Not a few eminent literary men have been
eminently illegible penmen. Still, in practice, the
inconvenience is less than might at first sight
appear. The scrawls thrown off by hard-pressed
journalists or editors fall into the hands of
persons who are in the habit of deciphering
them. Some editors do not pronounce their
final judgment on the communications of
well-known and tried contributors until they have
perused them in type. It shows, however, the
great importance of sending in a first essay in
perfectly legible handwriting, even if it be
necessary to employ a copyist. In the long
run, the poor compositors are the greatest
sufferers from illegibility. One great author
was their notorious tormentor. What with the
blurs, blots, and pothooks in his manuscript,
and what with his interminable alterations,
corrections, transpositions, and interpolations
in the proof itself, the Paris printers stipulated
not to have more than so many hours per day of
Balzac.

And if the contributor feels bound to
remember the compositor when he sends
in his copy, what consideration ought he
not to show in his dealings with the editor
—with the man at the helm of a popular
periodical?

The contributor may take his ease. He may
wait for the fit of inspiration, or the whim of
the moment, before putting pen to paper. If
he send in no article that week, or that month,
he puts no great interest of his own in jeopardy.
If he be idle, he misses earning a few guineas—
of which he is well aware, and takes the
consequences—and that is all. Unless he write
leaders for the Times, or do other pressing,
promptly-to-be-executed work, he need not even
reside in town—unless he like it best. He may
pitch his tent in pleasant places, on the brow of
a cliff or on the verge of a forest; in summer,
aloft amidst the hills; in winter, below in
sunny nooks. Even when close kept "on" a
journal, he frequently gets a good annual
holiday-run or two. There are missions which may
be pleasant as well as profitable. The editor,
on the contrary, who has often not only the
responsibility of, but often a heavy stake in, his
publication, is tied by a tether of very definite
shortness. When London is empty, and
respectable people are ashamed to be seen
remaining in it, cabmen and editors cannot quit.
September shines no holiday for them. The
forthcoming number has to be made up, and
subsequent numbers to be projected, provided for,
and prepared. There are never-ceasing
acceptances to be made, decisions arrived at, and
refusals conveyed. And the correspondence?
Have you any idea of an editor's correspondence?

Periodical writers will occasionally have to
handle topics with which they are little
familiar, exactly as barristers are liable to be
called on to plead in causes of whose technical
details they are completely ignorant. But some
people hold that a person of education and
literary habits ought to be able (with time and
preparation) to speak and write on any subject.
A writer, like a barrister, may take the trouble
to get up his subject, "cramming" for it, in
examination phrase, making himself acquainted
with all the minutiae of the matter in dispute,
before addressing the court or the public.
Each individual advocate may have his own
particular method of working out the task
before him. Not a bad plan is, first to get
together all available evidence and information—
bushels of books, packets of documents, plans,
maps, drawings—not neglecting personal visits,
inspection, and inquiry, should such be needed
—and then mentally to digest the whole, applying
to the work such common sense and acuteness
as one happens to be gifted with. It will
often happen that a fresh mind, exercising itself
upon questions which, to it, are unfamiliar and
unhackneyed, will see things from a clearer
point of view than persons of older experience,
to whom they are a matter of daily routine.
And the result is, that several clever
improvements in machinery have been made by
lawyers, who never would have dreamt of such
inventions had not the details been brought
before them in the course of their professional
duties.

In this branch of literature, it is quite a
mistake to go to work on the "exhaustive"
principle. In article-writing, as in extempore
preaching, the great difficulty is to know when
to stop. "How, with such a theme in hand,
can you possibly limit yourself to four or five
pages? You might write five hundred, and
not have done with it," is a question I have
frequently heard. But Voltaire exclaimed,
"Woe be to the man who says about a subject
all that can be said!" With printed discourse,
as with personal companionship, it is better
that your friend should regret the shortness of
your visit than that he should yawn at its
lengthiness.

Some few anxious candidates for the honours
of type would gladly offer their manuscript
gratis, so that it could but appear. They would,
however, be no great gainers by yielding to the
temptation of making that offer. Now that
authorship has become a distinct and recognised
profession, experienced editors find that
contributions offered for nothing are worth no more
than the value set upon them. A little
consideration will make it clear that it is more to
their interest to pay adequately for a
well-written paper, than to publish a poor one
without payment. It is upon the broadest basis of
public favour, esteem, and respect, that a
permanent prosperity can alone be founded;
and those objects can only be attained by
paying well the most capable writers whose
abilities lie within the range of that particular
periodical's scope. It may even be laid down
as a general rule, that authors who may happen
to be wealthy ought not to make a practice
of writing for nothing; because, by so doing,
they would tend to take the bread out of the
mouths of their professional brethren. They
may do so occasionally—to oblige a dear friend,