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During the last six weeks Lady Carbury had lived a life of very reat work had come out,--the 'Criminal Queens,'--and had been very widely reviewed In this matter it had been by no means all pleasure, inasmuch as many very hard words had been said of her In spite of the dear friendship between herself and Mr Alf, one of Mr Alf's most sharp-nailed subordinates had been set upon her book, and had pulled it to pieces with alht a thing could hardly have been worthy of such protracted attention
Error after error was laid bare with merciless prolixity No doubt the writer of the articleout the various mistakes made he always spoke of the historical facts which had beenfas to every schoolboy of twelve years old The writer of the criticis been fully provided with books of reference, and having learned the art of finding in them what he wanted at a moment's notice, had, as he went on with his work, checked off the blunders without any e of his own than a housekeeper has of coals when she counts so e of one wicked ancient lady, and the dates of the frailties of another, with an assurance intended to show that an exact knowledge of all these details abided with him always He must have been a man of vast and varied erudition, and his name was Jones
The world knew him not, but his erudition was always there at the coreatness of Mr Alf consisted in this, that he always had a Mr Jones or two ready to do his work for hireat business, this of Mr Alf's, for he had his Jones also for philology, for science, for poetry, for politics, as well as for history, and one special Jones, extraordinarily accurate and very well posted up in his references, entirely devoted to the Elizabethan drama
There is the review intended to sell a book,--which comes out immediately after the appearance of the book, or soives reputation, but does not affect the sale, and which comes a little later; the reviehich snuffs a book out quietly; the reviehich is to raise or lower the author a single peg, or two pegs, as the case may be; the reviehich is suddenly to make an author, and the reviehich is to crush him An exuberant Jones has been known before now to declare aloud that he would crush a man, and a self-confident Jones has been known to declare that he has accomplished the deed