In
his tales his minor characters are as carefully drawn as his chief
personages. Consider, for example, the minister, Henderland, the
man who is so fond of snuff, in "Kidnapped," and, in the "Master of
Ballantrae," Sir William Johnson, the English Governor. They are
the work of a mind as attentive to details, as ready to subordinate
or obliterate details which are unessential. Thus Mr. Stevenson's
writings breathe equally of work in the study and of inspiration
from adventure in the open air, and thus he wins every vote, and
pleases every class of reader.
THOMAS HAYNES BAYLY
I cannot sing the old songs, nor indeed any others, but I can read
them, in the neglected works of Thomas Haynes Bayly. The name of
Bayly may be unfamiliar, but every one almost has heard his ditties
chanted--every one much over forty, at all events. "I'll hang my
Harp on a Willow Tree," and "I'd be a Butterfly," and "Oh, no! we
never mention Her," are dimly dear to every friend of Mr. Richard
Swiveller. If to be sung everywhere, to hear your verses uttered in
harmony with all pianos and quoted by the world at large, be fame,
Bayly had it. He was an unaffected poet. He wrote words to airs,
and he is almost absolutely forgotten. To read him is to be carried
back on the wings of music to the bowers of youth; and to the bowers
of youth I have been wafted, and to the old booksellers.
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