When I was a young man I wrote miles of 'middles' for
them" -- tretching out his hands to show the unending
chain. Some of my work also appeared in The Academy,
then a paper manfully struggling to represent the higher
side of English literature. One article I recall was a re-
view of a reprint of the poems of Gay -- a poet who has
come back into public notice owing to the delightful art
of Mr. Lovat Fraser, combined with the talent of the
ladies and gentlemen who so admirably represent Mac-
heath and his minions male and female. On looking at
the article the other day, I was glad to see that I drew
attention to Gay's peculiar handling of the couplet and
also to his delight in every kind of old song and ballad. I
quoted in this respect, however, not from "The Beggar's
Opera" but from the song as sung by Silenus in Gay's
Eclogues. One of these songs I have always longed to
hear or to read, owing to the fascination of its title-
"The grass now grows where Troy town stood."

After I went to The Spectator the newspaper world
widened in my view. I left off writing for the Saturday
and the Pall Mall and the Academy. Instead, and after I
married, I took a regular post as leader-writer on the staff
of the Standard. I also wrote a weekly leader for the
Observer for the best part of a year. Of the Observer I
have only one thing to note, and that is a saying of the
Editor, Mr. Dicey, brother to my old friend, Professor
Dicey -- a man for whom I have great veneration, though
my lips are happily closed in regard to him by the fact
that he still lives. At our first interview Mr. Dicey told
me that in writing for the Observer I must remember that
I was not writing for a weekly paper, like the Spectator,
but for a daily paper which, however, only happened to
come out on one day in the week. That, I always thought,
was a very illuminating and instructive remark, and it is

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