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long as there are students of English Literature. Surely the
portrait of one for whom such a claim may legitimately be made

cannot be considered altogetherworthy" target="_blank" title="a.不值得的;不足道的">unworthy of a place in the National
Collection, as one of Scotland's most distinguished sons.

"2. The only other reason which can be suggested as having weighed
with the Trustees in their decision is one which in some cases

might be held to be worthy of consideration. It is conceivable
that in the case of some men the Trustees might be of opinion that

there was plenty of time to consider the matter, and that in the
meantime there was always the chance of some generous donor

presenting them with a portrait. But, as has been shown above, the
portraits of Stevenson are practically confined to two: one of

these is in America, and there is not the least chance of its ever
coming here; and the other they have refused. And, as it is

understood that the Trustees have a rule that they do not accept
any portrait which has not been painted from the life, they

preclude themselves from acquiring a copy of any existing picture
or even a portrait done from memory.

"It is rumoured that the Nerli portrait may ultimately find a
resting-place in the National Collection of Portraits in London.

If this should prove to be the case, what a commentary on the old
saying: 'A prophet is not without honour save in his own

country.'"
CHAPTER XXXIII - LAPSES AND ERRORS IN CRITICISM

NOTHING could perhaps be more wearisome than to travel o'er the
wide sandy area of Stevenson criticism and commentary, and expose

the many and sad and grotesque errors that meet one there. Mr
Baildon's slip is innocent, compared with many when he says (p.

106) TREASURE ISLAND appeared in YOUNG FOLKS as THE SEA-COOK. It
did nothing of the kind; it is on plain record in print, even in

the pages of the EDINBURGH EDITION, that Mr James Henderson would
not have the title THE SEA-COOK, as he did not like it, and

insisted on its being TREASURE ISLAND. To him, therefore, the
vastly better title is due. Mr Henley was in doubt if Mr Henderson

was still alive when he wrote the brilliant and elevated article on
"Some Novels" in the NORTH AMERICAN, and as a certain dark bird

killed Cock Robin, so he killed off Dr Japp, and not to be outdone,
got in an ideal "Colonel" JACK; so Mr Baildon there follows Henley,

unaware that Mr Henderson did not like THE SEA-COOK, and was still
alive, and that a certain Jack in the fatal NORTH AMERICAN has

Japp's credit.
Mr Baildon's words are:

"This was the famous book of adventure, TREASURE ISLAND, appearing
first as THE SEA-COOK in a boy's paper, where it made no great

stir. But, on its publication in volume form, with the vastly
better title, the book at once 'boomed,' as the phrase goes, to an

extent then, in 1882, almost unprecedented. The secret of its
immense success may almost be expressed in a phrase by saying that

it is a book like GULLIVER'S TRAVELS, THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, and
ROBINSON CRUSOE itself for all ages - boys, men, and women."

Which just shows how far lapse as to a fact may lead to critical
misreadings also.

Mr Hammerton sometimes lets good folks say in his pages, without
correction, what is certainly not correct. Thus at one place we

are told that Stevenson was only known as Louis in print, whereas
that was the only name by which he was known in his own family.

Then Mr Gosse, at p. 34, is allowed to write:
"Professor Blackie was among them on the steamer from the Hebrides,

a famous figure that calls for no description, and a voluble shaggy
man, clad in homespun, with spectacles forward upon his nose, who

it was whispered to us, was Mr Sam Bough, the Scottish Academician,
A WATER-COLOUR PAINTER OF SOME REPUTE, who was to die in 1878."

Mr Sam Bough WAS "a water-colour painter of some repute," but a
painter in oils of yet greater repute - a man of rare strength,

resource, and facility - never, perhaps, wholly escaping from some
traces of his early experiences in scene-painting, but a true

genius in his art. Ah, well I remember him, though an older man,
yet youthful in the band of young Scotch artists among whom as a

youngster I was privileged to move in Edinburgh - Pettie, Chalmers,
M'Whirter, Peter Graham, MacTaggart, MacDonald, John Burr, and

Bough. Bough could be voluble on art; and many a talk I had with
him as with the others named, especially with John Burr. Bough and

he both could talk as well as paint, and talk right well. Bough
had a slight cast in the eye; when he got a WEE excited on his

subject he would come close to you with head shaking, and
spectacles displaced, and forelock wagging, and the cast would seem

to die away. Was this a fact, or was it an illusion on my part? I
have often asked myself that question, and now I ask it of others.

Can any of my good friends in Edinburgh say; can Mr Caw help me
here, either to confirm or to correct me? I venture to insert here

an anecdote, with which my friend of old days, Mr Wm. MacTaggart,
R.S.A., in a letter kindly favours me:

"Sam Bough was a very sociable man; and, when on a sketching tour,
liked to have a young artist or two with him. Jack Nisbett played

the violin, and Sam the 'cello, etc. Jack was fond of telling that
Sam used to let them all choose the best views, and then he would

take what was left; and Jack, with mild astonishment, would say,
that 'it generally turned out to be the best - on the canvas!'"

In Mr Hammerton's copy of the verses in reply to Mr Crockett's
dedication of THE STICKIT MINISTER to Stevenson, in which occurred

the fine phrase "The grey Galloway lands, where about the graves of
the martyrs the whaups are crying, his heart remembers how":

"Blows the wind to-day and the sun and the rain are flying:
Blows the wind on the moors to-day and now,

Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying,
My heart remembers how.

"Grey recumbent tombs of the dead in desert places,
Standing stones on the vacant wine-red moor,

Hills of sheep, and the HOMES of the silent vanished races,
And winds austere and pure.

"Be it granted me to behold you again in dying,
Hills of home! and to hear again the call -

Hear about the graves of the martyrs the pee-weet crying,
And hear no more at all."

Mr Hammerton prints HOWES instead of HOMES, which I have italicised
above. And I may note, though it does not affect the poetry, if it

does a little affect the natural history, that the PEE-WEETS and
the whaups are not the same - the one is the curlew, and the other

is the lapwing - the one most frequenting wild, heathery or peaty
moorland, and the other pasture or even ploughed land - so that it

is a great pity for unity and simplicity alike that Stevenson did
not repeat the "whaup," but wrote rather as though pee-weet or pee-

weets were the same as whaups - the common call of the one is KER-
LEE, KER-LEE, and of the other PEE-WEET, PEE-WEET, hence its common

name.
It is a pity, too, that Mr Hammerton has no records of some

portions of the life at Davos Platz. Not only was Stevenson ill
there in April 1892, but his wife collapsed, and the tender concern

for her made havoc with some details of his literary work. It is
good to know this. Such errata or omissions throw a finer light on

his character than controlling perfection would do. Ah, I remember
how my old friend W. B. Rands ("Matthew Browne" and "Henry

Holbeach") was wont to declare that were men perfect they would be
isolated, if not idiotic, that we are united to each other by our

defects - that even physical beauty would be dead like later Greek
statues, were these not departures from the perfect lines. The

letter given by me at p. 28 transfigures in its light, some of his
work at that time.

And then what an opportunity, we deeply regret to say, Mr Hammerton
wholly missed, when he passed over without due explanation or

commentary that most significantpamphlet - the ADDRESS TO THE
SCOTTISH CLERGY. If Mr Hammerton had but duly and closely studied

that and its bearings and suggestions in many directions, then he
would have written such a chapter for true enlightenment and for

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