But after the first generation of novelists,
the sham system began to creep in. With Fanny Burney, novels grow too
bulky, and it is a question whether even Scott or Jane Austen should
be possessed in the original form. Of the moderns, only Thackeray
is bibliographically desirable. Hence even of Mr. George Meredith's
fiction I make no effort to possess first editions; yet _The Shaving
of Shagpat_ is an exception. I toiled long to secure it, and, now that
I hold it, may its modest vermilion cover shine always like a lamp
upon my shelves! It is not fiction to a bibliophile; it is worthy of
all the honour done to verse.
Within the last ten years of his life we had the great pleasure of
seeing tardy justice done at length to the genius of Mr. George
Meredith. I like to think that, after a long and noble struggle
against the inattention of the public, after the pouring of high music
for two generations into ears whose owners seemed to have wilfully
sealed them with wax, so that only the most staccato and least happy
notes ever reached their dulness, George Meredith did, before the age
of seventy, reap a little of his reward. I am told that the movement
in favour of him began in America; if so, more praise to American
readers, who had to teach us to appreciate De Quincey and Praed before
we knew the value of those men.
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