you take it in the right spirit.

In The Dynamiter, which appeared in the same year as Prince Otto, we are back again in the world of the New Arabian Nights, with, if possible, an increased extravagance of fancy. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, with a story not less creditable to the inventive powers of its author, had a far more serious purpose and ranks very high among the shorter works of Mr. Stevenson. Imagination was added to fancy, and pathos and genuine interest attached to the story, together with the suggestion of a psychological problem of no common character. This was followed by Kidnapped, a story more in the manner of Treasure Island, with less of stirring incident and adventure, but with an even finer imagination of character and an almost perfect command of description and narrative. The general drift and the Scotch setting of the story inevitably recalled Rob Roy, and the comparison, though unequal, was not crushing. The book had not the same universal popularity as Treasure Island, but it will be generally recognized as containing work of a higher order of genius and as being perhaps the best thing that Mr. Stevenson has yet done.

His next volume, the collection of shorter stories entitled The Merry Men, might be taken as the most representative of the various sides of his genius of all the works that he has published. The tale from which the volume takes its name contains the finest of Mr. Stevenson's descriptions of the scenery of coast and sea, while the narrative exhibits his power of arousing and sustaining interest alike in the incidents and the study of character. 'Thrawn Janet' is another picture of Scotch character, a weird and ghastly little story,

this time entirely in dialect. 'Markheim' is a masterly study in psychology, executed with great perfection of literary workmanship and worthy to take its place by the side of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. These are the most striking of the six stories of which the volume is composed; but in 'Olalla' Mr. Stevenson has given us a pretty and pathetic tale in Spanish scenery, and in 'Will o' the Mill' a very pleasing half-fable, half-story; while 'The Treasure of Franchard' recalls the quieter among the narratives of the New Arabian Nights. The volume as a whole appears to be less generally known than it should be; but it has only to be read to be welcomed by all who appreciate graceful and effective story-telling combined with finished literary workmanship. Mr. Stevenson's remaining novels are of too recent date to require any lengthened description in order to recall them to the reader's memory. The Black Arrow is the least successful of his volumes of pure narrative, and seems to show, in its accumulation of sensational adventures and hair-breadth escapes, traces of its origin in the pages of a periodical paper; in spite of which, its picture of a portion of the struggle between York and Lancaster is of no mean interest, and touches on a part of our history which has not been much used as yet for the purposes of romance. In The Wrong Box, written in collaboration with a younger author, Mr. Stevenson must have given the extravagance of his fancy full play. It is a pure farce, very amusing of its kind, but with no pretence to any higher position in the world of literature. The Master of Ballantrae is a much more serious production and bears more signs of labour than any of his other novels. It is a careful and minute study of character on a somewhat limited scale, with a very sufficient setting of narrative, in which, however, the incidents are strictly subordinated to the delineation of character. It is a fine and powerful work, though hardly a pleasing one, from the unrelieved shade of melancholy and crime which hangs over the story and deepens as it approaches its close; and it may be questioned whether the psychological introspection has not to some extent hampered and interfered with the creative imagination which was so evident in Kidnapped. So far it is the last of Mr. Stevenson's works of fiction, and it closes the record on which we have to base the estimate of his genius which can be given at this stage in his career.

It will be seen from this summary of Mr. Stevenson's writings that they are not all of one character, and that his genius has more than one side to it. One main line of division between them might be indicated by classing them