TOMKINS ON CRITICISM.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 421, 3 August 1880, Page 3

TOMKINS ON CRITICISM.

" I've been a'most everything you can name," said Tomkins ; "I've been a sailor and a '-butcher, a digger and a trance-medium,. a policeman and a critic." . , " (i Indeed," said I, " and how did you like your last occupation ? " t " Qh," returned Tomkins,'" I liked it fine—suited me to a T ■■; but unfortunately, like, the .black fellow's in the play,' nSy occupation's gone.' The folks in -this place are 60 tarnation 'cute that jtjiey-want to read everything for themselves, and that's hard lines on the critic;"

..'«I dqn!t see that;" , '" Bon't you? " Well, look here • it's like this :,. The editor gives me a book sent to our office to be criticised, and tells me to write a critique on that—' so many .pages, and let 'em down easy ' — sdTgb home,. and after supper I light my pipe ariel a candle, and I get into, a comfortable corner of the sofa and read the book. Well, I don't know how it is, but the book and the pipe and the candle all get'mixed up, and taking up my pen I write, thus : :-—? It seems to us that this work is of a most soothing and fragrant nature : "it appears to be written with the {praiseworthy, intention of calming the troubled, spirit", • and bathing the tired body in "sweet : repose,' etc. Well, I thought that- was rather fine writing, and expected a compliment; but, would you believe it j the.author got in a tearing scot, and • said I that he wrote to wake people urV and hot to send them to sleep <;;and two old ladies and a parson, who were, troubled with wakefulness, bought the volume, and were properly riled, because they found it so exciting that they could not sleep for a week after reading it. Then the editor said,' Try ,agaiu: better, luck next time'; so I took"another work, ' This time I tried a cup of green tea, sat on the hardest chair in the house, and put my feet on the hobs i there was no fire, and the evening was chilly. ' This work,' I began,' is a mistake from beginning to end: the heroine is a humbug, the hero is a rum crowd, the plot is hackneyf d and com-mon-place, and the whole thing is a disgrace to author and publisher alike.' Would jou believe it, the chap as wrote that book got tarnation wild when he rend my review ? He came along to our office, and threatened to shoot the editor if lie didn't retract some of them expressions. 'Oh, I retract,' said the boss, cheerfully,' though I'm not the chap as wrote them,' ' They are libellpu?,' said tlie other, ' and you are responsible, and the lawyers said so, too,' and so the chief prot into a fnnk, and said he could not have, no more reviews in hit? paper, not if he knowed it, sol got my walking ticket, and that paper's played 'out—not worth reading, as mild as milk, with no reviews, or only' very polite ones, to affront no onp, and so I lost the best billet ever J had. Then, I thought I'd try some art criticisms for one of the weeklies. For a time that went first rate : I abused the performers all round without going tqo much into detail, and copied a lot of fine terms out of the other papers, for I did not know a note of music. All went ' swimming as a marriage bell,' as some one. says, until at last I thought to save time, and got into the way of writing the critiques before tbe concerts came off; indeed, as soon as the programmes came to our office to be printed, and. at last I got properly caught, for. one night the great tenor did not keep his appointment, and the songs that I said were rendered by him with his usual light and shade and chiaro- oscuro (whatever that may mean) never came off at all, bis place being filled by a second-rate barytone, who broke down in the first song. That was a facer forme, for the editor published the critique without reading it, and got jolly well pasted on all hands. It was useless for me to try and explain—he would not listen to reason, so I got thrown out again."

" Perhaps your forte does not lie in criticism," I suggested, meekly.

" Perhaps not, though I think otherwise. It's such tarnation easy work. I don't mean to give it up. You needn't read the books, you know ; no one does that : just open them here and there, take a few lines for quotation, and skip the rest; crib fine words out of the exchanges more incomprehensible tbe better) ; don't praise any author too much—it makes the beggars upish: find fault with them all round, only praise the big guns now and again, and when you do lay it on thick ; they know how to appreciate it; but don't take up new men—strangers and unpopular fellows ; that doesn't pay—jump with the crowd ; that's the secret." " But how about unappreciated talent ? Is it not the duty of a critic to find it out, and draw the public attention to it ? " Tomkins looked at me with mingled pity and disgust.

" Young 'un, you are green, indeed. You'll never do for the trade, that's certain. Do you think the public want to know that? , Not a bit of it; Ihey want their thinking done for them, and put into new cut nnd dried phrases, with nothing new and agitating about them. Do you suppose they care for ' mute, inglorious Miltons,' and that sort of thing? Not they ; they like their old.favorites, and don't wish to be troubled tp choose tfew brtesV ; Run 'em in the Old grooves and don't get off the line; that is my advice. Come, let us liquor up; I'll shout drinks all round."