Sir" George Trevelyan delivered an interesting speech to the Authors'
Club, London, on Monday, his topics being himself and the comparative advantages of the political and the literary life. Of himself he said that he had been drawn to literature by his interest in history, especially that of the eighteenth century, " when there were giants," and perhaps a little by his " hereditary taint." As to the advantages, the devotee of literature had to renounce the showy rewards open to the
politician, but he had compensations, one being that he could make his work as artistically perfect as his capacity would allow—can he ? Sir G. Trevelyan is lucky in his ex. perience—another being the pleasure of composition—is that greater than that of the orator, the architect, or the engineer --and the third being the chance of survival. Sterne, for instance, had lived, while those who frowned down on him bad died; and in the year 2,000 many literary men not far from that club would be remembered, while others in the palaces fronting Pall Mall and in the Palace of Westminster would be forgotten. We have discussed the subject elsewhere, and would only ask Sir George Trevelyan what he thinks his literary ability would be worth if Gutenberg or Fast, both men of action in the strictest sense, had not invented movable types.
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