THOUGH the public does not care much for short stories they continue to be published. The prolific Mr. Oscar Wilde obliges the town with his 'Lord Arthur Savile's Crime' (Osgood and McIlvaine), which need not detain us long, as indeed it does not long detain the reader. The right kind of student will enjoy no inconsiderable number of grins over Mr. Wilde's work, but the general reader will feel that he is being played with. There are times when a child could play with the general reader, his appetite for ' bob's vorths', doses of drivel at a shilling, is marvellous. Nobody knows why, out of a hundred shilling novels, perhaps one succeeds, while the others fail. Like mining ventures, the production of shilling novels is a perfect hazard,: Only one thing is certain, that the pure chaser does not like being trifled with when once he feels that he is not taken seriously. Now Mr. Wilde takes neither himself, nor his tales, nor the reader seriously, for which we would be the last to blame him. His first story, the 'Crime of Lord Arthur Savile', is a Bab Ballad, in prose, and writ large. It is an exercise in the topsy turvy, the humour of murder is the topic, and that might be left to De Quincy. Then there is a ghost of the broadly waggish kind, reminding us of other comic ghosts, but not to be favourably compared with the on of Mr. Anstey. The ghost story ends, unexpectedly, with a little sentiment. There is also two brief anecdotes; one of them was capable of being made more interesting. That is all, and the whole, though nicely printed, if not very filling at the price of one florin.

Mr. Wilde's little book is only one out of a crowd of new volumes containing brief tales. On the topic of such a a very great deal has been written of late, by critics, mainly by American critics. They speak of 'The Short Story' with deep solemnity, as if it were an important phenomenon in literature, like Tragedy, or Epic, or The Ode. Perhaps the subject is too seriously treated. There have always been differences of length in stories. Some people unfold their narrative in three volumes; some in six pages. In England, the public prefer long novels. The reason, probably, is that the attention of the reader needs only once to be fairly aroused in a long novel if the novel be readable at all. In a volume of a dozen short stories, on the other hand, the attention needs to be wakened up a dozen times, and this is fatiguing. Again, there be many authors who say that if once they have a good situation, al| good notion, they cannot afford to waste it in a few pages. Except for the manual labour they find it just as easy, and a great deal more remunerative, to fill three volumes. Thus novels; are written, and are read, on the lines oft least resistance. Some years ago Mr. FREDERICK BOYLE had a good notion, He published it as a short story, 'The Fetich City', and while it greatly impressed its readers, they were comparatively. few. Similar notions, worked out at length, were later vastly successful, and much in demand. We like body and substance and weight in a tale; we are not content with a suggestion, however admirable many of Mr. R. L. STEVENSON's short stories were excellent, but one man knows them, to twenty who know his more elaborate legends. We have, perhaps, only one modern English, or rather one Anglo-Indian author, whose brief narratives are really popular, and critics keep demanding a long one from him. Apparently, in England money and reputation can hardly be made by brevity. We have no Decameron and in our hearts privately we wonder at the fame of that collection. Hawthorne would be very little known if he were merely the author of 'Twice Told Tales' and of 'Mosses from an Old Manse'. By brief tales Poe indeed won a great reputation, but not an adequate income. As far as money-making goes, he was born too early. Were Poe living now, what a 'boom' he would enjoy and how great would be his price among the Magazines! He did not live long enough to be properly discovered, talked about, and advertised.

The reasons why short stories have not been so successful in Anglo-Saxon lands, as in the native country of the conte, are therefore sufficiently obvious. These reasons are likely to continue in force, Authors will be economical of their inventions, and the public of its attention and interest. Novels will be stuffed with padding, and will meander through three volumes. Our literary tastes will go on being leisurely. One can hardly fancy FIELDING at work on short stories, still less RICHARDSON. These great geniuses needed elbow room. SCOTT notably preferred plenty of space, though he wrote the best of all short stories, 'Wandering Willie's Tale', and others like 'The Tapestried Chamber' and 'The Laird's Jock', which were excellent. Given an anecdote as a nucleus or germ, and he produced a long romance Mr. KIPLING could have made an excellent conte of six pages out of the dark tradition of the STAIR family. SCOTT preferred to expand it into the 'Bride of Lammermoor', and the world has not regretted his choice. Out of the material of 'The Stolen Letter', Mr. WILKIE COLLINS would easily have spun 2 novel; out of 'The Gold Beetle', another author could have made 2 volume. The more lengthened narrative might have excelled the briefer in contemporary vogue: as to duration the shorter shape seems to have merits. It is, probably, much 2 matter of chance whether a given nucleus is cut down too conte, or expanded into a volume by M. GUY DE MAUPASSANT. In turning over HAWTHORNE'S Note-books we perceive that he could use his notions in either way, exactly as he happened to prefer. Round the essential persons, the essential idea, other ideas and persons rapidly group themselves. The central ides of Mr LEFANU's 'Uncle Silas' was originally an anecdote, and appeared in a brief tale. Afterwards a long romance crystallised around this centre. The question is whether more is lost or gained practically, and for the author's art, by letting the idea expand itself. Authors can decide this for themselves, in accordance with their genius and intellectual habits. In England and America they are likely to obey the law of gravitation, and move in the direction of the greater mass. It is plain, indeed, that they ere even too well disposed to do this, and to expand, or rather to dilute, a notion into three volumes; to offer a huge canvas, where a sketch would suffice. Young authors, beginners, would save themselves much disappointment by trying their skill in half a dozen pages, before trying to become voluminous. But they always ambitious of bigness, to their own sorrow, and in face of frequent rejections. There is always a mart for a feasible short story in the Magazines; there is not always a mart for a long novel of equal merit.