THE LATE PROFESSOR CHURCH

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1467, 15 June 1912, Page 9

THE LATE PROFESSOR CHURCH

Iho late Professor Alfred John Church (tho 'Westminster Gazette" remarks) could boast that ho had written seventy books and reviewed over forty thousand. Ha was for many years closely u-aeciated with the "Spectator," and lie o;'c cf tho oldest friends of its former n tistcrmmd, Richard Holt Ituttw. l:\rn the forty thousand l-ool;3 which ,'..!•.■ uutrch estimated to have 'nine into his lu.i.-ls ifr notice, certain diUwcl/ons iiavo to bo made, such as .-low ivlihrns and ;. -;.S3 (he authors of which can bo t.ike.'j for fiauiui, and so forth, 'iiit, even sc, 'i vetv l.iige number of books is left which hart to )x> more or less read. The charge that critics writo about,books which thev have not read Mr. Church thought might bo dismissed.

Dr. Church, like every earnest and capablo reviewer, always kept an eager outlook for new literary work of ability, and he. had his "discoveries." Ho believed ho was the first English critic to call the attention of readers to the merits of Miss Louisa Alcott's stories. He even found the remembrance of her 'Tour Little Women," the particular volume which ho reviewed, still fresh in his mind in later years—a sincere tribute to that book. Ho reviewed Lord Lyttou's "Translations of tho Odes of Horace," and not long after his lordship sent along an advance copy of a dramatic sketch entitled with a request that it might he reviewed by the critic who had der.lt with the "Horace." , As regards publishers, Dr. Church had considerable experience, and he declares that his relations with them were always satisfactory:— "My very largo and long experience of books, many of them books which were wholly beyond tho knowledge of the ordinary reader, has (said Mr. Church in his "Memories of Men and Books") convinced mo of this, that there is a very numerous class of persons who write books which have no possible chanco of succeeding, and that there is thus generated a great mass of discontent which finds a vent in utterly unreasonable complaints. That there are black sheep among publishers I do not' deny: such creatures aro likely to be found in every occupation. But I am convinced that in the vast majority of cases whero they are charged with misleading:, with extortion, ignorance, neglect, and what not, the fault really lies with the incompetent client.". This estimate will probably be admitted by most authors as just.