PRINTING AND PUBLISHING.

YOUNG authors are generally so completely ignorant of all that relates to the business side of a literary life— its relations to the printer and the publisher, and the best means of gaining a footing in periodical literature -that a few plain and simple rules will, it is believed, be found of great assistance to them in the first steps of their career. By mastering these rules, time and trouble may be spared, not only to the writers themselves, but to the various editors, publishers, and printers, with whom they will have to deal.

MSS. AND THEIR PREPARATION.

It has been said that "the men who have the fewest manuscripts returned are the men who have taken the greatest pains with their work." It cannot be too strongly impressed upon the mind of the intending author that by carelessness in the merely mechanical part of his work, by frequent erasures and crabbed interlineations, by unnumbered pages, and general slovenliness, he may not improbably raise in the mind of the reader, on whose decision so much depends, a natural prejudice, which will only be overcome by something exceptionally good and original in the style or subject of the work itself.

"But I want to teach you to write with difficulty," was the somewhat chilling response of Boileau to Racine's boast of how easy he found it to write his first work. The lesson is still needed by the many who scribble in haste and repent at leisure, when they see

their productions returned again and again, the pristine freshness gone, the edges worn by frequent folding, and the appearance miserably battered. Every such unsuccessful attempt ought to be turned to account by the writer; he should determinedly apply himself to find out the faults that have proved fatal, in order that he may henceforth labour to avoid them.

Having then resolved to improve upon his failure and having satisfied himself that he really has something fresh and good to say, and that he can say it so as to find favour with the public, the writer will scarcely, perhaps, need to be reminded that such apparently trifling matters as the choice of his paper, its colour, and the length of his written lines are not beneath his attentive consideration. But the beginner who has not yet drawn experience from failure may be willing to purchase it on more favourable terms, by giving heed to the following practical counsels.

It is unlikely that anyone who deliberately intends to write for publication needs to be urged to write on single sheets of paper and only on one side of the sheet, as nearly all magazines, in their printed rules for contributors, mention this requirement in capital letters. We are forced to believe that some literary aspirants exist who are, in George Eliot's strong phrase," so well wadded with stupidity," that they have not yet become impressed with the simple fact that manuscripts intended for printing ought never to be written on both sides of the paper.

Beginning, then, with the paper, we would suggest that the best size for literary work is, perhaps, what is known as foolscap quarto. Sheets of this size lie conveniently on the compositor's desk. Larger sheets are awkward to handle, and may need to be folded and shifted with more or less trouble, before the printer can get through them. Smaller sheets run a greater risk of getting mixed up or going amissing. In the matter of colour, white paper is much better than blue, as it throws up the handwriting with more clearness.

The written lines should not cover the whole width

of the sheet; not only because a manuscript is more fatiguing to the eye, and its sense more difficult to take in at a glance when the lines are spread across it, but because it is well to leave a wide margin for possible corrections. A fourth, or a third, of the sheet is not too much to leave for emendations. These are easier to read on the margin than when written over the altered words; and many writers, before beginning their work, fold down the part of the paper intended for this purpose, so as to make the lines of the same length throughout. By this means, and by leaving a uniform space between the lines, it is easy for the author or printer to calculate exactly the amount of printed matter any given number of manuscript pages will make-otherwise a writer may find himself called upon to alter his work when he fancies that it is all finished, and to cut it down, or to spin it out, by so many pages as it exceeds or falls short of the estimated number.

A small and compact hand is the most rapid for the writer, and the most agreeable to the reader. Those writers that have done the largest amount of literary work, have as a very general rule written in such a hand. In any case there should be no mistake possible as to the particular words written. All proper names and technical terms, in particular, ought to be written as clearly and carefully as possible; for whilst a compositor recognizes ordinary words so rapidly that he can hardly be said to read them, an unusual name or scientific phrase will often puzzle him, and the greater number of mistakes in proof sheets are found in such words as these. It is, indeed, of the greatest importance that the manuscript should be made readable with ease and certainty; for all interlineations, erasures, and blottings add needlessly to the trouble of the printer and consequently to the expense of the publisher.

It is essential that each sheet be distinctly numbered. It is also well that it should be headed with the title or part of the title. A clear space should be kept at the left hand upper corner for fastening the sheets

together, so that the reader can turn them over rapidly without scattering them.

Amateurs who have not duly studied the graces of style are much given to embarking on long and breathless looking sentences, which drag their lumbering length along, unrelieved by any stop, save the full one, which, in the words of an Irish compositor, "cuts them short at length." Or they insert at random wild and indefinite dashes and dots, in places where they dimly discern that something in the nature of punctuation is expected of them. And as such vague suggestions are not always so clearly understanded of the printer that he can be depended upon to supply their places with the requisite stops, the result is often disastrous to the meaning of the author's elaborate sentences. It will be well therefore for the young writer to pay particular attention to the due punctuation of such literary efforts as he offers for publication. There is, indeed, no excuse for the tyro who dashes down his crude thoughts, draws a pen through them, scribbles above them such amendments as occur to him, and who then light-heartedly submits his unreadable production to a much-enduring reader or printer. Such a method, he ought to remember, has always been most unusual amongst our greatest authors. If Macaulay and Newman re-wrote their pages, as we are told they did, not merely once but several times, till they were satisfied with their work, the young aspirant for literary success may well be expected to pause before sending off as finished any manuscript in which he himself can see faults that it is possible for him to amend.

In the old days, when Pope's habit of writing on the backs of his friends' letters made his name a proverb for this peculiar form of parsimony, writing-paper was dear, and was not lightly wasted by careful persons. In those days, it was one of the dreams of Hannah More's girlhood to possess at one time a whole quire of paper to scribble on; and Boswell, inquisitively peering round Goldsmith's room, found its walls scrawled over with curious descriptions of different animals to be

worked into his book on "Animated Nature." Nowadays, however, there can be little gain in economizing paper, whilst in the process of careful rewriting, the author may not improbably discover many rugged passages and weak sentences, and in spite of "Fancy's fondness for the child she bears," he will see the advantage of correcting and improving them before he can regard his work as finished.

The manuscripts of famous authors have in countless instances been remarkable for good and plain writing. Sir Walter Scott wrote a clear and flowing hand, which never degenerated, although he wrote so much. Southey's also was remarkable for its neatness, though few writers ever got through a much greater amount of work than he did. Burns wrote a plain bold hand, very easy to read. Lamb's writing was so exquisitely neat and painstaking, that his manuscripts looked almost as delicately finished as were the wonderful poems which Blake engraved for himself with such elaborate care. Godwin wrote so well, that when his manuscripts were sold by auction after his death, they were described as perfect specimens of well-written copy. One original copy of a poem by Gray, to whose nature carelessness seemed an impossibility, sold for £130. Miss Austen and Miss Edgeworth wrote delicate and beautiful hands, as clear as print. And a long list of distinguished authors might be cited to prove that few of them have been in the habit of vexing the souls of printers by carelessly written copy.

To acquire the facility and flow of thought, as well as the intellectual decision required by those who write in this finished style, must be one great aim of the young author. Practised writers make up their minds beforehand, both as to what they mean to say, and as to how they ought to say it; with the exception of those very fastidious persons, who, as Tennyson says, refine and prune, and alter, "till all be ripe and rotten." But the amateur, inexperienced in method, and unformed in style, can be in little danger of falling into this artistic error of over-polishing his work. He cannot afford to