MODERN BOSWELLS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 770, 19 March 1910, Page 9

MODERN BOSWELLS.

Sir. Edmund Gosse, speaking at the London Institution-lately, made some interesting and. outspoken comni6nts on the failings of modern biographers.' ...

: A biography; said Mr.' Gosse, should not be a philosophical treatise nor. ;v sermon upon religion or morals.', A' failing in'most modern fives'; -was their great length, while the carelessness with which some of them were put together .would hardly be credited. : Material which' ought to Iβ;-winnowed and sifted until nothing . but tho'purest ore remained was often flung together in breathless haste in a rough heap, without'selection or arrangement. .

Beforring to the biography of a certain excellent modern bishop compiled by,, a popular divine—who would perhaps himself be a bishop one : of these daysMr. Gosse said the author fell'up to his neck into the pit of hasto and carelessness. Trivial and important details alike'were treated on the' same, scale. Complaining of , the shapeless ,vr.stues3 ■of tho book,- Mr. -Gosssi'wasjtold the author "could not niuke..-it, shprtoV;..lie., hud not the'tinie:"-'- There was a sound and unsound Boswell, and tho latter abounded in all the more vulgar of our newspapers.'. If they were told Mr. Pioce.velt,.wore elastic-side boots',:"of.. that': Marlr Twaip. had gifen up wearing jewpllery, jthc'so facts—if. they 'were -factsr-cquld have'..very, little bearing upon"character."' -It was" the biographer's '"duty ;' to, consider/the hostile interests : of '.the :.public;-and..Athe. family of the. person' , .of 'Wh'om-.ho'i wrote!'' Of late too great l .a':p.re , ponderai;cp-:had been given to. 'the-.. , ,family '.without-fdtie consideration. of the' claims., of tho public. The consequence was : , a -certain I false .and timid delicacy, which had been': steadily growing until it became "inqvevand more , difficult, to'learn the ti|uth abmjtrain'.ejjiinj, , ent if- that' truUi , ; could 1 - ; ;no,fe']:D,' considered in ajiy sepsp-4]igi>jUisd v '>i;' ; >-i,v;;iK Concluding hi/i the biographer should: he tactfulV'but'ibt; cowardly. ,'He should , ;-dcUcecy;;. but not its ridiculous , 'iiarbdy'.jfalse "deli-.' cacy. His first-. consideratiiVri}; shpul<L'.J»:truth. The : snobbKhne.ss'j.--\tha'; ; ,v.'Cßk'ness,; or blindness of'relatives : should" riot'bd: indulged to such a degree as to make the portrait untrue.

Certain fashionable biographies of the present day deserved no other comment than the words "A Lie" printed in bold letters across the title-page. ' ■