The Press.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9176, 6 August 1895, Page 4

The Press.

The question of conferring decorations on eminent literary men is just now being hotly discussed in some of the English papers, the occasion being the bestowal of the latest Birthday Honours. We in the colonies are apt to regard knighthoods and such gauds with half-humourous, half-contemptuous indifference. Our respect for K.C.M.G.ships has, perhaps, suffered from

seeing it so liberally conferred upon opportunist colonial politicians of the Sir G. R. Dibbs type, or on shrewd '•philanthropists" who, having made a fortune in potatoes, purchase a knighthood by founding a College. But in England the matter seems to be differently regarded, and we may soon have the spectacle, of novelists and poets vicing with each other in an unseemly race for stars and ribbons, in which the claims of art and worth will come to be looked on as minor considerations. True distinc-

tion can only be conferred on an artist by the applause of his public; contemporary, popularity or posthumous fame are the best tests of his success, and the whim of a politician in power can no more confer fame than could the condescension of the •• patron " of a bygone age. But if it is to become a custom to confer knighthoods on literary men and artists, there is much to be said for the contention that a separate order should be created for artistic distinction. A novelist or poet of note ought at least to be spared the distinction of ranking with Sir Henry Parkes or Sir George Dibbs as members of the goodly brotherhood of knights. Unfortunately none of the fathers of English literature were pious enough to be canonised; good Dan Chaucer, for instance, was not regarded with unmixed affection by the Medireval Church, or else the '• Order of St. Geoffrey " might not inappropriately have been instituted for the decoration of literature.

But we sincerely hope the custom will be " more honoured in the brt„eh than the observance." The selection made by Lord Piosebery in the last birthday lists does not augur well for the judgment likely to be displayed by politicians in the choice of the artists whom they delight to honour. He selected for a knighthood one representative each of fiction, poetry and drama. Sir Walter Besant is doubtless an amiable and pleasing writer of novels " for the family circle." But he cannot be said to possess •'distinction" either of style or literary method. We should be sorry if a knighthood in his case meant as'in that of many colonial politicians, extinction ; but he could be better spared from the world of letters than many another living novelist less honoured. To select Besakt and reject Mebeditit, for instance, would be the height of absurdity, did we not remember that while Parkes is Sir Henry, Gladstone is still plain "Mr. W. E." Sir Lewis Morris, again, is a first-rate Radical but a very third-rate poet. William of that ilk had been a happier choice. Even Swinburne could put in a much stronger claim, and it is possible that there are quite half a dozen of the poetasters at present living who will be kindly remembered long after " Sir Lewis " is utterly forgotten. And while one welcomes the knighthood of Sir Henry Irving as a tardy recognition of the mimetic art, one is less gratified with the compliment to* the person than with respect to his profession. Sir Henry probably owes his fame much more to his marvellous business tact, to his skilful manipulation of the London Press, to his command of capital, and his luck in being •■the thing " and remaining so, than to a predominance of artistic faculty, for he seems to be chiefly distinguished from his powerful, and some say greater, rivals, like Mr. Beerbohm Tree, by an artificial mannerism and a stagey presence than by inherent power as an actor. And the revival of dramatic taste —if it is not choked in its infancy by " New-ism"—will owe much more to the pen of a powerful thinker like Pinero or a caustic humourist like Gilbert than to the buskin of Sir Henry Irving, •■ mouth " he never so grandly.

The custom of conferring literary decorations will be fraught with serious danger to at least some branches of literature. If a novelist choose to make his heroes Eadicals when Eosebery is in power or Conservatives when Salisbury succeeds ; if a poet elects to twang the harp of Erin under a Home Eule Government, and to strike an Imperialist key under a Unionist administration, his political vagaries need be no more injurious to art than were those of the amiable Vicar of Bray to orthodoxy. For art demands only truth to the essentials of life, and party politics is one of its accidents. But if historians were carried off their legs by the same thirst for stars and ribands, for example, the followers of Macaulay and PTat.lam might become very indifferent chroniclers. And on that branch of literature whose claims are only just coming to be acknowledged—the literature of journalism— the new fad might have very serious effects. Journalism would be a sorry business indeed if its independence were sapped by such bribes as party governments would have it in their power to bestow. And even literary men are but human; if a knighthood should ever coxne to be regarded as a hallmark the temptation to angle for it might prove too strong for _ the weaker vessels of literature —a" profession whose votaries are credited with rather more than the average share of vanity. The days of " patronage " —the evils of a time when poets were obliged to flatter the rich or the great " With incense kindled at the Muse's flame "—in order that they might subsist, might be revived in their worst form under the new guise of a race for knighthoods. Men who are qualified to manage the Exchequer are not necessarily suited to discriminate upon art; the successful Premier is not necessarily a judicious critic ; and it would be safer to leave the conferring of the laurels of literature to the collective judgment o| the reading public than to the caprices of a party leader. It is "not every poet laureate who ha 3 proved a Tennyson ; there have been more laureates unworthy than worthy of the honour, and if Lord Eosebery is to be taken as a fair type of his successors it is to be feared that, there will be greater writers outside than inside of the " Literary Order of Knighthood " be it the order of St. Geoffrey or the order of St. George.