MR. YATES'S AUTOBIOGRAPHY.*

MR. Yens has told the story of his literary life with great com- placency and good-humour. It has not been a serious life in any way, but the serious lives are not very numerous. The world, it is evident, has treated him very well, giving him money, friends, and acquaintances, and the exact measure of fame which he seems to have desired. Then he has good-health, has been always actively employed, and is not troubled by those pains of memory which have forced some illustrious autobiographers to throw aside the pen. The writer, it is needless to say, has many qualifications for his task. He has lived all his life among actors and journalists ; he knows the ways of men about town, has been at least a tem- porary resident in Bohemia, has listened to the gossip of the clubs, and, if we may judge from these pages, has forgotten • Edmiind Yat,s: his Recollections and Experiences. 2 vols. London: Bentley

nothing. Let it be remarked, to his credit, that he is honest with- -out being ill-natured; and if he knows nothing of reticence, he is free from the jealousy which infects some men of letters. In -every work we are bound to regard the writer's end. Not a question of high moment in literature, politics, religion, or art is discussed in these pages. Mr. Yates brushes the surface of life, chiefly of London life, and does it with a skilful hand. As a repertory of literary and theatrical gossip, these volumes are likely to attract many readers, and the author's sketches of character from the outside are drawn with vigorous lines.

It will be judged from what we have stated that the chief interest of the book is anecdotal. Mr. Yates is a capital gossip, and will carry the idlest reader through his volumes without the interruption of a yawn. He brings back old times and faces, so that many a Londoner, by the help of these "Recollections," will be able to recall incidents and associations of his own youth and manhood. In a work of this class, which does not call for special criticism, the reviewer is at liberty to flit hither and thither as chance or fancy may incline. He cannot well go astray ; and wherever he turns, he will find something pertinent and amusing. It is almost needless to say that Mr. Yates's

parents were well-known actors. The boy's early days were

spent in a house forming part of the Idelphi Theatre premises. "My parents," he writes, "had no great liking for their calling,

and I was not merely never allowed to visit the theatre, but was kept in as much ignorance in regard to it and its surround- ings as was possible with my position." The Adelphi was in its glory at that time ; and Nicholas Niehleby was adapted with great success, and received the heartiest praise of the novelist, who proposed to dramatise Oliver Twist himself. With Dickens,

many years later, Mr. Yates became intimate, and his admira- tion for that great humourist is unbounded. In the second volume will be found "A Dickens Chapter," written with en- thusiam, and singularly pleasant to read :—

"I have heard Dickens," the author writes, "described by those who knew him as aggressive, imperious, and intolerant, and I can comprehend the accusation ; but to me his temper was always of the sweetest and kindest. He would, I doubt not, have been easily bored, and would not have scrupled to show it, but he never ran the risk. He was imperious in the sense that his life was conducted on the sic rob) sic jubeo principle, and that everything gave way before him. The society in which he mixed, the laws which he kept, the opinions which he held, his likes and dislikes, his ideas of what should or should not be, were all settled by himself, not merely for himself, but for all those brought into connection with him, and it was never imagined they could be called in question."

Mr. Yates adds that Dickens .was not an emotional man, and did not wear his heart upon his sleeve ; and he accounts for his amazing indiscretion in publishing a statement of his family

difficulties by saying that "if he had been wholly devoid of a certain bias in the direction of theatrical ostentation, he would

not in this particular affair have acted as he did." Exactly, it was his bias, and not so much out of keeping, we think, with other parts of his character as Mr. Yates seems to hint. Mr. Yates states that when asked, as he frequently has been, "Did he [Dickens] come up to the expectations you had formed of him ? Was Dickens the man as lovable as Dickens the author ?" he has always replied "Yes, wholly." Of another great novelist slightly known to Mr. Yates, with whom he was brought into -unpleasant relations, he has, of course, less to say that is favour- able. It is a pity that he revives and describes with full details the quarrel with Thackeray at the Garrick Club ; but as Mr. Yates does bring the affair before his readers, they will probably be of opinion that the fault which lay in the first instance with him, was chiefly one of bad-taste. The public in those days

were not so accustomed to personal comment in newspapers as they are now. Thackeray was not unreasonably offended, but he made too much of the freak of a young man, and Mr. Yates's banishment from the Garrick was a punishment too severe for the offence. Let us turn to matter more attractive.

Mr. Yates, like Anthony Trollope, combined for many years official life in the Post Office with the pleasures of authorship,

and as dramatic critic, farce and verse writer, story-teller, lecturer, and literary gossip, exhibited the versatility which is perhaps his most striking characteristic. It was the perusal of Pendennis that led Mr. Yates to hanker after the literary career. He states that there is no story in the language which interests him like it, and it had this effect from the very first. "I wanted to be something more than a clerk in the Post Office, to be known as something else than the everlasting son of Adelphi, yow know." Whatever literature did for Mr. Yates in those clays, it did not lead him to scorn delights or burn midnight oil.

On the contrary, we read of visits to midnight taverns, gaming- houses, cider cellars, and other nocturnal haunts known to men about town. At a well-known oyster-shop, "with the celebrated Charlotte as its attendant Hebe," the following incident occurred :—

" Douglas Jerrold would sometimes look in. Charlotte was supposed to be one of the few who had ever silenced the great wit ; he bad been asking her for some time for a glass of brandy-and- water, and when at length Charlotte placed before him the steaming

jorum, she said There it is, you troublesome little man, mind you don't fall into it and drown yourself.' Jerrold, who was very sensitive to any remarks upon his small and bent figure, collapsed."

Of Jerrold another anecdote is told which we think we have beard before. After the successful production of one of his comedies, Mr. Yates, with other friends, escorted him to the Bedford Hotel, where supper was prepared:—

" Jerrold was flushed with triumph, but his bodily strength was small, and be hung on to my arm. As we went up New Street we met two or three drunken roysterers one of whom, after tumbling up against me apologised and asked the way to the Judge and Jury, a popular entertainment of the day. Instantly Jerrold bent forward

and addressed him Straight on young man ; continue in the path you are now pursuing and you can't fail to come to them.'"

Some of Mr. Yates's best anecdotes, by the way, are not told in these pages for the first time. The following, for instance, is certainly not new ; but as Carlyle is just now brought promin- ently before the public in Mr. Froude's volumes, we may be pardoned for quoting it :—

"Of Carlyle I may say vial, tent not. I was presented to him by Dickens one day when we met him walking down Portland Place, but as we parted from him Dickens told me a good story. He had met Carlyle at dinner a few nights before, whero there was present a certain pompous gentleman, who still lives to adjust literary repu- tations. A question of some moment having been started, it was promptly disposed of by this personage, who, as Dickens said, in his usual style, took hold of it, made it into a small parcel, and laid it away on a shelf, not to be moved thence any more.' It seems that after the oracle had delivered himself there was a dead silence, in the midst of which Carlyle, who had been blankly gazing at the great personage opposite to him, said, in a truly absent manner, but perfectly audible, Eh, but you're a puir creatur—a pair, wretched, meeserable creator,' and theli went on with his dinner."

Here, however, is an anecdote of the writer's Post-office days, anent Sir Rowland Hill and Anthony Trollope, which will, we think, be new to our readers. It will be remembered that Trollope and Hill cordially hated each other :—

" I recollect one occasion when I had attended a meeting of the Surveyors, which was held in the summer-time, at that good old- fashioned inn the Red Lion at Henley, for the purpose of laying before them some views of Sir Rowland's. I had secret instructions that if these views were controverted I was, on the authority of the Secretary, to declare the meeting adjourned, to reassemble at the General Post Office under Sir Rowland's chairmanship. As I expected, the Surveyors were by no means unanimous, Trollope as usual being loudest in opposition ; so I proceeded to act upon my instructions. These were received with much discontent ; but my orders were imperative : I dismissed the meeting, and the next day the Surveyors—some very sulky, none very pleased—assembled in the Secretary's room at St. Martin's. I had told the old gentleman exactly what had occurred, and I knew from bis snort of defiance as he listened, and from the battle-light gleaming behind his spectacles, that he probably meant mischief. He got his first shot at Trollope early in the discussion : Anthony burst in with an interruption ; but Hill, pointing at him with his pencil, said at once : One at a time, Mr. Trollope, one at a time, if you please ; another gentleman is speaking now.' And later on, when some one had been talking of official phraseology,' the old gentleman made a great bit. One of you gentlemen,' he said, 'has used the words "official phraseology." Now official phraseology is a good thing in its way, but very often it by no means describes the actually existing state of affairs. For instance, in writing to you, gentlemen' I am accustomed to describe myself in official phrase- ology as "Your obedient humble servant," whereas '—and here he sat up and glared round through his glasses—' whereas ms nothing of the sort ! "

In his younger days Mr. Yates had a large amount of

superfluous energy, and was fond of riding, rowing, and sparring. Of the last-mentioned accomplishment, he writes :—

" I never had much science, but being strong and very long in the reach, and being able to take a good amount of punishment, I was rather an awkward customer. Years after I had given up the gloves, I was looking on at a wrestling exhibition in Leicester Square, and was thinking how savagely it was conducted, and what frightful con- cussions the thrown men received, when I felt my arm touched by Alec Keane, whom I had not seen for ages, but who said, with a smile, Yon and I used to knock each other about at one time, Mr. Yates, but I don't think we could either of us have stood much of this.'"

Later in life his strength and mental elasticity had large calls upon them. The more work crowded on him, the more he seemed to undertake ; and the second volume of the " Recollections " describes a coarse of activity which would have been fatal to a. weaker man. As sub-editor or editor, as a writer simultaneously for numerous periodicals, as a popular lecturer, Mr. Yates gained money and reputation. He gave, too, what was called an "Entertainment," after the manner of his great friend, Albert Smith ; and when he retired from the Post Office, it will be seen from the following extract that, to use his own words, he "was not wholly idle " :—

"Meanwhile I was not wholly idle. I was finishing a novel, A Waiting Race, and plotting another, The Yellow Flag. I went to Rotterdam for the Daily News, to describe the files consequent on the tercentenary of the recapture of Brielle from the Spaniards, and I wrote a portion of the description of the thanksgiving ceremonies at St. Paul's, for the reooveryof the Prince of Wales, for the same journal. I was contributing regularly to All the Year Round and the Observer, and, under a female pseudonym, was writing a weekly article called Five o'Clock Tea' in the Queen, which was a source of vast amuse- ment to me, evoking, as it did, a large number of letters from corre- spondents, all of whom imagined that the writer, Mrs. Seaton,' was a veritable personage. When it is learned that, in addition to these trifles, I was, in conjunction with Mr. A. W. Dubourg, engaged upon a three-act drama entitled Without Love, which was afterwards pro- duced at the Olympic, it will probably be believed that I had but little leisure."

Then Mr. Yates tried his fortune in the States as a lecturer, and was received with "loud cheering and hearty shouts of approval." The papers praised or puffed him as only New York papers can for his good looks and good words ; praised the ease and placidity of his humour ; and asserted, that with the excep- tion of Charles Reade, he was more popular in the United States than any other living English novelist. The morning after the delivery of the first lecture Mr. Yates was visited by the manager of a cheap publication and offered £500 for a short story in ten chapters. Wherever he went an enthusiastic welcome awaited him. In Philadelphia he appears to have been specially successful ; and the " boss " who organised the lectures was asked what he thought of that effort :—" And you liked what you heard of the lecture, Mr. Pugh?" What I heard of it, Sir ! Why, look here young man, I've been running the Star Course of Lectures for ten years, and I've never heard a single word of any of them I'" Before Mr. Yates left the States he was offered £2,400 if he would return the next season for a three months' lecturing tour. The offer, however, was not accepted, for he received an appointment at the same time from the proprietor of the New York Herald as London correspondent and principal representative in Europe, at a salary of £1,200 a year. We have not space to recount all Mr. Yates's journalistic triumphs ; they may be read at large in the autobiography, which contains in the final chapter the story of his connection with Mr. Grenville Murray as joint-proprietor of The World.