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A College Magazine
by
[Note 4: Ruskin … Pasticcio … Bordello … Morris … Swinburne … John Webster … Congreve. These names exhibit the astonishing variety of Stevenson’s youthful attempts, for they represent nearly every possible style of composition. John Ruskin (1819-1900) exercised a greater influence thirty years ago than he does to-day Stevenson in the words “a passing spell,” seems to apologise for having been influenced by him at all…. Pasticcio, an Italian word, meaning “pie”: Swinburne uses it in the sense of “medley,” which is about the same as its significance here. Sordello: Stevenson naturally accompanies this statement with a parenthetical exclamation. Sordello, published in 1840, is the most obscure of all Browning’s poems, and for many years blinded critics to the poet’s genius. Innumerable are the witticisms aimed at this opaque work. See, for example, W. Sharp’s Life of Browning … William Morris (1834-96), author of the Earthly Paradise (1868-70): for his position and influence in XIXth century literature see H.A. Beers, History of English Romanticism, Vol. II…. Algernon Charles Swinburne, born 1837, generally regarded (1906) as England’s foremost living poet, is famous chiefly for the melodies of his verse. His influence seems to be steadily declining and he is certainly not so much read as formerly…. For John Webster and Congreve, see Notes 37 and 26 of Chapter IV above.]
[Note 5: City of Peebles in the style of the Book of Snobs. Thackeray’s Book of Snobs was published in 1848. Peebles is the county town of Peebles County in the South of Scotland.]
[Note 6: My later plays, etc. Stevenson’s four plays were not successful. They were all written in collaboration with W.E. Henley. Deacon Brodie was printed in 1880: Admiral Guinea and Beau Austin in 1884: Macaire in 1885. In 1892, the first three were published in one volume, under the title Three Plays: In 1896 all four appeared in a volume called Four Plays. At the time the essay A College Magazine was published, only one of these plays had been acted, Deacon Brodie, to which Stevenson refers in our text. This “came on the stage itself and was played by bodily actors” at Pullan’s Theatre of Varieties, Bradford, England, 28 December 1882, and in March 1883 at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Aberdeen, “when it was styled a ‘New Scotch National Drama.'”–Prideaux, Bibliography, p. 10. It was later produced at Prince’s Theatre, London, 2 July 1884, and in Montreal, 26 September 1887. Beau Austin was played at the Haymarket Theatre, London, 3 Nov. 1890. Admiral Guinea was played at the Avenue Theatre, on the afternoon of 29 Nov. 1897, and, like the others, was not successful. The Athenaeum for 4 Dec. 1897 contains an interesting criticism of this drama…. Semiramis was the original plan of a “tragedy,” which Stevenson afterwards rewrote as a novel, Prince Otto, and published in 1885.]
[Note 7: It was so Keats learned. This must be swallowed with a grain of salt. The best criticism of the poetry of Keats is contained in his own Letters, which have been edited by Colvin and by Forman.]
[Note 8: Montaigne … Cicero. Montaigne, as a child, spoke Latin before he could French: see his Essays. Montaigne is always original, frank, sincere: Cicero (in his orations) is always a Poseur.]
[Note 9: Burns … Shakespeare. Some reflection on, and investigation of these statements by Stevenson, will be highly beneficial to the student.]
[Note 10: The literary scales. It is very interesting to note that Thomas Carlyle had completely mastered the technique of ordinary prose composition, before he deliberately began to write in his own picturesque style, which has been called “Carlylese”; note the enormous difference in style between his Life of Schiller (1825) and his Sartor Resartus (1833-4). Carlyle would be a shining illustration of the point Stevenson is trying to make.]
No notes have been added to the second and third parts of this essay, as these portions are unimportant, and may be omitted by the student; they are really introductory to something quite different, and are printed in our edition only to make this essay complete.