No! Buchanan Is Not Still Possible!

Truth, 6 June 1889, pages 1071-1072, 981 words

In his article in the Universal Review, "Imperial Cockneydom," Mr. Buchanan elects to be considered a provincial. None will contest the aptness of his definition of himself; although those acquainted with his writings and appearance will perhaps think that the word "yokel" expresses more fully and succinctly the characteristics which distinguish him. Thirty years of London have effected nothing, either in his person or his attitude of mind; yokel he remains, whether truffle-hunting in the Daily Telegraph; whether vilifying his superiors or abusing his contemporaries; whether disfiguring English masterpieces; or whether performing any other act of literary prostitution. Yokel he remains; civilisation has expended her forces on him in vain, and has not dragged the smock from his back or the clogs from his feet. Reading from the Universal Review, I think of Wilkie's picture of "Blindman's Buff"; the blindfolded yokel is Robert Buchanan. With his arms stretched forth, he goes a-blundering. knowing not where, striving to seize those whom he hears mocking around him, and to save himself from collision with the door-post. Ladies and gentlemen assemble from adjoining rooms and ask in wonderment what it is all about. No one can answer, and in amazement they continue to watch the blundering fool. The yokel grabs at those nearest, and I feel myself laid hold of, in company with the Athenaeum and the Saturday Review. The yokel roars in my ears, "Every one knows what to think of you and your back kitchen." Then, turning to the Atheneum, he shouts, "You are still accepted by simple people in the country as a critical organ"; "and you," he says, shaking his fist in the face of the Saturday Review, "you are read by the sexton of the parish." Bat newspapers are not alone Mr. Buchanan's foes. Mr. Henry James, Mr. Laing, and many others are on his black-list. Professedly the Universal Review article is a reply to those who expressed an opinion on his article, "The Modern Young Man as Critic"; in truth, it is another dish of the half-understood and half-expressed notions concerning things in general and people in particular which Mr. Buchanan is so fond of declaiming.

Referring to my lament that he apologised to Mr. Rossetti and Mr. Swinburne, when he felt that he could no longer injure and might gain by being on terms with them, he says that his article on these writers was "a hasty article — a frivolous article, as I acknowledged afterwards, an unfair and uninstructed article." Mr. Buchanan omits to say that the article was published under a false name, and that he did not apologise for it for fifteen years — in fact, not until, as I said, he felt he could no longer injure and might gain by being on terms with Mr. Rossetti and Mr. Swinburne. He now tells us that the article created so much animus against him that he went in fear of his life, and it became inexpedient for him to publish any work under his own name. His fears for his life at the hands of Mr. Swinburne were probably ill-founded, being based only on his own vanity; of the disgust and disgrace, however, that he brought on himself there can be no doubt, and his position, as explained by himself in the current number of the Universal Review, is that of a lackey who, having been kicked into the street for writing anonymous letters, and having been re-admitted, condones his apology under plea of material necessity. Such is the story of Mr. Buchanan, as told by himself, and I really cannot imagine a meaner one.

Mr. Buchanan then speaks of his novel, "Foxglove Manor," a book which might be prosecuted with as much show of reason as any of the books condemned as obscene libels in the Recorder's Court last week. It is certainly quite as pernicious, and possesses not a single redeeming quality either in grace or incisiveness of style or strength in conception of idea. Mr. Buchanan condemns and condones its morality, and when performing the latter task he says that if I had ever shown as much desire of reformation as he has, that he should be glad to reconsider his opinion of me.

After this, Mr. Buchanan favours us with the names that have at various times been bestowed upon him. It appears that Mr. Edmund Yates, for some dirty trick Mr. Buchanan had played upon him, called him a scrofulous Scotch poet, and I, referring to his exploits in the Daily Telegraph, called him a Scotch truffle-finder, and some one else called him a Tartuffian Scotchman. In controverting the relevancy of these aliases Mr. Buchanan instructs us on many points concerning his birth and parentage. It appears that, strictly speaking, he has no nationality; he was born in Staffordshire, and he is Sootch only on his father's side. Honours are, therefore, divided; this is as it should be: I had always felt that that burden should not be borne alone by poor little Scotland.

What, however, I do admire in Mr. Buchanan is his smartness in introducing, in season and out of season, an advertisement for himself. Mr. Vizetelly was put in prison. At once Mr. Buchanan writes to protest, and puffs himself. Some ladies determine to dine together at the Criterion. Mr. Buchanan knocks at the door, and asks to be allowed to join them "because he is only a poet." Mr. Buchanan would have all mankind engaged in solving the great problem, Is Mr. Robert Buchanan the genius which he asserts himself to be, or is he the very ordinary sort of person that most of those who know of his existence deem him to be? Mankind, however, has fortunately other and more important business on hand, and, therefore utterly declines to attempt the solution.