3 1822 01222 5371
 
 UBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 3 1822 01222 5371
 
 EPHEMERA CRITICA
 
 EPHEMERA CRITICA 
 
 OR PLAIN TRUTHS ABOUT 
 CURRENT LITERATURE 
 
 BY JOHN CHURTON 
 ^COLLINS 
 
 Non verebor nominare singulos, quo facilius, propositis exemplis, 
 appareat, quibus gradibus fracta sit et deminuta eloquentia. 
 
 Dial, de Orat. 
 
 aivtiav au'ijTa, fxoft<^df Si' eirKTirtlpoiv aAirpois. 
 
 Pindar 
 
 FOURTH EDITION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 
 
 ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE AND CO LTD 
 
 2 WHITEHALL GARDENS, WESTMINSTER 
 
 1902
 
 BUTLER & TANNER, 
 
 THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS, 
 
 FROME, AND LONDON.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IT is time for some one to speak out. When 
 we compare the condition and prospects of 
 Science in all its branches, its organization, its 
 standards, its aims, its representatives with those 
 of Literature, how deplorable and how humilia- 
 ting is the contrast ! In the one we see an 
 ordered realm, in the other mere chaps. The 
 one, serious, 'strenuous, progressive, is displaying 
 an energy as wonderful in what it has accom- 
 plished as in what it promises to accomplish ; 
 the other, without soul, without conscience, with- 
 out nerve, aimless, listless and decadent, appears 
 to be stagnating, almost entirely, into the mono- 
 poly of those who are bent on futilizing and de- 
 grading it. 
 
 Science stands where it does, not simply by 
 virtue of the genius, the industry, the example 
 of its most distinguished representatives, but be- 
 cause by those representatives the whole sphere 
 of its activity is being directed and controlled. 
 The care of the Universities, the care of learned 
 societies, the care of devoted enthusiasts, its in- 
 terests and honour are watchfully and jealously 
 
 3
 
 PREFACE 
 
 guarded. The qualifications of its teachers are 
 guaranteed by tests prescribed by the highest 
 authorities on the subjects professed. To stan- 
 dards fixed and maintained by those authorities 
 is referred every serious contribution to its 
 literature. Even a popular lecturer, or a popular 
 writer, who undertook to be its exponent would 
 be exploded at once if he displayed ignorance 
 and incompetence. Such, indeed, is the solidarity 
 of its energies that it is rather in the degrees 
 and phases of their manifestation than in their 
 essence and characteristics that they vary. 
 There is not a scientific institution in England 
 the regulations and aims of which do not bear 
 the impress of such masters as Huxley and 
 Tyndall and their disciples ; not a work issuing 
 from the scientific Press which is not a proof 
 of the influence which such men have exercised 
 and are exercising, and of the high standard 
 exacted and attained wherever Science is taught 
 and interpreted. 
 
 It is far otherwise with Literature. Those 
 who represent it, in a sense analogous to that 
 in which the men who have been referred to 
 represent Science, have neither voice nor in- 
 fluence in its organization, as a subject of in- 
 struction, at the centres of education. They 
 neither give it the ply, nor in any way affect 
 its standards and its character in practice and 
 production. As examples few follow them, as 
 counsellors no one heeds them. They constitute 
 
 4
 
 PREFACE 
 
 what is little more than an esoteric body, 
 moving in a sphere of its own. 
 
 And yet there is no reason at all why there 
 should not be the same solidarity in the activity 
 of Literature as there is in the activity of Science, 
 and why the standard of aim and attainment 
 in the one should not be as high as in the other. 
 But this can never be accomplished until certain 
 radical reforms are instituted, and the first step 
 towards reform is to demonstrate the necessity 
 for it. I have done so here. I have drawn at- 
 tention to the state of things in our Universities, 
 in other words, to what I must take leave to 
 call the scandalous and incredible indifference of 
 the Councils of those Universities to the appeals 
 which have, during the last fifteen years, been 
 made to them to place the study of Literature, in 
 the proper sense of the term, upon the footing 
 on which they have placed other studies. I have 
 pointed out what have been, and what must 
 continue to be, the effects of that indifference. 
 I have given specimens of the books to which 
 the Universities are not ashamed to affix their 
 imprimatur, and I have shown that, so far from 
 them considering even their reputation involved 
 in such a matter, they do not scruple to circulate 
 works teeming with blunders and absurdities of 
 the grossest kind, blunders and absurdities to 
 which their attention has been publicly called 
 over and over again. I have given specimens 
 of the kind of works which the occupants of 
 
 5
 
 PREFACE 
 
 distinguished Chairs of Literature can, with per- 
 fect impunity, address to students ; and I would 
 ask any scientific man what would be thought 
 of a Professor, say, of the Royal Naval College, 
 or of the City and Guilds of London Institute, 
 who should put his name to analogous publica- 
 tions to publications, that is to say, as unsound 
 in their theories, as inaccurate in their facts, as 
 slovenly and perfunctory in general execution, 
 as those to which I have here directed attention ? 
 If such things are done in the green tree, what 
 is likely to be done in the dry ? or, as Chaucer 
 puts it, "if gold ruste, what schal yren doo?" 
 That is one of the questions on which these 
 essays may, perhaps, throw some light. 
 
 To be misrepresented and misunderstood is 
 the certain fate of a book like this, and I am 
 well aware of the responsibilities incurred in 
 undertaking it. It is very distasteful to me to 
 give pain or cause annoyance to any one, and, 
 whether I am believed or not, I can say, with 
 strict truth, that I have not the smallest personal 
 bias against any of those whom I have cen- 
 sured most severely. I believe, for the reasons 
 already explained, that Belles Lettres are sink- 
 ing deeper and deeper into degradation, that 
 they are gradually passing out of the hands of 
 their true representatives, and becoming almost 
 the monopoly of their false representatives, and 
 that the consequence of this cannot but be most 
 disastrous to us as a nation, to our reputation 
 
 6
 
 PREFACE 
 
 in the World of Letters, to taste, to tone, to 
 morals. It is surely a shame and a crime in 
 any one, and more especially in men occupying 
 positions of influence and authority, to assist in 
 the work of corruption, either by deliberately 
 writing bad books or by conniving, as critics, at 
 the production of bad books ; and I am very 
 sure it has become a duty, and an imperative 
 duty, to expose and denounce them. 
 
 These essays are partly a protest and partly 
 an experiment. As a protest they explain, and, I 
 hope, justify themselves ; as an experiment they 
 are an attempt to illustrate what we should be 
 fortunate if we could see more frequently illus- 
 trated by abler hands. They are a series of 
 studies in serious, patient, and absolutely impar- 
 tial criticism, having for its object a comprehen- 
 sive survey of the vices and defects, as well as 
 of the merits, characteristic of current Belles 
 Lettres. I do not suppose that anything I have 
 said will have the smallest effect on the present 
 generation, but on the rising generation I be- 
 lieve that much which has been said will not be 
 thrown away. In any case, what I was con- 
 strained to write I have written. And it is my 
 last word in a long controversy. 
 
 It remains to add that most of these essays 
 appeared originally in the Saturday Review, and 
 I desire to express my thanks to the late and pre- 
 sent Editors, not merely for permission to repro- 
 duce the essays, but for much kindness besides. 
 
 7
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Three appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, and 
 one, the first essay on " English Literature 
 at the Universities," in the Nineteenth Century ; 
 and my thanks are due to the Editor of the Pall 
 Mall Gazette and to Mr. Knowles. But all of 
 them have been carefully revised and greatly 
 enlarged, in some cases to more than double 
 their original form. The introductory essay is, 
 with the exception of the opening pages, in 
 which I have drawn on an old article of mine in 
 the Quarterly Review, quite new; and, indeed, 
 that may be said of a great part of the volume. 
 
 NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION 
 
 I REGRET to find that I have done M. Jasserand 
 grave injustice in censuring him for being 
 ignorant of the existence of the Speculum 
 Meditantis, the MS. of which was identified after 
 the publication of his work.
 
 LIST OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPIIU PAGB 
 
 I. THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM . 13 
 
 II. ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 PART 1 45 
 
 ill. ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 PART II 76 
 
 IV. ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE UNIVERSITIES. 
 
 PART III 84 
 
 V. OUR LITERARY GUIDES. PART I. . . .93 
 
 VI. OUR LITERARY GUIDES. PART II. . . 110 
 
 VII. LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION .... 133 
 
 VIII. OUR LITERARY GUIDES. PART III. . . 145 
 
 IX. THE NEW CRITICISM 151 
 
 9
 
 CHAPTER PAQB 
 
 X. THE GENTLE ART OF SELF-ADVERTISEMENT 158 
 XI. R. L. STEVENSON'S LETTERS . . .165 
 
 XII. LITERARY ICONOCLASM ..... 172 
 
 XIII. WILLIAM DUNBAR 183 
 
 XIV. A GALLOP THROUGH ENGLISH LITERATURE 193 
 XV. DE QUINCEY AND His FRIENDS ... 203 
 
 XVI. LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE. . . . 211 
 
 XVII. SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS . . . .219 
 
 XVIII. LANDSCAPE IN POETRY .... 236 
 
 XIX. AN APPRECIATION OF FRANCIS TURNER 
 
 PALGRAVE 250 
 
 XX. ANCIENT GREEK AND MODERN LIFE . . 255 
 
 XXI. THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM . . . 270 
 
 XXII. WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY .... 283 
 
 XXIII. MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS' POEMS . . . 294 
 
 XXIV. THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE .... 301 
 
 10
 
 LIST OF CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER HOB 
 
 XXV. VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS . . 303 
 
 XXVI. THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON . . 318 
 
 XXVII. CATULLUS AND LESBIA 335 
 
 XXVIII. THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE . , 351 
 
 11
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS OF 
 CRITICISM 
 
 IT may sound paradoxical to say that the more 
 widely education spreads, the more gener- 
 ally intelligent a nation becomes, the greater is 
 the danger to which Art and Letters are ex- 
 posed. And yet how obviously is this the case, 
 and how easily is this explained. The quality 
 of skilled work depends mainly on the standard _ 
 required of the workman. If his judges and 
 patrons belong to the discerning few who, 
 knowing what is excellent, are intolerant of 
 everything which falls short of excellence, the 
 standard required will necessarily be a high one, 
 and the standard required will be the standard 
 attained. In past times, for example, the only 
 men of letters who were respected formed a 
 portion of that highly cultivated class who will 
 always be in the minority; and to that class, 
 and to that class only, they appealed. A com- 
 munity within a community, they regarded the 
 general public with as much indifference as the 
 general public regarded them, and wrote only 
 for themselves, and for those who stood on the 
 same intellectual level as themselves. It was 
 
 13
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 so in the Athens of Pericles ; it was so in the 
 Rome of Augustus ; it was so in the Florence 
 of the Medici ; and a striking example of the 
 same thing is to be found in our own Eliza- 
 bethan Dramatists. Though their bread de- 
 pended on the brutal and illiterate savages for 
 whose amusement they catered, they still talked 
 the language of scholars and poets, and forced 
 their rude hearers to sit out works which could 
 have been intelligible only to scholars and poets. 
 Each felt with pride that he belonged to a great 
 guild, which neither had, nor affected to have, 
 anything in common with the multitude. Each 
 strove only for the applause of those whose 
 praise is not lightly given. Each spurred the 
 other on. When Marlowe worked, he worked 
 with the fear of Greene before his eyes, as 
 Shakespeare was put on his mettle by Jonson, 
 and Jonson by Shakespeare. We owe Hamlet 
 and Sejanus, Much Ado about Nothing and the 
 Alchemist, not to men who bid only for the 
 suffrage of the mob, but to men who stood in 
 awe of the verdict which would be passed on 
 them by the company assembled at the Mermaid 
 and the Devil. 
 
 As long as men of letters continue to form 
 an intellectual aristocracy, and, stimulated by 
 mutual rivalry, strain every nerve to excel, and 
 as long also as they have no temptation to 
 pander to the crowd, so long will Literature 
 maintain its dignity, and so long will the stan- 
 
 14
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 dard attained in Literature be a high one. In 
 the days of Dryden and Pope, in the days even 
 of Johnson and Gibbon, the greater part of 
 the general public either read nothing, or read 
 nothing but politics and sermons. The few 
 who were interested in Poetry, in Criticism, 
 in History, were, as a rule, those who had 
 received a learned education, men of highly 
 cultivated tastes and of considerable attain- 
 ments. A writer, therefore, who aspired to 
 contribute to polite literature, had to choose 
 between finding no readers at all, and finding 
 such readers as he was bound to respect be- 
 tween instant oblivion, and satisfying a class 
 which, composed of scholars, would have turned 
 with contempt from writings unworthy of 
 scholars. A classical style, a refined tone, and 
 an adequate acquaintance with the chief au- 
 thors of Ancient Rome and of Modern France, 
 were requisites, without which even a periodical 
 essayist would have had small hope of obtaining 
 a hearing. Whoever will turn, we do not say 
 to the papers of Addison and his circle in the 
 early part of the last century, or to those of 
 Chesterfield and his circle later on, but to the 
 average critical work of Cave's and Dodsley's 
 hack writers, cannot fail to be struck with its 
 remarkable merit in point of literary execution. 
 But as education spreads, a very different 
 class of readers call into being a very different 
 class of writers. Men and women begin to seek 
 
 15
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 in books the amusement or excitement which 
 they sought formerly in social dissipation. To 
 the old public of scholars succeeds a public, in 
 which every section of society has its repre- 
 sentatives, and to provide this vast body with 
 the sort of reading which is acceptable to it, 
 becomes a thriving and lucrative calling. An 
 immense literature springs up, which has no 
 other object than to catch the popular ear, and 
 no higher aim than to please for the moment. 
 That perpetual craving for novelty, which has 
 in all ages been characteristic of the multitude, 
 necessitates in authors of this class a corre- 
 sponding rapidity of production. The writer of 
 a single good book is soon forgotten by his 
 contemporaries ; but the writer of a series of 
 bad books is sure of reputation and emolument. 
 Indeed, a good book and a bad book stand, 
 so far as the general public is concerned, on 
 precisely the same level, as they meet with 
 precisely the same fate. Each presents the 
 attraction of a new title-page. Each is glanced 
 through, and tossed aside. Each is estimated 
 not by its intrinsic worth, but according to the 
 skill with which it has been puffed. Till within 
 comparatively recent times this literature was, 
 for the most part, represented by novels and 
 poems, and by those light and desultory essays, 
 sketches and ana, which are the staple com- 
 modity of our magazines. And so long as it 
 confined itself within these bounds it did no 
 
 16
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 mischief, and even some good. Flimsy and 
 superficial though it was, it had at least the 
 merit of interesting thousands in Art and Let- 
 ters, who would otherwise have been indifferent 
 to them. It afforded nutriment to minds which 
 would have rejected more solid fare. To men 
 of business and pleasure who, though no longer 
 students, still retained the tincture of early 
 culture, it offered the most agreeable of all 
 methods of killing time, while scholars found 
 in it welcome relaxation from severer studies. 
 It thus supplied a want. Presenting attractions 
 not to one class only, but to all classes, it grew 
 on the world. Its patrons, who half a century 
 ago numbered thousands, now number millions. 
 
 And as it has grown in favour, it has grown 
 in ambition. It is no longer satisfied with the 
 humble province which it once held, but is ex- 
 tending its dominion in all directions. It has 
 its representatives in every department of Art 
 and Letters. It has its poets, its critics, its 
 philosophers, its historians. It crowds not our 
 club-tables and news-stalls only, but our libra- 
 ries. Thus what was originally a mere excres- 
 cence on literature, in the proper sense of the 
 term, has now assumed proportions so gigantic, 
 that it has not merely overshadowed that litera- 
 ture, but threatens to supersede it. 
 
 No thoughtful man can contemplate the pre- 
 sent condition of current literature without 
 disgust and alarm. We have still, indeed, 
 
 B.O. 17 B
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 lingering among us a few masters whose works 
 would have been an honour to any age ; and 
 here and there among writers may be discerned 
 men who are honourably distinguished by a 
 conscientious desire to excel, men who respect 
 themselves, and respect their calling. But to 
 say that these are in the minority, would be to 
 give a very imperfect idea of the proportion 
 which their numbers bear to those who figure 
 most prominently before the public. They are, 
 in truth, as tens are to myriads. Their com- 
 parative insignificance is such, that they are 
 powerless even to leaven the mass. The posi- 
 tion which they would have occupied half a 
 century ago, and which they may possibly 
 occupy half a century hence, is now usurped by 
 a herd of scribblers who have succeeded, partly 
 by sheer force of numbers, and partly by judi- 
 cious co-operation, in all but dominating litera- 
 ture. Scarcely a day passes in which some book 
 is not hurried into the world, which owes its 
 existence not to any desire on the part of its 
 author to add to the stores of useful literature, 
 or even to a hope of obtaining money, but 
 simply to that paltry vanity which thrives on 
 the sort of homage of which society of a certain 
 kind is not grudging, and which knows no dis- 
 tinction between notoriety and fame. A few 
 years ago a man who contributed articles to a 
 current periodical, or who delivered a course of 
 lectures, had, as a rule, the good sense to know 
 
 18
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 that when they had fulfilled the purpose for 
 which they were originally intended, the world 
 had no more concern with them, and he would 
 as soon have thought of inflicting them in the 
 shape of a volume on the public, as he would 
 have thought of issuing an edition of his private 
 letters to his friends. Now all is changed. The 
 first article in the creed of a person who has 
 figured in either of these capacities, appears to 
 be, that he is bound to force himself into notice 
 in the character of an author. And this, hap- 
 pily for himself, but unhappily for the interests 
 of literature, he is able to do with perfect 
 facility and with perfect impunity. Books are 
 speedily manufactured and as speedily reduced 
 to pulp. A worthless book may be as easily 
 invested with those superficial attractions which 
 catch the eye of the crowd as a meritorious one. 
 As the general public are the willing dupes of 
 puffers, it is no more difficult to palm off on 
 them the spurious wares of literary charlatans, 
 than it is to beguile them into purchasing the 
 wares of any other kind of charlatan. No one 
 is interested in telling them the truth. Many, 
 on the contrary, are interested in deceiving 
 them. As a rule, the men who write bad books 
 are the men who criticise bad books ; and as 
 they know that what they mete out in their 
 capacity of judges to-day is what will in turn 
 be meted out to them in their capacity of 
 authors to-morrow, it is not surprising that 
 
 19
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 the relations between them should be similar 
 to those which Tacitus tells us existed between 
 Vinius and Tigellinus " nulla innocentise cura, 
 sed vices impunitatis." 
 
 Meanwhile all those vile arts which were 
 formerly confined to the circulators of bad 
 novels and bad poems are practised without 
 shame. It is shocking, it is disgusting to con- 
 template the devices to which many men of 
 letters will stoop for the sake of exalting them- 
 selves into a factitious reputation. They will 
 form cliques for the purpose of mutual puffery. 
 They will descend to the basest methods of self- 
 advertisement. And the evil is fast-spreading. 
 Indeed, things have come to such a pass, that 
 persons of real merit, if they have the misfor- 
 tune to depend on their pens for a livelihood, 
 must either submit to be elbowed and jostled 
 out of the field, or take part in the same ignoble 
 scramble for notoriety, and the same detestable 
 system of mutual puffery. Thus everything 
 which formerly tended to raise the standard of 
 literary ambition and literary attainment has 
 given place to everything which tends to degrade 
 it. The multitude now stand where the scholar 
 once stood. From the multitude emanate, to 
 the multitude are addressed two-thirds of the 
 publications which pour forth, every year, from 
 our presses. 
 
 Viviamo scorti 
 
 Da mediocrita : sceso il sapiente, 
 20
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 E salita e la turba a un sol confine 
 Che il mondo agguaglia. 
 
 Matthew Arnold very truly observed, that one of 
 the most unfortunate tendencies of our time was 
 the tendency to over-estimate the performances 
 of " the average man." The over-estimation of 
 these performances is no longer a tendency, but 
 an established custom. Literature, in all its 
 branches, is rapidly becoming his monopoly. 
 As judged and judge, as author and critic, 
 there is every indication that he will proceed 
 from triumph to triumph, and establish his 
 cult wherever books are read. Now the only 
 sphere in which " the average man " is entitled 
 to homage is a moral one, and he is most vener- 
 able when he is passive and unambitious. But 
 if ambition and the love of fame are awakened 
 in him, he is capable of becoming exceedingly 
 corrupt and of forfeiting every title to venera- 
 tion. He is capable of resorting to all the 
 devices to which men are forced to resort in 
 manufacturing factitious reputations, to impos- 
 ture, to fraud, to circulating false currencies of 
 his own, and to assisting others in the circula- 
 tion of theirs. Even when he is free from these 
 vices, so far as their deliberate practice is con- 
 cerned, he is scarcely less mischievous, if he be 
 uncontrolled. To say that his standard is never 
 likely to be a high one, either with reference to 
 his own achievements or with reference to what 
 he exacts from others, and to say that the 
 
 21
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 systematic substitution of inferior standards for 
 high ones must affect literature and all that 
 is involved in its influence, most disastrously, 
 is to say what will be generally acknowledged. 
 And he has everything, unhappily, in his favour 
 numbers, influence, the spirit of the age. 
 For one who sees through him and takes 
 his measure, there are thousands who do not : 
 for one who could discern the justice of an 
 exposure of his shortcomings, there are thou- 
 sands who would attribute that exposure to 
 personal enmity and to dishonest motives. His 
 power, indeed, is becoming almost irresistible. 
 The one thing which he and his fellows 
 thoroughly understand is the formidable advan- 
 tage of co-operation. The consequence is that 
 there are probably not half a dozen reviews 
 and newspapers now left which they are not 
 able practically to coerce. An editor is obliged 
 to assume honesty in those who contribute to 
 his columns, and also to avail himself of the 
 services of men who can write good articles, if 
 they write bad books. In the first case, it is 
 not open to him to question the justice of the 
 verdict pronounced ; in the second case, the 
 courtesy of the gentleman very naturally and 
 properly predominates, under such circum- 
 stances, over public considerations and how 
 can truth be told ? Nor is this all. Assuming 
 that an editor is free from such ties, he has 
 to consult the interests of his paper, to study 
 
 22
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 popularity, and not to estrange those who are, 
 from a commercial point of view, the main- 
 stays of all our literary journals, those who 
 advertise in them, the publishers. " If," said 
 an editor to me once, " I were to tell the 
 truth, as forcibly as I could wish to do, about 
 the books sent to me for review, in six months 
 my proprietors would be in the bankruptcy 
 court." It is in the power of the publishers to 
 ruin any literary journal. There is probably 
 not a single Review in London which would 
 survive the withdrawal of the publishers' ad- 
 vertisements. 
 
 A more honourable class of men than those who 
 form the majority of the London publishers does 
 not exist, nor have the interests of Literature, 
 as distinguished from commercial interests, ever 
 found heartier and more ungrudging support, 
 than they have long found in three or four of 
 the leading firms, and as they are now finding in 
 two or three of the firms which have been more 
 recently established. But, unhappily, this is not 
 everywhere the case. While the firms, to which I 
 have referred, have never, in anyway, attempted 
 to interfere with the independence of reviewers, 
 others have made no secret of their intention to 
 make their patronage in advertisement depen- 
 dent on favourable notices of their publications. 
 The strain of temptation and peril to which 
 editors are thus exposed may be estimated by 
 the fact that, a flattering review may, if sup- 
 
 23
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 plemented by similar ones, put some three hun- 
 dred a year into the pockets of their proprietors, 
 while severity and justice would involve a cor- 
 responding loss. It need hardly be said that no 
 editor of a respectable review would allow any 
 definite understanding of this kind to exist, or 
 that any publisher would ever dare to suggest 
 it, but there can be no doubt that such con- 
 siderations have to be taken into account almost 
 universally, and place serious restraint on free- 
 dom of judgment. 
 
 There is, it is true, another aspect of this 
 question. Publishers must protect themselves. 
 Though reviews offend much more frequently 
 on the side of dishonest and interested puffery, 
 they are very often made the vehicles of equally 
 unscrupulous rancour and spite. If they do 
 their readers injustice, by attempting to foist 
 bad books on them, they do every one concerned 
 injustice, by damning good ones. No one could 
 blame a publisher for declining to support a 
 paper which was continually making his books 
 the subjects of unmerited attacks. But a pub- 
 lisher who attempts to prevent the truth from 
 being told, and so secures, or seeks to secure, 
 currency for his spurious wares, is guilty of an 
 act which borders closely on fraud. 
 
 Another circumstance very favourable to the 
 encouragement of inferiority, and not of in- 
 feriority only, but of charlatanism and im- 
 posture, is the increasing tendency to regard 
 
 24
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 nothing of importance compared with the spirit 
 of tolerance and charity. An all-embracing 
 philanthropy exempts nothing from its protec- 
 tion. Every one must be good-natured. Severity, 
 we are told, is quite out of fashion. Such censors 
 as the old reviewers are now mere anachronisms. 
 It is vain to plead that tolerance and charity 
 must discriminate ; that, like other virtues, they 
 may be abused, and that in their abuse they 
 may become immoral ; that there are higher 
 considerations than the feelings of individuals ; 
 and that, if to give pain or annoyance admits 
 of no justification but necessity, necessity may 
 exact their infliction as an exigent duty. 
 
 But this spirit of tolerance and charity has 
 also become attenuated into the spirit of mere 
 laissez-faire. We have no lack of real scholars 
 and of real critics, who see through the whole 
 thing, and probably deplore it ; but they make 
 no sign, look on with a sort of amused per- 
 plexity, and do their own work, thankful, no 
 doubt, sometimes, when it is oppressive, that 
 they need not be over -scrupulous about its 
 quality. If, occasionally, they get a little im- 
 patient and indulge their genius, protest goes 
 no further than sarcasm and irony, so fine that 
 it is intelligible only among themselves ; while 
 the objects of their satire, as well as the general 
 public, missing the one and misinterpreting the 
 other, take it all for applause. Resistance, it is 
 said, is useless. Literature is a trade. What 
 
 25
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 has come was inevitable : vive la bagatelle, and 
 drift with the stream. 
 
 And now let us consider what are the results 
 of all this. The first and most important is the 
 degradation of criticism. Criticism is to Litera- 
 ture what legislation and government are to 
 States. If they are in able and honest hands 
 all goes well ; if they are in weak and dishonest 
 hands all is anarchy and mischief. And as 
 government in a Republic, the true analogy to 
 the sphere of which we are speaking, is re- 
 presented not by those who form the minority 
 in its councils, but by those who form the ma- 
 jority, so in criticism, it is not on the few but 
 on the many among those who represent it, that 
 its authority and influence depend. And what 
 are its characteristics in the hands of its prevail- 
 ing majority in the hands of those who are 
 its legislators in a realm co-extensive with the 
 reading world? It is not criticism at all. To 
 criticism, in the true sense of the term, it has no 
 claim even to approximation. It seems to have 
 resolved itself into something which wants a 
 name, something which is partly dithyramb 
 and partly rhetoric. Without standards, without 
 touchstones, without principles, without know- 
 ledge, it appears to be regarded as the one calling 
 for which no equipment and no training are 
 needed. What a master of the art has called the 
 final fruit of careful discipline and of much ex- 
 perience is assumed to come spontaneously. A 
 
 26
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 man of literary tastes is born cultured. A critic, 
 like a poet, is the pure product of nature. Such 
 canons as these "critics" have are the mysterious 
 and somewhat perplexing evolutions of their 
 own inner consciousness, or derived, not from 
 the study of classical writers in English or in 
 any other language, of all of whom they are 
 probably profoundly ignorant, but from a 
 current acquaintance with the writings of con- 
 temporaries, who are, in intelligence and per- 
 formance, a little in advance of themselves. 
 But what they lack in attainments they make 
 up in impudence. The effrontery of some of 
 these " critics," whose verdicts, ludicrous to 
 relate, are daily recorded as " opinions of the 
 Press," literally exceeds belief. They will sit in 
 judgment on books written in languages of 
 whose very alphabets they are ignorant. They 
 will pose as authorities and pronounce ex 
 cathedrd on subjects literary, historical, and 
 scientific of which they know nothing more 
 than what they have contrived to pick up from 
 the works which they are "reviewing." Their 
 estimates of the books, on the merits and 
 demerits of which they undertake to enlighten 
 the public, correspond with their qualifications 
 for forming them. Books displaying in their 
 writers the grossest ignorance of the very 
 rudiments of the subjects treated, and literally 
 swarming with blunders and absurdities, all of 
 which pass undetected and unnoticed, are made 
 
 27
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 the subjects of elaborate panegyrics, which 
 would need some qualification if applied to the 
 very classics in the subjects under discussion. 
 Books, on the other hand, of unusual and 
 distinguished merit are despatched summarily 
 in a few lines of equally undeserved depreciation ; 
 books written in the worst taste and in the vilest 
 style are pronounced to be models of both. 
 Sobriety, measure, and discrimination have no 
 place either in the creed or in the practice of 
 these writers. They think in superlatives ; they 
 express themselves in superlatives. It never 
 seems to occur to them that if criticism has to 
 reckon with Mr. Le Gallienne it has also to reckon 
 with Shakespeare ; that if it has to take the 
 measure of Mr. Hall Caine, it has likewise to 
 take the measure of Cervantes and Fielding, and 
 that of some dozen prose writers and poets, it 
 cannot be pronounced, at the same time of each, 
 that he is " the greatest living master of English 
 prose," or " without parallel for his superlative 
 command of all the resources of rhythmical 
 expression." There is one accomplishment in 
 which these critics are particularly adroit, and 
 that is in keeping out of controversy, and so 
 avoiding all chance of being called to account. 
 For this reason they deal more in eulogy than 
 in censure, for the public is less likely to 
 complain of a bad book being foisted on them 
 for a good one, than its irate author to sit silent 
 under reproof. 
 
 28
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 If we go a little higher, things are almost as 
 bad, if not quite so ridiculous. In everything but 
 in criticism it is necessary to specialize. A man 
 who posed as an authority on all the literatures 
 of the world, and on the history of every nation 
 in the world, would be very justly set down as 
 an impostor. And yet pretentions which men 
 would be the first to ridicule, as private in- 
 dividuals, they do not scruple to claim, as critics. 
 An historical student enriches History with a 
 volume throwing new and important light on 
 some obscure episode or period ; a classical 
 student deserves the gratitude of scholars for an 
 invaluable monograph ; English Literature or one 
 of the Continental Literatures is illustrated by a 
 series of dissertations as instructive as they are 
 original ; or a truly memorable contribution has 
 been made to political philosophy, to aesthetics, 
 or to ethics. What is their fate ? It is by no 
 means improbable that they will be ' reviewed,' in 
 the course of a few days, by the same man for 
 three or four, or it may be for five or six, daily and 
 weekly journals, and their fortune in the market 
 made or marred by a censor who has probably 
 done no more than glance at their half-cut pages, 
 and who, if he had studied them from end to 
 end, would have been no more competent to take 
 their measure than he would have been to write 
 them. This leads, it is needless to say, to every 
 kind of abuse : to works which deserve to be 
 authorities on the subjects of which they treat 
 
 29
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 dropping at once into oblivion, to works which 
 every scholar knows to be below contempt 
 usurping their places ; to the deprivation of . all 
 stimulus to honourable exertion on the part 
 of authors of ability and industry ; to the en- 
 couragement of charlatans and fribbles ; to 
 gross impositions on the public. A very amus- 
 ing and edifying record might be compiled 
 partly out of a selection of the various verdicts 
 passed contemporaneously by reviews on par- 
 ticular works, and partly out of comparisons of 
 the subsequent fortunes of works with their 
 fortunes while submitted to this censorship. 
 
 But it is not these causes only which con- 
 tribute to the degradation of criticism. A very 
 important factor is the prevalence, or rather the 
 predominance, of mere prejudice, the prejudice 
 of cliques in favour of cliques, the prejudice of 
 cliques against cliques, the prejudice of the 
 veteran against or in favour of the novice, the 
 subsequent compensation, in corresponding pre- 
 judice on the part of the novice, when his 
 novitiate is over. The two things which never 
 seem to be considered are the interests of Litera- 
 ture and the interests of the public. The appear- 
 ance of a work by the member of a particular 
 coterie is the signal, on the one hand, for a series 
 of preposterously intemperate eulogies, and for 
 a series, on the other hand, of equally intemperate 
 depreciations, in such organs as are accessible to 
 both parties. If a work, with any pretension to 
 
 30
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 originality, by a previously unknown author 
 makes its appearance, it is pretty sure to fare 
 in one of three ways : it will scarcely be noticed 
 at all ; it will be made the theme of a philippic 
 against innovating eccentricities and new- 
 fangled notions ; or it will fall into the hands 
 of a critic who is on the look-out for a " dis- 
 covery." Its fortune, so far as notoriety is con- 
 cerned, will, in that case, be made. The critic, 
 thus on his mettle and with his character for dis- 
 cernment at stake, will not only become propor- 
 tionately vociferous but will rally his equally 
 vociferous partisans. Hyperbole will be heaped 
 on hyperbole, rodomontade on rodomontade, 
 till real merit will be made ridiculous, and 
 the unhappy author awake at last, to assume 
 his true proportions, in a Fool's Paradise. 
 
 And to this pass has criticism come, and 
 Literature generally, in almost all its branches, 
 is necessarily following suit. It would be no ex- 
 aggeration to say, that the sole encouragement 
 now left to authors to produce good books is 
 the satisfaction of their own conscience, and the 
 approbation of a few discerning judges ; and 
 this attained, they must starve if their bread 
 depends upon their pen. It is not that a good 
 book will not be praised, but that bad books 
 are praised still more ; it is not that it will fail 
 to find fair and competent reviewers, but that 
 for one fair and competent reviewer it will find 
 fifty who are unfair and incompetent. It is on 
 
 31
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 its acceptance, not with the few who can esti- 
 mate its merits, but with the many who take 
 that estimate on trust from judges, whose com- 
 petence or incompetence they are equally unable 
 to gauge, that the possibility of a book yielding 
 any return to its author depends. The public 
 neither can nor will distinguish. A book which 
 has two or three favourable press notices which 
 are merited cannot stand against a book having 
 twenty or thirty which are unmerited. Nor is 
 this all. Measured and discriminating eulogy, 
 which means precisely what it expresses, and 
 which is always the note of sound and just 
 criticism, is to the uninitiated poor recommen- 
 dation compared with that which has no limita- 
 tion but extremes. How can the still small 
 voice of truth expect to get a hearing amid a 
 bellowing Babel of its undistinguishable mimic ? 
 What inducement has an author to aim at excel- 
 lence, to spend three or four years on a mono- 
 graph or a history that it may be sold for waste 
 paper, when some miserable compilation, vamped 
 up in as many weeks, will, with a little manage- 
 ment, give him notoriety and fill his purse? 
 There is not a scholar, not a discerning reader in 
 England who will not bear me witness when I say 
 that, as a rule, the best books produced in Belles 
 Lettres are those of which the general public 
 knows nothing, and that he has been guided 
 to them sometimes by pure accident, and some- 
 times, it may be, by a depreciatory notice or curt 
 
 32
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 paragraph in " our library table " limbo. And 
 what does this mean ? It means that a writer 
 has discovered that it is impossible for him to 
 have a conscience, or aim at an honourable repu- 
 tation, unless he can afford to lose money. It 
 means more ; it means that publishers are 
 obliged to discourage the production of solid and 
 scholarly works. It is notorious that the Dele- 
 gates of the Clarendon Press at Oxford, and one 
 or two firms in London, having regard to the 
 honourable traditions of their predecessors, have 
 wished to maintain those traditions by en- 
 couraging the production of such works, and 
 have, at a great pecuniary loss, persevered in 
 this ambition. But no publisher can continue 
 to multiply books which do not pay their 
 expenses, and whose sale begins and ends in 
 the remainder market. 
 
 This state of things is the more deplorable 
 when we consider its effect, not merely in de- 
 grading and corrupting Literature on its pro- 
 ductive side, but in detracting so seriously from 
 its efficacy on its influential side. During the 
 last few years the rapid spread of higher 
 education, the popularization of liberal culture 
 through such agencies as the University Ex- 
 tension Lectures, the National Home Reading 
 Union and similar institutions have called into 
 being an immense and constantly multiplying 
 class of serious readers and students. These 
 already number tens of thousands, they will 
 
 B.C. 33 c
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 before long number hundreds of thousands. 
 Now it is of the utmost importance that these 
 readers, who are quite prepared to appreciate 
 what is excellent, should be guided to what is 
 excellent, and discouraged in every way from 
 conversing with what is bad and inferior in 
 Literature. But how is this to be done when 
 those who are striving, in every way, to raise 
 the standard of popular taste and of popular 
 culture, as teachers, find all their efforts counter- 
 acted by the intense activity of those who are 
 doing their utmost to degrade both, as writers. 
 It is only those engaged in education, and more 
 particularly in popular education, who can under- 
 stand the extent of the mischief which book- 
 makers and the puffers of bookmakers are 
 doing, who can understand the tone, the taste, 
 the temper induced by the habitual and exclu- 
 sive perusal of the writings characteristic of 
 these pests, the inaccuracies and errors, the 
 misrepresentations and absurdities, to which 
 these writings give currency. 
 
 In the days of our forefathers, a reader of 
 literary tastes, if he wished to acquaint himself 
 with an English classic, went to the fountain 
 head and read Spenser or Milton, Pope or 
 Addison for himself. If he desired to know 
 what criticism had said about them, he had 
 criticism of authority at hand, and he con- 
 sulted it. In our day it is about an even 
 chance whether the ordinary reader would 
 
 34
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 trouble himself to turn to the originals or not : 
 he would probably content himself with the 
 notices of them in some current manual of 
 English Literature, or with some essay or mono- 
 graph. Now, in the myriads of such publica- 
 tions, in vogue or out of vogue, knocked under 
 by their successors or scuffling with their 
 contemporaries, he might have the luck to 
 light on a good guide ; he might have the luck 
 to light on Dean Church, or Mark Pattison, or 
 Mr. Leslie Stephen, or Professor Courthope, or 
 Mr. Frederic Harrison ; but he is much more 
 likely to make his way to a luminary in the 
 last well-puffed " series." The first article in 
 the creed of the modern book-maker seems 
 to be that the appearance or existence of a 
 good book is a sufficient justification for the 
 production of a bad one to take its place. An 
 excellent monograph is published, and is popu- 
 lar. This is the signal for the manufacture of 
 half a dozen inferior ones, which are mutually 
 destructive, and serve no end except to sub- 
 stitute bad books for a good one, and to make 
 the good one forgotten. Again, a work which 
 has long been classical in criticism is assumed 
 not to be " up to date," and is either edited on 
 this hypothesis, or we have another substituted 
 for it. This in turn yields its vogue for 
 fashions change quickly in modern taste to a 
 similar experiment, till a third is announced. Of 
 the relation of criticism to principles, or indeed 
 
 35
 
 THE PKESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 to anything else but to their own whims or 
 impressions, these iconoclasts appear to be pro- 
 foundly unaware. 
 
 It requires, needless to say, the utmost 
 wariness and care on the part of those who 
 regulate, and on the part of those who are en- 
 gaged in, education, to keep this inferior litera- 
 ture in its place. If it were allowed to make its 
 way authoritatively into our schools and Uni- 
 versities, or indeed into any of our educational 
 institutions, the consequences would be most 
 disastrous. It is not so much that it would 
 disseminate error as that it would become in- 
 fluential in more serious ways, aesthetically in 
 its influence on taste, morally in its influence on 
 tone and character, intellectually in lowering the 
 whole standard of aim and attainment in studies. 
 
 That the evils which have been described 
 admit of no remedy at present, or perhaps in 
 the present generation, may be fully conceded. 
 But they may be palliated if they cannot be 
 cured, and they must be palliated by the agents 
 to whom we may ultimately look for their cure, 
 education and fearless criticism. As their origin 
 may be mainly ascribed to the failure of the 
 Universities to adapt themselves to new con- 
 ditions, so on the willingness of the Universities 
 to repair their error must depend all possibility 
 of rectifying the results of it. From its organi- 
 zation at the Universities everything compre- 
 hended in the system of liberal study takes its 
 
 36
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 ply ; its standards are there determined, its 
 methods formulated, its aims defined. As a 
 subject of teaching, and as the result of teach- 
 ing, in its relation to theory and in its relation 
 to practice, it there receives an impression which 
 is permanent. It has been so with classical 
 scholarship, and with Philology ; it has been 
 so with Philosophy and Theology, with Juris- 
 prudence and History. What has been im- 
 parted in the lecture-rooms of Oxford and 
 Cambridge has orally, and by the pen, become 
 influential wherever these subjects are repre- 
 sented. There is not an educational institute in 
 Great Britain or in the colonies, there is not a 
 serious magazine or review on which it has not 
 set its seal. We have a striking illustration of 
 this in the case of Modern History. Some thirty 
 years ago it was practically unrepresented, 
 either at Oxford or Cambridge. Since then its 
 study has been organized. What has been the 
 result ? It has become one of the most flourish- 
 ing branches of learning. It has reduced chaos 
 to order ; it has raised its teaching, and by 
 implication its literature, to a very high stan- 
 dard ; it has put the canaille of sciolists and 
 fribbles into their proper place ; while disciplin- 
 ing energy it has directed it to fruitful objects ; 
 it has revolutionized the study of the whole 
 subject. 
 
 Thus the condition and fortune of everything 
 which is affected by education depend on the 
 
 37
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 Universities. All that they do, or neglect to do, 
 passes into precedent. There is nothing sus- 
 ceptible of educational impression which does 
 not take its colour and its characteristics from 
 them. They have made the subjects which are 
 represented in their schools what they are, and 
 every intelligent English citizen proud and 
 grateful. 
 
 But, owing to a disastrous confusion between 
 two branches of study which are radically and 
 essentially distinct, Philology and Belles Let- 
 tres, both Oxford and Cambridge have not only 
 left unorganized, but assisted in the degradation 
 of studies, which are of as much concern, and 
 vital concern, to national life as any which are 
 represented in their Schools. To leave an im- 
 portant department of education unrecognised 
 in their system, is sufficient cause for surprise 
 and regret ; but that they should be doing all in 
 their power to prevent any possibility of such a 
 defect being supplied is deplorable. And yet 
 this is what is being done. That Chairs, Schools 
 and Degrees may be established in the interests 
 of Philology, Philology is, by a palpable fiction, 
 identified with Literature. As the result of what 
 the late Professor Huxley denounced as " a fraud 
 upon letters," a Chair founded in the interests of 
 Literature was at Oxford appropriated by the 
 philologists. This has been followed by the es- 
 tablishment of a School, in which all that can 
 provide for the honour of Philology is blended 
 
 38
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 with all that contributes to the degradation of 
 Literature ; while, to give further currency and 
 authority to this absurd complication, the ap- 
 proval of a thesis, on some subject pertaining 
 purely to Philology, entitles the writer to the 
 diploma, not of a Doctor in Philology, but of a 
 Doctor in Literature ! 
 
 Meanwhile, to make confusion worse con- 
 founded, the Universities, or, to speak more 
 correctly, a party in the Universities, are un- 
 dertaking to provide the country with teachers 
 for the dissemination of literary culture, for 
 the interpretation of Literature in the proper 
 sense of the term. Whether this is done com- 
 petently or incompetently depends, of course, 
 and must depend purely on accident, on the wil- 
 lingness and ability, that is to say, of individual 
 teachers to educate themselves. Common stand- 
 ards and common aims they have none. Each 
 does what is right in his own eyes. As some 
 have graduated in the classical schools, some in 
 the Mediaeval and Modern Languages Tripos, 
 some in Modern History, some in Moral Science 
 or Theology, and some in nothing, there is 
 naturally much variety in their methods and 
 aims. 
 
 But it is when we turn to the works in 
 modern Belles Lettres, and more particularly 
 to those dealing with English Literature, which 
 the University Presses publish, that we realize 
 the full significance of this anarchy. It would 
 
 39
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 not be going too far to say, that all which is 
 worst in current literature, when at its worst 
 finds in some of these works comprehensive 
 illustration. It is indeed almost an even chance 
 whether a work issuing from those Presses is 
 excellent, whether it is indifferent, or whether 
 it is executed with shameful incompetence. 1 
 
 All, therefore, so far as Belles Lettres are con- 
 cerned is chaos at the Universities, and all con- 
 sequently is chaos everywhere else. 
 
 The next appeal for all appeals to the Univer- 
 sities have been vain must be made to those 
 who regulate the curriculums where Literature 
 is made a subject of teaching. Let them rigor- 
 ously exclude all but the best books. Let them 
 discourage the study of such Epitomes, Manuals, 
 and Histories as are the work of mere irre- 
 sponsible book makers, and prescribe in its 
 place the study of literary masterpieces. With- 
 out excluding the best modern poetry and prose, 
 
 1 One illustration of the indifference of the authorities of 
 our University Presses to the interest of Literature is so 
 scandalous that it must be specified. Fourteen years ago a 
 series of lectures was delivered by the then Clarke Lecturer 
 in the Hall of Trinity College, Cambridge. They were after- 
 wards published under the title of From Shakespeare to Pope, 
 and reviewed in the Quarterly Review for October, 1886. 
 The lectures, as the Review showed, absolutely swarmed 
 with blunders, many of them so gross as to be almost in- 
 credible. Ever since then the volume has been circulated by 
 the Press, absolutely unrevised, indeed without a single cor- 
 rection, and is now in circulation. 
 
 40
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 let most attention for obvious reasons be 
 paid to the writings of the older masters. Let 
 them lay special stress on the study of criticism, 
 of works treating of its principles, of works 
 illustrating the application of its principles to 
 particular writers ; and let no work be recog- 
 nised which is not of classical authority. Trans- 
 lations should, of course, as a rule, be avoided ; 
 but in such a subject as the principles of 
 criticism, there is not the smallest reason why 
 those works which are most excellent in other 
 languages, such as the Treatise on the Sublime, 
 and some portions of Aristotle's Poetic, such as 
 Lessing's Laocoon, Schiller's Letters on Esthetics, 
 the best Essays of Sainte - Beuve should not 
 be included. 1 Nor can it be emphasized too 
 strongly that the theory on which all literary 
 teaching should proceed is that its object is not 
 so much to plant as to cultivate, not so much to 
 convey information, which, after all, is but its 
 medium, as to inspire, to refine, to elevate. I 
 cannot but think, too, that the foundations of 
 
 1 Cf . what Milton says in prescribing the study of master- 
 pieces in criticism : " This would make them (students) soon 
 perceive what despicable creatures our common rimers and 
 play- writers be, and show them what religious, what glori- 
 ous and magnificent use might be made of poetry, both in 
 Divine and human things. From hence, and not till now, 
 will be the right season of forming them to be able writers 
 and composers in every excellent matter, when they shall be 
 thus fraught with an universal insight into things." Trac~ 
 tate on Education. 
 
 41
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS 
 
 all this might be laid much earlier than they 
 are, especially in our classical schools, by 
 encouraging, as, according to Coleridge, Dr. 
 Boyer used to do, the study of some of our 
 greater writers, such as Shakespeare and Milton, 
 side by side with that of Homer and Sophocles. 
 
 But it is in criticism, in criticism com- 
 petently, honestly, and fearlessly applied, that 
 the chief salvation lies. There is probably 
 no review or newspaper in London which 
 does not number among its contributors men 
 of the first order of ability and intelligence, 
 men who are real scholars and real critics, 
 men who see through all that I have been 
 describing and are sick of it. Let them not 
 remain an impotent minority, but combine, 
 and become influential. If popular Literature 
 aspires to be ambitious, and trespasses on the 
 domains of scholarship and criticism, let them 
 submit it to the tests which it invites, let 
 them try it by the standards which it exacts. 
 There is no more reason for the co-existence 
 of two standards, as is now practically the 
 case, in the production of writings treating of 
 our own Literature than there is in the pro- 
 duction of writings dealing with Classical Litera- 
 ture. The work of any one who meddles with 
 the last, even in the way of popularizing it, is 
 instantly called by scholars to a strict account, 
 and sciolism and charlatanry are exploded at 
 once. But in the case of our own Literature 
 
 42
 
 OF CRITICISM 
 
 there is no such solidarity. It seems to be 
 assumed that a scholar is one thing and a man 
 of letters another, that the difference between 
 work which appeals to connoisseurs and work 
 which appeals to the public is not simply a 
 difference in degree, but a difference in kind, 
 and that the criteria of the multitude need be 
 the only criteria of what is addressed to the 
 multitude. The manuscript of a History of 
 Greek or Roman Literature, or a monograph 
 on an ancient classic, if it were not at least 
 solid and trustworthy, would have no chance 
 of ever getting beyond a publisher's reader. 
 But a History of English Literature, or a mono- 
 graph on an English classic, teeming with 
 errors in fact and with absurdities in theory 
 and opinion, will not improbably be regarded 
 as an authority, and pass, unrevised, into more 
 than one edition. 
 
 The progressive degradation of Literature and 
 of what is involved in its influence is, and must 
 be, inevitable, unless criticism is prepared watch- 
 fully and faithfully to do its duty. Let it guard 
 jealously the standards and touchstones of ex- 
 cellence as distinguished from mediocrity, even 
 though it may be prudent to make great allow- 
 ances in applying them ; let it institute a 
 rigorous censorship over books designed for the 
 use of students at the Universities and in other 
 educational establishments ; let it permit no 
 writer to pose in a false position, and deliber- 
 
 43
 
 THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM 
 
 ately trade on the ignorance and inexperience 
 of his readers ; let it discourage in every way 
 the production of worthless and superfluous 
 books, whether in poetry or in prose ; and 
 lastly, while fully recognising how much must 
 be conceded to professional authors writing 
 against time, having to court popularity or 
 being fettered by conditions imposed on them 
 by their employers, let it take care that their 
 productions shall at least not be mischievous, 
 either by disseminating error or by corrupting 
 taste. 
 
 44
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE 
 UNIVERSITIES 
 
 I. LANGUAGE VERSUS LITERATURE 
 AT OXFORD 
 
 TO say that the anarchy which has resulted 
 from confusing the distinction between the 
 study and interpretation of Literature as the 
 expression of art and genius, and its study and 
 interpretation as a mere monument of language, 
 has had a most disastrous effect on education 
 generally, would be to state very imperfectly 
 the truth of the case. It has led to inadequate 
 and even false conceptions of what constitutes 
 Literature. It has led to all that is of essential 
 importance in literary study being ignored, and 
 all that is of secondary or accidental interest 
 being preposterously magnified ; to the substitu- 
 tion of grammatical and verbal commentary for 
 the relation of a literary masterpiece to history, 
 to philosophy, to aesthetics ; to the mechanical 
 inculcation of all that can be imparted, as it 
 has been acquired, by cramming, for the intelli- 
 gent application of principles to expression. It 
 
 45
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 has led to the severance of our Literature from 
 all that constitutes its vitality and virtue as an 
 active power, and from, all that renders its 
 development and peculiarities intelligible as a 
 subject of historical study. In a word, it has 
 led to a total misconception of the ends at which 
 literary instruction should aim, as well as of its 
 most appropriate instruments and methods. All 
 this is illustrated nowhere more strikingly than 
 in the publications of the two great University 
 Presses. It would be easy to point to editions 
 of English classics, and to works on English 
 Literature, bearing the imprimatur of Oxford 
 and Cambridge, in which all that is worst in the 
 opposite extremes of pedantry and dilettantism 
 finds ludicrous expression. 
 
 And in thus speaking we are saying nothing 
 more than is notorious, nothing more than is 
 admitted, and admitted unreservedly, in the 
 Universities themselves, or at least at Oxford. 
 But different sections of Academic society regard 
 the matter in different lights. The majority of 
 the classical professors and teachers, deprecating 
 any attempt on the part of the University to 
 meddle with " Literature," treat the whole thing 
 as a joke, and, so far from supposing that 
 the reputation of the University is concerned, 
 find infinite amusement in the constant ex- 
 posures which are being made in the reviews 
 and newspapers of the absurdities of the " Eng- 
 lish Literature party." They regard the " study 
 
 46
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 of Literature " precisely as they regard the Uni- 
 versity Extension Movement the one as a con- 
 temptible excrescence on our Academic system, 
 the other as a contemptible excrescence on 
 Academic curricula. Another section takes a 
 very different view. Recognising the reason- 
 ableness of the appeals which have, during the 
 last twelve years, been made to Oxford to place 
 the study of Literature on the same sound footing 
 as she has placed that of other subjects included 
 in her courses, and discerning clearly that what 
 is required cannot be obtained as long as the 
 interests of Philology and those of Literature 
 continue to collide, this party, unhappily a small 
 minority, has pleaded for the establishment of a 
 School of Literature. They have very properly 
 laid stress on four points : First, that, as the chief 
 justification for the establishment of such a School 
 is the fact that the University is undertaking by 
 innumerable agencies, its Press, its oral teachers 
 both at home and abroad, to disseminate liberal 
 instruction through the medium of English 
 Literature, the principal object of the School 
 should be the education of these agencies. 
 Secondly, they have insisted that, if the inter- 
 pretation of Literature is to effect what it is of 
 power to effect, if, as an instrument of politi- 
 cal instruction, it is to warn, to admonish, to 
 guide, if, as an instrument of moral and aesthetic 
 instruction, it is to exercise that influence on 
 taste, on tone, on sentiment, on opinion, on 
 
 47
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 character on all, in short, which is susceptible 
 of educational impression it must both be 
 properly denned and liberally studied; and they 
 contend that, if it is to be so defined and so 
 studied outside the Universities, it must first be 
 so defined and so studied within. Thirdly, they 
 insist that the study of our own Literature 
 should be associated with that of ancient classi- 
 cal literature, for two indisputable reasons : first, 
 because the basis of all liberal literary culture, of a 
 high standard, must necessarily rest on competent 
 classical attainments, and because, historically 
 speaking, the development and characteristics of 
 the greater part of what is most valuable in our 
 Literature would be as unintelligible, without 
 reference to the Greek and Roman classics, as the 
 Literature of Rome would be without reference 
 to that of Greece. Fourthly, they point out that, 
 as our Literature is, in various intimate ways, 
 associated with the Literatures of Italy, France, 
 and Germany, and that, as an acquaintance 
 with the classics of those countries must form 
 an essential element in a literary education, the 
 comparative study of those Literatures and our 
 own ought, by all means, to be encouraged and 
 provided for. And, fifthly, they show that what 
 is demanded is perfectly feasible. There already 
 exists in the University, they contend, every 
 facility for organizing such a course of Litera- 
 ture as is required. All that is needed is co- 
 ordination. In the Classical Moderations and in 
 
 48
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 the Literce Humaniores Honour Schools a liberal 
 literary education on the classical side is already 
 provided ; two-thirds in fact of the discipline, 
 culture, and attainments desiderated in a literary 
 teacher it is the aim of those Schools to impart. 
 The Taylorian Institute provides instruction in 
 the languages and literatures of the Continent ; 
 and, if its professors could be roused into a little 
 more activity, a youth might, in two years, if he 
 pleased, and that side by side with his severer 
 studies acquire something more than a superfi- 
 cial acquaintance with the language and writings 
 of Dante and Machiavelli, of Montaigne and 
 Moliere, of Lessing and Goethe. What he couM 
 not obtain would be instruction and guidance in 
 the study of our own Literature. In a word, all 
 that is required to secure what this party plead 
 for is simply the establishment of a School of 
 English Literature, in the proper acceptation of 
 the term, and the co-ordination of studies which 
 are at present pursued independently. It was 
 proposed that it should take the form of a Post- 
 graduate Honour School, standing in the same 
 relation to the other schools in the University 
 as the old Law and History School used to stand 
 to the old Literce Humaniores School, and as the 
 examination for the Bachelorship in Civil Law 
 now stands to the ordinary Law School. Thus 
 a youth who had graduated in honours in 
 Moderations and in the Final Classical School, 
 who had studied modern literatures at the 
 B.C. 49 D
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 Taylorian and our own Literature under its 
 professor, or even by himself, would have an 
 opportunity of displaying his qualifications for 
 an honour diploma in Literature. But the 
 appeals and arguments of this party have been 
 of no avail. 
 
 Next come the philologists. They are in 
 possession of the field. All the revenues sup- 
 porting the Chairs of Language and Literature 
 are their monopoly. They have steadily resisted 
 all attempts on the part of what may be denomi- 
 nated the Liberal party to encroach on their 
 dominions. In their eyes the Universities are 
 simply nurseries for esoteric specialists, and to 
 talk of bringing them into touch with national 
 life is, in their estimation, mere cant. Their 
 attitude to wards Literature, generally, is precisely 
 that of the classical party towards our own 
 Literature ; they regard it simply as the con- 
 cern of men of letters, journalists, dilettants, 
 and Extension lecturers. They defeated sixteen 
 years ago an attempt to establish a Chair of 
 English Literature by transforming it into a 
 Chair of Language and securing it for themselves. 
 They attempted, subsequently, to supplement 
 what they had done by the establishment of a 
 School of Language on the model of the Medie- 
 val and Modern Languages Tripos at Cambridge. 
 They were defeated by a coalition of the clas- 
 sical party, the Liberals, of whom we have just 
 spoken, and a third party which insisted on a 
 
 50
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 compromise between Philology and Literature. 
 Reviving the scheme, they have, by accepting 
 the modifications of the compromisers, just 
 succeeded in getting it accepted. The new 
 School of English Language and Literature is 
 the result of that compromise. 
 
 Now it will not be disputed that if the Univer- 
 sities ought, in the interests of liberal culture, 
 to provide adequately for instruction in Litera- 
 ture, they ought also, in the interests of science, 
 to provide adequately for instruction in Philology. 
 It is a branch of learning of immense impor- 
 tance. It is, and ought to be, the peculiar care of 
 Universities, and nothing could be more deroga- 
 tory to a University than deficiency in such a 
 study. But it is a study in itself. As a science 
 it has no connection with Literature. Indeed 
 the instincts and faculties which separate the 
 temperament of the mathematician from the 
 temperament of the poet are not more radical 
 and essential than the instincts and faculties 
 which separate the sympathetic student of 
 Philology from the sympathetic student of 
 Literature. But no science resolves itself more 
 easily into a pseudo-science, and it is in this 
 degenerate form that it has become linked with 
 Literature and been, in all ages, the butt of wits 
 and men of letters. Nothing but anarchy can 
 result till this mutually degrading alliance be 
 dissolved. It has been forced on the philologists 
 by the compromise to which reference has been 
 
 51
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 made. Let them be free to rescind it. Let the 
 " pia vota " of Professor Max Miiller be fulfilled 
 and Oxford have her School of Philology. That 
 such a School should be established is desirable 
 for three reasons. In the first place, it would 
 define what is at present vague and indeter- 
 minate, the scope and functions of Philology. 
 Secondly, it would place that study on its 
 proper footing, and, by placing it on its proper 
 footing, it would not only demonstrate its rela- 
 tion to other studies, but it would enable it 
 to effect fully what it is competent to effect. 
 Thirdly, it might, and probably would, do some- 
 thing to relieve Oxford of the opprobrium of 
 being behind the rest of the learned world in 
 this branch of science. The School would prob- 
 ably not attract many students, for Philology, 
 unlike Literature, can never appeal to more 
 than a small minority. If, therefore, the choice 
 lay between the institution of a School of Phil- 
 ology and that of a School of Literature, there 
 can be no doubt which should have precedence. 
 But no such choice is offered. If the philologists 
 were not strong enough to refuse to compromise, 
 they are strong enough to crush any attempt to 
 forestall them. 
 
 Let us now turn to the constitution of the 
 School which has been the result of this arrange- 
 ment, and which will authorize the University 
 to confer, not, be it remembered, an ordinary, 
 but an honour, degree in English Language and 
 
 52
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Literature. The following are the Regulations. 
 The subjects for examination are four. 1. Por- 
 tions of English authors. 2. The History of the 
 English Language. 3. The History of English 
 Literature. 4. In the case of those candidates 
 who aim at a place in the first or second class, a 
 Special Subject of language or literature. The 
 portions of the authors specified are these. 
 Beowulf, the texts printed in Sweet's Anglo- 
 Saxon Reader, King Horn, Havelok; Laurence 
 Minot, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Of 
 Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, the Prologue, The 
 Knight's Tale, The Man of Law's, The Prioress's, 
 Sir Thopas, The Monk's, The Nun Priest's, The 
 Pardoners, The Clerk's, The Squire's, The Second 
 Nun's, The Canon Yeoman's. Next come the 
 Prologue and the first seven passus (text B) of 
 Piers Ploughman. Then come select plays of 
 Shakespeare, chosen apparently at haphazard, 
 Love's Labours Lost, Romeo and Juliet, Richard 
 the Second, Twelfth Night, Julius Ccesar, Winter's 
 Tale, King Lear. Then we have the following 
 extraordinary farrago : 
 
 Bacon's Essays. 
 
 Milton, with a special study of Paradise Lost 
 and the Areopagitica. 
 
 Dryden's Essay on Epic (sic). 
 
 Pope's Satires and Epistles. 
 
 Johnson's Lives of the Poets the Lives of 
 Eighteenth-Century Poets. 
 
 53
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE! 
 
 Goldsmith's Citizen of the World. 
 
 Burke's Thoughts on the Present Discontents. 
 
 Lyrical Ballads (Wordsworth and Coleridge), 
 Shelley's Adonais. 1 
 
 The second part of the examination will be on 
 the History of the English Language. " Candi- 
 dates will be examined in Gothic (the Gospel of 
 St. Mark), and in translation from Old English 
 and Middle English authors not specially 
 offered." 
 
 This is to be followed by the History of Eng- 
 lish Literature, to which portion of the Regula- 
 tions the following odd clause is appended : 
 " the examination will include the History of 
 Criticism and of style in prose and verse." 
 Last come the special subjects designed for 
 "those who aim at a place in the First or 
 Second Class." Six of these consist of certain 
 prescribed periods of English Literature. The 
 other subjects are as follows : 
 
 (1) Old English Language and Literature 
 down to 1150 A.D. 
 
 (2) Middle English Language and Literature, 
 1150-1400 A.D. 
 
 (3) Old French Philology with special refer- 
 ence to Anglo-Norman French, together with a 
 
 1 For the sort of textbook from which the student who 
 is a candidate for " honours in English " will be required 
 to get his knowledge of this poem, see infra, the review of 
 the Clarendon Press Edition of Shelley's Adonais, 
 
 54
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 special study of the following texts : Computus 
 of Phillippe de Thaun, Voyage of St. Brandan, 
 The Song of Dermot and the Earl, Les Contes 
 moralises de Nicole Bozon. 
 
 (4) Scandinavian Philology, with special refer- 
 ence to Icelandic, together with a special study 
 of the following texts : Gylfaginning, Laxdcela 
 Saga, Gunnlaugssaga Ormstungu. 
 
 (5) French Literature down to 1400 A.D. in its 
 bearing on English Literature. 
 
 (6) Italian Literature as influencing English 
 down to the death of Milton. 
 
 (7) German Literature from 1500 A.D. to the 
 death of Goethe in its bearing on English Litera- 
 ture. 
 
 (8) History of Scottish Poetry. 
 
 Such is the scheme which will, in conjunction 
 with the similar scheme at Cambridge, supply 
 England and the colonies with their literary pro- 
 fessors. Let us examine it in detail. The first 
 thing which strikes us is the contrast between 
 the competence and judgment displayed in the 
 organization of the philological part of the 
 course and the confusion, inadequacy, and flimsi- 
 ness so conspicuous in the literary part. Nothing 
 could be more satisfactory than the provisions 
 made for the study of Language. They are ob- 
 viously the work of legislators who knew what 
 they were about, and who, but for the thwarting 
 requirements of the provisions for Literature, 
 
 55
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 would have proceeded to a superstructure worthy 
 of the foundation. A student who, in addition 
 to having mastered the prescribed works in 
 Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, and Middle English, is 
 competent to translate and comment on unpre- 
 pared passages from those dialects, has certainly 
 laid the foundation of sound scholarship in an 
 important department of Philology. In the fact 
 that what properly belongs to his study has been 
 relegated to the subjects out of which he has 
 only the option of choosing one, we have a 
 lamentable illustration of the effects of the com- 
 promise forced on the philologists. If, for the 
 literary portion of the curriculum, a candidate 
 could substitute the first four of the special sub- 
 jects, he would have completed a thoroughly 
 satisfactory course of Philology, so far at least as 
 relates to the Teutonic and Romance languages. 
 But to pass from what concerns Philology to 
 what concerns Literature. Now in considering 
 this point it is necessary to remember that we 
 are not dealing with the regulations of any sub- 
 ordinate institution or curriculum, with provin- 
 cial Universities and seminaries, or with schemes 
 of study in which Literature is only one out of 
 many subjects. We are dealing with a Final 
 Honour School at Oxford, with regulations which 
 will inevitably form a precedent and model 
 wherever the study of English literature shall 
 be organized in Great Britain. We are dealing 
 with a school which is to educate those who are 
 
 56
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 to educate the country. Nothing, therefore, 
 could be more disastrous than unsoundness and 
 deficiency in the provisions of such an institu- 
 tion, nothing more deplorable than its giving 
 countenance and authority to error and inade- 
 quacy. It is not too much to say that, if this 
 scheme had been designed with the express ob- 
 ject of degrading the standard of literary teach- 
 ing, and of perpetuating all that is worst in 
 present systems, it could hardly have been better 
 adapted for its purpose. Not to dwell upon sub- 
 ordinate defects, it completely severs the study 
 of our own literature from that of the ancient 
 classical literatures. It necessitates no know- 
 ledge of any of the Continental literatures. It 
 ignores absolutely the higher criticism. Con- 
 tracting Literature within the narrowest bounds, 
 its selection of books for special study is worthy 
 of an Army Examination. In the wretched 
 jumble in which Goldsmith's Citizen of the World 
 jostles Shelley's Adonais and Burke's Thoughts 
 on the Present Discontents Wordsworth's and 
 Coleridge's Lyrical Ballads, no attempt is made 
 to discriminate between compositions which are 
 representative, either critically of the work of 
 particular authors, or historically of particular 
 epochs, and works which have no such signifi- 
 cance, while many of the most important depart- 
 ments of our prose Literature are unrepresented. 
 Nor is this all. It affords every facility for 
 cramming. It is adapted to test nothing but 
 
 57
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 what may be mechanically acquired and me- 
 chanically imparted, what may be poured out 
 from lectures into notebooks, and from note- 
 books into examination papers. Proceeding on 
 the assumption that a literary education is 
 merely the acquisition of positive knowledge, it 
 neither requires nor encourages, as the prescrip- 
 tion of an essay or thesis, or even " taste-paper," 
 might have done, any of the finer qualities of 
 literary culture, such, for example, as a sense of 
 style, sound judgment, good taste, the touch of 
 the scholar. We can assure these legislators, 
 and we speak from knowledge, that, setting 
 aside the philological portion of this curriculum, 
 which is, so far as it goes, solid enough, an ex- 
 perienced crammer, would, in about three months 
 furnish an astute youth with all that is requisite 
 for graduating in this school. 
 
 But to proceed to details. Conceive the quali- 
 fications of an interpreter and critic of English 
 Literature, a graduate in Honours in his subject, 
 whose education has proceeded on the hypothesis 
 that he need have no acquaintance with the 
 classics of Greece and Rome. Would any com- 
 petent scholar deny that the history of English 
 Literature, in its mature expression, is little less 
 than the history of the modifications of native 
 genius and characteristics by classical influence, 
 that the development and peculiarities of our 
 epic, dramatic, elegiac, didactic, pastoral, much 
 of our lyric, of our satire and of other species of 
 
 58
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 our poetry is, historically speaking, unintelligible 
 without reference to ancient classical literature? 
 That what is true of our poetry is true of our 
 criticism, of our oratory, sacred and secular, of 
 our dialectic and epistolary Literature, of our 
 historical composition, of the greater part, in 
 short, of our national masterpieces in prose? 
 What, indeed, the Literature of Greece was to 
 that of Rome, the Literatures of Greece and 
 Rome have been to ours. 1 
 
 It was the influence of JEschylus, Sophocles, 
 Euripides, Menander, Diphilus, which trans- 
 formed the Ijudi Scenici and the Atellan farces 
 into the tragedies of Ennius and Pacuvius and 
 
 1 The Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, one of the 
 chief legislators for the new School, thinks otherwise, and we 
 should like to place the following passage on record. In his 
 extraordinary History of English Prose (p. 485) he writes 
 thus : " The idea that English literature rests upon a 
 classical basis has heen formulated and industriously circu- 
 lated as the watchword of a pedantic faction, and hardly 
 any organ of current literature has proved itself strong 
 enough, or vigilant enough, to secure itself against the 
 insidious entrance of the above indoctrination." And so it 
 comes to pass that we read in the account of the debate in 
 Congregation, on the occasion of the former attempt to 
 establish this School: 
 
 " The proposal to add the Professors of Greek and Latin to 
 the Board of Studies was rejected by thirty-eight votes to 
 twenty-four, Professor Earle maintaining that the fallacious 
 notion that English literature was derived from the classics 
 was so strong that it was unwise to place even the Professor 
 of Latin on the Board." Times, May 26, 1887, 
 
 59
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 the comedies of Plautus and Terence. It was 
 the influence of the Roman drama and of a 
 drama modelled on the Roman which trans- 
 formed, so far at least as structure and style are 
 concerned, our similarly rude native experiments 
 into the tragedies and comedies of Shakespeare. 
 On the epics of Greece were modelled the epics 
 of Rome, and on the epics of Greece and Rome 
 are modelled our own great epics. Of our 
 elegiac poetry, to employ the term in its conven- 
 tional sense, one portion is largely indebted to 
 Theocritus, Moschus, and Virgil, and another to 
 Catullus and Ovid. Almost all our didactic 
 poetry is modelled on the didactic poetry of 
 Rome. Theocritus and Virgil have furnished 
 the archetypes for our eclogues and pastorals. 
 One important branch of our lyric poetry springs 
 directly from Pindar, another important branch 
 directly from Horace, another directly from the 
 choral odes of the Attic dramatists and of Seneca. 
 Our heroic satire, from Hall to Lord Lytton, is 
 simply the counterpart often, indeed, a mere 
 imitation of Roman satire. And if this is true 
 of our satire, it is equally true of our best 
 ethical poetry. The Epistles, which fill so large 
 a space in the poetical literature of the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth century, derive their 
 origin from those of Horace. To the Heroides 
 of Ovid we owe a whole series of important 
 poems from Drayton to Cawthorn. The 
 Greek anthology and Martial have furnished 
 
 60
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 the archetypes of our epigrams and of our epi- 
 taphs. It is the same with our prose. The 
 history of English eloquence begins from the 
 moment when the Roman classics moulded and 
 coloured our style, when periodic prose was 
 modelled on Cicero and Livy, when analytic 
 prose was modelled on Sallust, Seneca, and 
 Tacitus. With the exception of fiction, there 
 is no important branch of our prose composition, 
 the development and characteristics of which are 
 historically intelligible without reference to the 
 ancients. How radically inadequate must any 
 study of the principles of criticism be, which has 
 no reference to the critical works of the Greek 
 and Roman writers, is obvious. But it is not 
 merely in tracing the development and explaining 
 the peculiarities generally of our prose and of 
 our poetry that competent classical scholarship is 
 indispensable. Is it not notorious that in each 
 generation, from Spenser to Tennyson, from 
 More to Froude, our leading poets and prose 
 writers have been, with very few exceptions, 
 men nourished on classical literature and satu- 
 rated with its influence? Many entire master- 
 pieces, much, and in some cases the greater 
 portion, of other masterpieces, particularly in 
 our poetry, are simply unintelligible we are 
 speaking, of course, of serious critical students 
 except to classical scholars. Take, for ex- 
 ample, the Faerie Queen, and the Hymns of 
 Spenser, Milton's Paradise Lost, Comus, Lycidas, 
 
 61
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 and Samson Agonistes, Pope's satires, the two 
 great odes of Gray, Collins's odes to Fear and 
 the Passions, Wordsworth's great Ode and his 
 Laodamia, Shelley's Adonais and Prometheus 
 Unbound, Lander's Hellenics, much of the poetry 
 of Tennyson, Browning, and Matthew Arnold. 
 Indeed it would be as preposterous to attempt 
 any critical study of our Literature, without refer- 
 ence to the ancients, as it would be for a man to 
 set up as an interpreter in Roman Literature 
 without reference to the Greek. 
 
 And the effect of this severance of the study of 
 the ancient classics from the study of our own is 
 written large throughout the whole domain of 
 education, in the instruction given in schools and 
 institutes, in the monographs, manuals, and "edi- 
 tions" which pour from scholastic presses. In one 
 of the most popular manuals now in circulation, 
 the writer gravely tells us that" the pastoral name 
 of Lycidas was chosen by Milton to signify purity 
 of character," adding " in Theocritus a goat was 
 so called Xeu/ara? for its whiteness," that Comus 
 " the drinker of human blood " revelled in the 
 palace of Agamemnon. 1 Another writer con- 
 founds the " choruses " in Shakespeare with the 
 choruses of the Greek plays. Another, com- 
 menting on the symbolism of ivy in the wreath 
 
 1 Hal P.TJV TreTTWKwr y', r 6pa<ruv((r6ai 
 ' aifia, Acco^to? iv 86/j.ois p.(v(t 
 
 Agamem., 1169-61, 
 62
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 of a poet, tells us that it indicates "constancy." 1 
 Nothing is more common than to find elaborate 
 critical comments on the Faerie Queen without 
 the smallest reference to its connection with 
 Aristotle's Ethics, and on Wordsworth's great 
 Ode without any reference to Plato. But such 
 is the confidence reposed in Professor Earle and 
 his theory, and so determined are the legisla- 
 tors for the new School to exclude all connection 
 with classical literature, that it is not admitted 
 even as a special subject. A candidate has, as we 
 have seen, the option of studying the influence 
 exercised on old English literature by French, 
 and on later literature by Italian and German ; 
 but the one thing which he has not the option of 
 studying is the influence exercised on it by the 
 literatures of Greece and Rome. Some of our 
 readers may remember that a few years ago a 
 public appeal was made for an expression of 
 opinion on the question of associating the study 
 of our own classics and that of the ancients. 
 Opinions were elicited from many of the most dis- 
 tinguished men in England. They were all but 
 unanimous, not merely in supporting the associa- 
 tion, but in deprecating the severance. So wrote 
 Mr. Gladstone, Cardinal Manning, Professor 
 Jowett, Matthew Arnold, Lord Lytton, Mr. John 
 Morley, Walter Pater, AddingtonSymonds ; BO 
 
 1 For ample illustration of this, see infra the review of 
 the Clarendon Press edition of Shelley's Adonais. 
 
 63
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 wrote the Archbishop of Canterbury and the 
 Bishop of London, the Rector of Lincoln, the 
 President of Magdalen, the Warden of All Souls, 
 and many others. We may add, also for we 
 are now at liberty to state it publicly that this 
 was emphatically the opinion of Robert Brown- 
 ing. We cannot, of course, quote these opinions 
 in extenso, 1 and that of the late Professor 
 Jowett and a portion of that of Mr. John 
 Morley must suffice. 
 
 I am as strongly of opinion that in an Honour School of 
 English Literature or Modern Literature the subject should 
 not be separated from classical literature, as 1 am of opinion 
 that English literature should have a place in our curriculum. 
 
 So writes Professor Jowett. 
 
 It seems to me to be as impossible effectively to study 
 English literature, except in close association with the 
 classics, as it would be to grasp the significance of mediaeval 
 or modern institutions without reference to the political 
 creations of Greece and Rome. I should be very sorry to see 
 the study of Greek and Latin writers displaced, or cut off 
 from the study of our own. 
 
 So writes Mr. John Morley. 
 
 But the Professor of Anglo-Saxon and his 
 friends, as we have seen, think otherwise, and 
 have, unhappily for the interests of letters and 
 education, persuaded Oxford to think otherwise 
 too. We say advisedly the interests of letters and 
 
 1 They may all be found in full in a Pall Mall " Extra " 
 (January, 1887), and in the present writer's Study of English 
 Literature. 
 
 64
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 education. For the precedent of excluding from 
 a School of " Literature," and that at the chief 
 centre and nursery of liberal culture, the Litera- 
 tures of Greece and Rome cannot but be detri- 
 mental to the vitality and influence of the ancient 
 classics ; and, as Froude truly observed, both the 
 national taste and the tone of the national intel- 
 lect would suffer serious decline, if they lost their 
 authority. The reaction against philological 
 study which has set in during the last ten years 
 has given them a new lease of life. But the 
 spirit of the age is against them ; they have 
 rivals in languages far easier to acquire ; they 
 are not, and never can be, in touch with the 
 many. Let them become disassociated from our 
 curriculums of Literature, and they will cease 
 to be influential, They will cease to be studied 
 seriously, to be studied even in the original, 
 except by mere scholars. 
 
 Another absurdity, not less monstrous, in these 
 regulations, is the absence of all provision for in- 
 struction in the principles of criticism. There 
 is indeed an unmeaning clause about the history 
 of criticism, and of style in verse and prose, 
 being included in the examination ; but as no- 
 thing is specified, and as no work on criticism, 
 with the exception of Dryden's Discourse on 
 Epic Poetry, and Johnson's Lives (of eighteenth- 
 century poets), 1 is included in the books 
 
 1 It is amuaing to notice how carefully the greater part of 
 E.G. 65 B
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 prescribed for special study, it is plain that this 
 important subject has no place. Why it should 
 not have occurred to these legislators to sub- 
 stitute, say, for Goldsmith's Citizen of the World 
 and Burke's Thoughts on the Present Discontents, 
 some work which would at least have opened 
 the eyes of the literary professors of the future 
 to the existence of philosophical criticism, is 
 certainly odd. Had they prescribed select 
 essays from Hume ; and Shaftesbury's Advice 
 to an Author, or Campbell's Philosophy of 
 Rhetoric, or Burke's Treatise on the Sublime 
 and Beautiful, or even the critical portions of 
 Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, with the two 
 essays of Wordsworth, it would have been 
 something. But the truth is that, as they have 
 excluded, except from the optional subjects, all 
 literatures but the English, one absurdity has 
 involved them in another. The course for the 
 literary education of our future professors, 
 proceeding on the principle that they need 
 know no language but Gothic and Anglo-Saxon, 
 has necessitated the elimination of all the great 
 
 what is most precious and instructive in Johnson's work, 
 the lives namely of Cowley and Dry den, and the noble 
 critique of Paradise Lost, is expressly excluded, and the 
 greater part of what is most trivial, and regarded by himself 
 as trivial, the lives of the minor poets of the eighteenth 
 century, selected instead. Macaulay ranks the lives of 
 Cowley and Dry den, with that of Pope, as the masterpieces 
 of the work ; and Johnson himself considered the life of 
 Cowley to be the best. 
 
 66
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 masterpieces of critical literature. As they are 
 assumed to know no Greek, they can have no 
 serious instruction in such works as Aristotle's 
 Poetic and Rhetoric, and in the Treatise on the 
 Sublime. As they are assumed to know no 
 Latin, they can have no instruction in Roman 
 criticism. On the same principle such works 
 as Lessing's Laocoon and Hamburgische Drama- 
 turgie, Schiller's ^Bsthetical Letters and Essays, 
 Villemain's Lectures, and Sainte-Beuve's Essays, 
 can find no place in their curriculum of study. 
 And so it comes to pass that Dryden's Dis- 
 course on Epic Poetry and Johnson's Lives of 
 the eighteenth-century poets, represent proh 
 pudor I the course in Criticism. 
 
 Now it is not too much to say that, for a 
 University like Oxford to confer an honour 
 degree in English Literature on a student who 
 need never have read a line of the works to 
 which we have referred, is to authorize not simply 
 superficiality, but sheer imposture. How can a 
 teacher deal adequately even with the subject 
 which these regulations profess to include the 
 history of criticism who need have no acquaint- 
 ance with the Poetic and Rhetoric, the Treatise 
 on the Sublime, and the Institutes of Oratory? 
 How could a teacher possibly be a competent 
 exponent and critic of the masterpieces of our 
 literature, who had not received a proper critical 
 training, and how could he have any preten- 
 sion to such a training when all that is best in 
 
 67
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 criticism had been expressly excluded from his 
 education ? 
 
 It may be urged that he would himself supply 
 these deficiencies, that the study of our own 
 Literature would naturally lead him to the study 
 of other Literatures, that intelligent curiosity, 
 ambition, or a sense of shame would induce him 
 to supplement voluntarily, and by his own 
 efforts, what he needed in his profession. In 
 some instances this would undoubtedly be the 
 case. In the great majority of instances such 
 a supposition would be against all analogy. As 
 a general rule, a high honour degree in any 
 subject represented at the Universities is final. 
 It winds a man up for life. It determines, fixes, 
 and colours his methods, his views, his tone, in 
 all that relates to the subject in which he has 
 graduated. If he chooses teaching as a pro- 
 fession, he has no inducement to correct, to 
 modify, or even materially add to what has 
 been imparted to him, for his scholastic reputa- 
 tion has been made, and a comfortable independ- 
 ence is assured. To very many men, indeed, 
 who go up to the Universities with the inten- 
 tion of following teaching as a profession, a 
 high degree is a mere investment, the one 
 instinct in them which is not quite banausic 
 being the conscientious thoroughness with 
 which they impart what they have been taught. 
 Nothing, therefore, is of more importance to 
 education than the sound constitution of the 
 
 68
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Honour Schools of Oxford and Cambridge, and 
 nothing could be more disastrous than the 
 toleration in those Schools of inadequate 
 standards, and of palpably erroneous theories 
 of study. 
 
 But to return to the Regulations. The ridicu- 
 lous disproportion between the ground covered 
 and the work involved in the different " special 
 subjects" open to the option of candidates, would 
 seem to indicate, either that the regulators are 
 very inadequately informed on those subjects, or 
 that divided counsels have resulted in the settle- 
 ment of very different standards of requirement. 
 Compare, for instance, what is involved respect- 
 ively in such subjects as "English Literature 
 between 1700 and 1745," and " The History of 
 Scottish Poetry." Why, a competent know- 
 ledge of the history of Scotch poetry in the 
 fifteenth century alone would be more than 
 an equivalent to the first subject. Not less 
 absurd is the prescription of " English Litera- 
 ture between 1745 and 1797 " as an alternative 
 for " English Literature between 1558 and 1637." 
 The prescription of such " special subjects " as 
 the influence exercised on our Literature by the 
 Literatures of Italy, Germany, and France, is 
 one of the few steps in a wise direction discern- 
 ible in these regulations ; but, as no student is 
 free to take more than one of them, or required 
 to take any of them at all, their inclusion in no 
 way affects the constitution of the School. A 
 
 69
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 competent literary education is not very much 
 furthered by a student being invited to study 
 how our Literature has been affected by one 
 out of the five Literatures which have influenced 
 it. As, moreover, the integrity of a chain 
 depends on its weakest link, so the efficiency 
 of examinational tests, in their application to 
 purely optional subjects, depends on that sub- 
 ject in the list which involves least labour. A 
 candidate who can " get a first " out of " English 
 Literature between 1700 and 1745," or between 
 1745 and 1797, will be much too wise to attempt 
 to " get a first " out of subjects which will 
 require treble the time and labour to master. 
 Is it likely that candidates, anxious, naturally, 
 from less lofty motives than the love of Litera- 
 ture for its own sake, to obtain an honour degree, 
 will, after laboriously acquiring Anglo-Saxon 
 and Middle English, which are compulsory, 
 voluntarily specialize in a subject requiring a 
 knowledge of Italian and German, when it is 
 open to them to choose, as their special subject, 
 " Old English Language and Literature down to 
 1150"? 
 
 The statute authorizing the foundation of this 
 School recites that in its curriculum and exami- 
 nations " equal weight " is, " as far as possible, 
 to be given to Language and Literature, provided 
 always that candidates who offer special sub- 
 jects shall be at liberty to choose subjects con- 
 nected either with Language or Literature, or 
 
 70
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 with both." It would be interesting to know 
 what this means. If by " equal weight " be 
 meant equality in the proportions of what is 
 prescribed for the study of Literature, and what 
 is prescribed for the study of Language, the pro- 
 vision is stultified by the very constitution of the 
 course. To suppose that the history of English 
 Literature, and the special study of a few par- 
 ticular works like Shelley's Adonais, Burke's 
 Present Discontents, and the Lyrical Ballads, is 
 equivalent to the History of the English language, 
 the Gospel of St. Mark in Gothic, the Beoivulf, 
 and a volume of extracts in Anglo-Saxon, King 
 Horn, Havelok, Sir Gawain, and the prologue 
 and seven passus of Piers Ploughman in Middle 
 English, is palpably absurd. If by " equal 
 weight " be meant that an examiner is to assign 
 equal marks to candidates who distinguish them- 
 selves in Literature, and to candidates who dis- 
 tinguish themselves in Language, it involves 
 gross injustice. For while the latter have every 
 opportunity for displaying knowledge and com- 
 petence, the former have not. If a student has 
 literary tastes and sympathies, if he is convers- 
 ant with the Classics, if, attracted by what is best 
 not merely in our own but in other modern Liter- 
 atures, he has indulged himself in their study, 
 if he has made himself a good critic and acquired 
 a good style, what chance has he of doing his 
 attainments and accomplishments justice ? But 
 if it be meant that " equal weight " will be given, 
 
 71
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 not to literary merit regarded as Sainte-Beuve 
 and Matthew Arnold would regard it, but re- 
 garded in relation to the standard indicated by 
 the regulations of the School, then the philo- 
 logists would have just reason to complain. 
 
 As the constitution of this School is still open 
 to amendment, it is devoutly to be hoped that 
 Oxford will see its way to reconsidering a matter 
 so seriously affecting the interests of education 
 and culture. It is neither too late to remedy 
 what has been done, nor to devise a remedy. 
 Let it be remembered that there is an essential 
 distinction between what should constitute an 
 Honour School and what should constitute a Pass 
 School, between what is to educate those who 
 are to educate others, and what guarantees 
 nothing more than a smattering. The present 
 institution could be reformed in two ways. By 
 reducing the philological part of its provisions 
 to the level of the literary part, it could, with a 
 little further simplification, be made into an 
 excellent Pass School, which would supply a real 
 want. By eliminating the literary part, and 
 adding proportionately to the philological, it 
 could be transformed into a perfectly satisfac- 
 tory Honour School of Modern Languages. But 
 no modification could make it into an Honour 
 School of English Literature correspondingly 
 adequate, for the simple reason that the study 
 of English Literature cannot be isolated from 
 the study of those literatures with which it is 
 
 72
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 inseparably linked. The absurdity of assuming 
 that the student of Philology oould separate a 
 single language or dialect from the group to 
 which it belongs, that he could isolate Anglo- 
 Saxon from Gothic, or Middle English from 
 Anglo-Saxon, the Celtic of the Cymbry from the 
 Celtic of the Gaels, is not greater than to assume 
 that the study of our Literature can be severed 
 from the study of those literatures which stand 
 in precisely the same relation to it as one of 
 those dialects stands to the others in the same 
 group. 
 
 If the legislators of this School decline to 
 reform it, then it is the duty of Oxford a duty 
 which she owes alike to education and to her 
 own honour to counteract the mischief which 
 this institution must, by degrading throughout 
 England and the colonies the whole level of 
 liberal instruction and study on its most import- 
 ant side, inevitably do. To the herd of imper- 
 fectly and erroneously disciplined teachers which 
 this institution will turn loose on education, let 
 her oppose, at least, a minority which shall 
 worthily represent her. Let her establish a 
 proper degree or diploma in Literature. There 
 exist, as we have already said, scattered through- 
 out the various institutions of the University, 
 nearly all the facilities for a complete course in 
 this subject, and nothing more is needed than to 
 encourage and render possible their co-ordina- 
 tion. Let it be open to a man who has obtained 
 
 73
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 a high class in Moderations and in the Final 
 Classical Schools, who has availed himself of the 
 opportunities offered for the study of Modern 
 Languages and Literatures in the Taylorian In- 
 stitute, and who has studied what he would at 
 present have to study for himself, our own 
 Literature let it be open to him to present him- 
 self for examination in these subjects, and to 
 obtain, as the result of such an examination, a 
 degree analogous to the Bachelorship of Civil 
 Law. It would no doubt not be possible for 
 these studies to be pursued, systematically, side 
 by side with the work required for a high class 
 in Moderations and Literce Humaniores. Nor is 
 it necessary. There need be no limit assigned 
 to the time at which a candidate would be free 
 to qualify himself for obtaining this diploma. 
 As a general rule it would probably be about 
 six months, possibly a year, after the attainment 
 of the present degree in Arts. And, considering 
 the high prizes open to teachers in Literature, it 
 would be well worth a student's while to spend 
 this additional time in preparing himself for the 
 examination. If a post-graduate scholarship, 
 analogous to the Craven or the Derby scholar- 
 ships, could be founded for the encouragement 
 of a comparative study of Classical and Modern 
 Literature, an important step would, at any rate, 
 be taken in a right direction ; something would 
 be done for the competent equipment of future 
 Professors of Literature. 
 
 74
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Thus would a precedent, disastrous beyond 
 expression to the interests of liberal instruction 
 and culture, as well as to the reputation of the 
 University we mean the severance of the study 
 of Classical Literature from that of our own be 
 at least deprived of its authority. Thus would 
 the mass at any rate be leavened, and such in- 
 stitutions in the provinces and elsewhere as have, 
 unlike Oxford and Cambridge, had the wisdom 
 to separate their Chairs of Language and Litera- 
 ture, know where to go for those who should fill 
 them ; and thus, finally, would there be some 
 chance of the literary curriculum in Oxford 
 ceasing to be a by-word in the Universities of 
 the Continent and America. 
 
 Since the first edition of these essays appeared the liberality 
 of Mr. John Passmore Edwards has supplied the scholarship 
 here desiderated, and Oxford has instituted a University 
 scholarship, bearing the donor's name, " for the encourage- 
 ment and promotion of the study of English Literature in 
 connection with the Classical Literatures of Greece and 
 Rome." 
 
 75
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE 
 UNIVERSITIES l 
 
 II. TEXT BOOKS 
 
 IF any proof were needed of what has been 
 insisted on over and over again, that, until 
 the Universities provide adequately for the proper 
 study of English Literature for the study of it 
 side by side with Classical Literature there will 
 be small hope of its finding competent critics and 
 interpreters, it would be afforded by the volume 
 before us. For this volume the delegates of 
 the Oxford University Press are responsible ; 
 and in allowing it their imprimatur they have 
 been guilty of a very grave error. No such 
 standard of editing would have been tolerated 
 in any other subject in which they under- 
 take to provide books. A work pertaining to 
 Classics, to History, to Philosophy, to Science, 
 marked by corresponding deficiencies, would 
 have been suppressed at once, until those defi- 
 
 1 Shelley's Adonais, edited with introduction and notes by 
 William Michael Rossetti. (Oxford : at the Clarendon Press ) 
 
 76
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 ciencies had been supplied. To Mr. Rossetti 
 himself we attach no blame. What he was 
 competent to do he has, for the most part, done 
 well and conscientiously, conscientiously, as may 
 be judged from the fact that, while the poem 
 itself occupies twenty pages in large type, Mr. 
 Rossetti's dissertations and notes occupy one 
 hundred and twenty-eight in small type. It 
 was, indeed, his misfortune, rather than his fault, 
 to be entrusted with a work which required a 
 peculiar qualification, an intimate acquaintance, 
 that is to say, with Classical Literature. That 
 he has no pretension to this is abundantly plain 
 from his Introduction and from every page of 
 his notes. 
 
 When one of the Universities undertakes to 
 provide our colleges and schools with comments 
 and notes on a poem so saturated with classicism 
 as Adonais, the least that could be expected 
 from bodies who are, as it were, the guardians 
 of classical literature, is the provision that the 
 classical part of the work should be done at 
 least competently ; it would be hardly too much, 
 perhaps, to expect that it should be done excel- 
 lently. Of this part of Mr. Rossetti's work we 
 scarcely know which are the worse his sins of 
 commission or his sins of omission. His classical 
 qualifications for commenting on a poem as un- 
 intelligible, critically speaking, without constant 
 reference to the Platonic dialogues, particularly 
 to the Symposium and the Timceus, and to the 
 
 77
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 Greek poets, as the jtEneid would be without 
 reference to the Homeric poems and the Argo- 
 nautica of Apollonius, appear to begin and end 
 with some acquaintance with Mr. Lang's version 
 of Bioii and Moschus. We will give a few speci- 
 mens. Mr. Rossetti is greatly puzzled with 
 Shelley's allusion to Urania in stanzas 2 to 4. 
 
 " Where was lone CTrania 
 When Adonais died ? " 
 
 " Most musical of mourners, weep again . 
 Lament, anew, Urania ! " 
 
 " Why out of the nine sisters," he asks, " should 
 the Muse of Astronomy be selected ? Keats 
 never wrote about astronomy." Perhaps, he 
 suggests, Shelley was not thinking of the Muse 
 Urania, " but of Aphrodite Urania." Yet, if so, 
 why should she be called " musical " ? a ques- 
 tion to be asked, no doubt, as our old friend Fal- 
 staff would say. However, after balancing the 
 respective claims of both, he finally comes to the 
 conclusion that the Urania of Adonais is Aphro- 
 dite. If Mr. Rossetti had been acquainted with 
 a work to which he never even refers, but which 
 exercised immense influence over Shelley's poem 
 the Symposium of Plato it would have saved 
 him two pages of speculation. His ignorance of 
 this is the more surprising as Shelley has him- 
 self translated the dialogue. But Mr. Rossetti 
 need not, in this case, have gone so far afield. 
 Has he never read the prologue to the seventh 
 
 78
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 book of Milton's Paradise Lost ? In his note on 
 the lines 
 
 " The one remains, the many change and pass," 
 
 it is really pitiable to find him supposing that 
 this is an allusion to " the universal mind," and 
 "the individuated minds which we call human 
 beings," when any schoolboy could have told 
 him that the allusion is, of course, a technical 
 one to the Platonic " forms " or archetypes ; 
 while " the power " in stanza 42, the " sustain- 
 ing love" in stanza 54, and the " one spirit" in 
 stanza 43, are allusions respectively to the 
 Aphrodite Urania in the discourse of Eryxi- 
 machus in the Symposium, and to the Divine 
 Artificer in the Timceus. And these dialogues 
 form the proper commentary on Shelley's meta- 
 physics in this poem. 
 
 Still more extraordinary is Mr. Rossetti's note 
 on " wisdom the mirrored shield " 
 
 " What was then 
 Wisdom, the mirrored shield ? " 
 
 (st. 27), which is as follows : " Shelley was, I 
 apprehend, thinking of the Orlando Furioso of 
 Ariosto (!). In that poem we read of a magic 
 shield which casts a supernatural and intolerable 
 splendour ... a sea monster, not a dragon, 
 so far as I recollect, becomes one of the victims 
 of the mirrored shield." This slovenly and per- 
 functory mode of reference is, we may remark in 
 passing, hardly the sort of thing to be expected 
 
 79
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 in works issued from University Presses. We 
 wonder what the Universities would say to an 
 editor of Virgil who, in commenting on some 
 Homeric allusion in his author, contented him- 
 self with observing that Virgil " is here thinking 
 of the Iliad" and, " so far as I can recollect," etc. 
 The reference is, we need hardly remark, not to 
 any magic shield in the Orlando, but to the 
 scutum crystallinum of Pallas Athene, as any 
 well - informed fourth - form schoolboy would 
 know. If Mr. Rossetti will turn to Bacon's 
 Wisdom of the Ancients, chap, vii., he will find 
 some information on this subject, which may 
 be of use to him, should this work run into a 
 second edition. Take, again, the note on the 
 symbolism of the flowers and cypress cone in 
 stanza 33 : 
 
 " His head was bound with pansiea overblown, 
 
 And faded violets, white and pied and blue ; 
 And a light spear topped with a cypress cone, 
 Round whose rude shaft dark ivy tresses grew." 
 
 Here the editor's ignorance of ancient Classical 
 Literature has led him into a whole labyrinth of 
 blunders and misconceptions. " The ivy," he 
 says, " indicates constancy in friendship " ! Is it 
 credible that a Clarendon Press editor should be 
 ignorant that ivy doctarum hederce prcemia 
 frontium is the emblem of the poet? The 
 violet, he remarks, indicates modesty. It neither 
 indicates, nor can possibly indicate, anything of 
 the kind. Its traditional signification, deduced 
 
 80
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 perhaps from Pliny's remark (Nat. Hist., xxi. 
 c. 38), that it is one of the longest-lived of 
 flowers, is fidelity. But the passage of which 
 Shelley was thinking when lie wrote this stanza 
 a passage to which Mr. Rossetti makes no 
 reference at all, was Hamlet, act iv. sc. 1 : 
 " There is pansies that's for thoughts ... I 
 would give you some violets, but they withered 
 all when my father died." So that it is quite pos- 
 sible that the "faded violets," associated as these 
 flowers are with the Muses and the Graces, merely 
 symbolize the fading and drooping towards what 
 may be further symbolized in the cypress cone, 
 death. We are by no means sure, however, 
 that the cypress cone does, as Mr. Rossetti re- 
 marks, "explain itself." Shelley, assuming he 
 gave the image another application, was doubt- 
 less thinking of Silvanus " teneram ab radice 
 ferens, Silvane, cupressum," Georg. i. 20 (see, 
 too, Spenser's Faerie Queene, I. vi. st. 14), and 
 may possibly have been symbolizing his sym- 
 pathy with the genius of the woods have been 
 referring to that " gazing on Nature's naked 
 loveliness," which he describes in stanza 31. In 
 any case, Mr. Rossetti has entirely misinter- 
 preted the meaning of the whole passage. 
 
 Wherever classical knowledge is required as 
 it is in almost every stanza he either gives no 
 note at all, or he blunders. Thus in stanza 24 
 he gives no note on the use of the word " secret." 
 In stanza 28 he has evidently not the smallest 
 
 B.C. 81 F
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 notion of the meaning of the word " obscene " 
 as applied to ravens. The fine adaptations from 
 Lucretius (II. 578-580) in stanza 21, and again 
 from II. 990-1010 in stanzas 20 and 42; the 
 adaptation from the Agamemnon (49-51) in 
 stanza 17 ; from the fragments of the Polyidus 
 of Euripides in stanza 39 ; from the Iliad (vi. 
 484) in stanza 34 ; from Theocritus, Idyll., i. 66, 
 and Virg., Eel., x. 9-10 in stanza 2 ; and again 
 from Theocritus, Idyll., i. 77 seqq., from which 
 the procession of the mourners is adapted, and 
 on which the whole architecture of the poem is 
 modelled all these are alike unnoticed. Nor is 
 Mr. Rossetti more fortunate in explaining allu- 
 sions to passages in other literatures. The adap- 
 tation of the sublime passage in Isaiah (xiv. 9, 10), 
 by which one of the finest parts of the poem 
 was suggested, stanzas 45 and 46 ; the singular 
 reminiscence in stanza 28 : 
 
 " The vultures 
 . . . Whose wings rain contagion;" 
 
 of Marlowe's Jew of Malta, act ii. sc. 1, where he 
 speaks of the raven which 
 
 "Doth shake contagion from her sable wings;" 
 
 the obvious reminiscence of Dante, Inf., 44 seqq. 
 in stanza 44 ; of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 
 v. 3, which forms the proper commentary on 
 lines 7 and 8 of stanza 3 ; of none of these is 
 any notice taken. On many important points 
 of interpretation we differ toto cwlo from Mr. 
 
 82
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 Rossetti. The " fading splendour," for example, 
 in stanza 22, cannot possibly mean " fading as 
 being overcast by sorrow and dismay" (cf. 
 stanza 25), it simply means vanishing, receding 
 from sight a magnificently graphic epithet. 
 Is Mr. Rossetti acquainted with the proleptic 
 use of adjectives and participles ? We may add 
 that Mr. Rossetti has not even taken the 
 trouble to ascertain who was the writer of the 
 famous article, of which so much is said both 
 in the preface of the poem and in the poem 
 itself, but " presumes," etc. Et sic omnia. And 
 sic omnia it will inevitably continue to be, until 
 the Universities are prepared to do their duty 
 to education by placing the study of our 
 national Literature on a proper footing. 
 
 It is, we repeat, no reproach to Mr. Rossetti, 
 who has distinguished himself in more import- 
 ant studies than the production of scholastic 
 text-books, that he should have failed in an 
 undertaking which happened to require peculiar 
 qualifications. Indeed, our respect for Mr. 
 Rossetti and our sense of his useful services 
 to Belles Lettres would have induced us to 
 spare him the annoyance of an exposure of 
 the deficiencies of this work, had it not illus- 
 trated, so comprehensively and so strikingly, the 
 disastrous effects of the severance of the study 
 of English Literature from that of Ancient 
 Classical Literature at our Universities. 
 
 83
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE AT THE 
 UNIVERSITIES l 
 
 III. TEXT BOOKS 
 
 MORE than a century and a half has passed 
 since Pope thus expressed himself about 
 philologists, 
 
 " 'Tis true on words is still our whole debate, 
 Dispute of Me or Te, of aut or at, 
 To sound or sink in Cano or A, 
 To give up Cicero or C or K ; 
 The critic eye, that microscope of wit, 
 Sees hairs and pores, examines bit by bit ; 
 How parts relate to parts or they to whole, 
 The body's harmony, the beaming soul, 
 Are things which Kuster, Burmann, Wasse shall see, 
 When man's whole frame is obvious to a Flea. " 
 
 We need scarcely say that we have far too 
 much respect for Dr. Aldis Wright and for his 
 distinguished coadjutor to apply such a descrip- 
 tion as this to them as individuals, for no one can 
 appreciate more heartily than we do their monu- 
 mental contribution to the textual criticism of 
 
 1 Shakespeare Select Plays. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark 
 (Oxford : at the Clarendon Press. MUCCCXC.) 
 
 84
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 Shakespeare, but we can make no such reserve 
 in speaking of this edition of Hamlet. A more 
 deplorable illustration, we do not say of the 
 subjection of Literature to Philology, for that 
 would very imperfectly represent the fact, but 
 of the absolute substitution of Philology, and 
 of Philology in the lowest sense of the term, for 
 Literature it would be impossible to imagine. 
 Had it been expressly designed to prove that its 
 editors were wholly unconscious of the artistic, 
 literary, and philosophical significance of Shake- 
 speare's masterpiece, it could scarcely have taken 
 a more appropriate form. 
 
 The volume contains 117 pages of Shake- 
 speare's text, printed in large type ; the text is 
 preceded by a preface of twelve pages, and fol- 
 lowed by notes occupying no less than 121 pages 
 in very small type ; so that the work of the 
 poet stands in pretty much the same relation to 
 that of his commentators as FalstafFs bread stood 
 to his sack. In the case of a play like Hamlet, 
 so subtle, so suggestive, so pregnant with critical 
 and philosophical problems of all kinds, com- 
 mentary on a scale like this might have been 
 quite appropriate. But in this stupendous mass 
 of exegesis and illustration there is, with the 
 exception of one short passage, literally not a 
 line about the play as a work of art, not a line 
 about its structure and architecture, about its 
 style, about its relations to aesthetic, about its 
 metaphysic, its ethic, about the character of 
 Hamlet, or about the character of any other 
 
 85
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 person who figures in the drama. The only 
 indication that it is regarded in any other light 
 than as affording material for philological and 
 antiquarian discussion is a short quotation, 
 huddled in at the conclusion of the preface, 
 from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, and an intima- 
 tion that " Hamlet's madness has formed the 
 subject of special investigation by several writers, 
 among others by Dr. Conolly and Sir Edward 
 Strachey." 
 
 A more comprehensive illustration of the 
 truth of the indictment brought against philolo- 
 gists by Voltaire, Pope, Lessing, and Sainte- 
 Beuve than is supplied by the notes in this volume 
 it would be difficult to find. Dulness, of course, 
 may be assumed, and of mere dulness we do 
 not complain ; but a combination of prolixity, 
 irrelevance, and absolute incapacity to distin- 
 guish between what to ninety-nine persons in 
 every hundred must be purely useless and what 
 to ninety-nine persons in every hundred is the 
 information which they expect from a com- 
 mentator, is intolerable. We will give a few 
 illustrations. A plain mail or a student for 
 examination comes to these lines: 
 
 " 'Tis the sport to have the enginer 
 Hoist with his own petar ; " 
 
 and, though he knows what the general sense is 
 wishes to know exactly what Shakespeare means. 
 He turns to the note for enlightenment, and the 
 enlightenment he gets is this : 
 
 86
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 "Enginer. Changed in the quarto of 1676 to the more 
 modern form of engineer. Compare Troilus and Cressida ii. 
 8. 8, " Then there's Achilles a rare enginer." For a cognate 
 form mutiner see note on iii. 4. 83. So we have pioner for 
 pioneer Othello iii. 8. 346. Hoist may be the participle either 
 of the verb ' hoise ' or ' hoist.' In the latter case it would 
 be the common abbreviated form for the participles of verbs 
 ending in a dental. Petar. So spelt in the quartos, and by 
 all editors to Johnson, who writes ' petards.' In Cotgrave 
 we have ' Petart : a Petard or Petarre ; an Engine (made 
 like a bell or morter) wherewith strong gatea,' etc." 
 
 And so the hungry sheep looks up and is not 
 fed. Again, he finds 
 
 " He smote the sledded Polacks on the ice," 
 
 turns to the note, and reads : 
 
 " Polacks. The quartos have ' pollax,' the two earliest 
 folios read ' Pollax,' the third ' Polax,' the fourth ' Poleaxe.' 
 Pope read ' Polack ' and Malone ' Polacks.' The word occurs 
 four times in Hamlet. For 'the sledded Polacks' Molke 
 reads ' his leaded pole-axe.' But this would be an anti- 
 climax, and the poet, having mentioned ' Norway ' in the 
 first clause, would certainly have told us with whom the 
 'parle' was held." 
 
 The poet Young noted how 
 
 " Commentators each dark passage shun, 
 And hold their farthing candles to the sun." 
 
 The Clarendon Press editors are certainly 
 adepts in these accomplishments. Take one out 
 of a myriad illustrations. The line in Act i. sc. 
 2, " The dead vast and middle of the night," is 
 the signal for a note extending to twelve closely 
 printed lines. " 'Tis bitter cold, and I am sick 
 
 87
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 at heart," says Francisco. If any note were 
 needed here, it might have been devoted to 
 pointing out to tiros the fine subjective touch. 
 The note is this : 
 
 " Bitter cold. Here bitter is used adverbially to qualify 
 the adjective ' cold.' So we have ' daring hardy ' in Richard 
 II. i. 3. 43. When the combination is likely to be misunder- 
 stood, modern editors generally put a hyphen between the 
 two words. Sick at heart. So Macbeth v. 3. 19, ' I am sick 
 at heart.' We have also in Love's Labour's Lost ii. 1. 185, 
 ' sick at the heart,' and Romeo and Juliet iii. 3. 72, ' heart- 
 sick groans.' " 
 
 Now let us see how the poor student fares 
 when real difficulties occur. Every reader of 
 Shakespeare is familiar with the corrupt passage, 
 Act iv. sc. 1 : 
 
 " The dram of eale 
 
 Doth all the noble substance of worth out 
 To his own scandal 
 
 a passage which, as all Shakespearian scholars 
 know, has been satisfactorily emended and ex- 
 plained. We turn to the notes for guidance, 
 and find ourselves treated as poor Mrs. Quickly 
 was treated by Falstaff , " fubbed off " thus : 
 
 " We leave this hopelessly corrupt passage as it stands in 
 the two earliest quartos. The others read ' ease ' for ' eale,' 
 and modern writers have conjectured for the same word 
 base, ill, bale, ale, evil, ail, vile, lead. For ' of a doubt' it 
 has been proposed to substitute ' of worth out,' ' soul with 
 doubt,' 'oft adopt,' ' oft work out,' 'of good out,' 'of worth 
 dout,' 'often dout,' 'often doubt,' 'oft adoubt,' 'oft delase,- 
 ' over-cloud,' ' of a pound,' and others." 
 
 This, it may be added, is the sort of stuff in- 
 
 88
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 credibile dictu that our children have to get by 
 heart ; for this Press, be it remembered, practi- 
 cally controls half the English Literature ex- 
 aminations in England. As students know 
 quite well that nine examiners out of ten will 
 set their questions from " the Clarendon Press 
 notes," it is with " the Clarendon Press notes " 
 that they are obliged to cram themselves. But 
 to continue. Even a well-read man might be 
 excused for not knowing the exact meaning of 
 the following expression : 
 
 " They clepe us drunkards, and with sicinish phrase 
 Soil our addition" 
 
 He turns to the notes, and having been briefly 
 informed that clepe means " call," and addition 
 " title," is left to flounder with what he can get 
 out of "Could Shakespeare have had in his 
 mind any pun upon ' Sweyn,' which was a com- 
 mon name of the kings of Denmark ? " 
 
 Another leading characteristic of the genus 
 philologist, we mean the preposterous importance 
 attached by them to the smallest trifles, finds 
 ludicrous illustration in the following note : 
 
 " My father, in his habit, as he lived ! " 
 exclaims Hamlet to his mother. This is the 
 signal for : 
 
 " There is supposed to be a difficulty in these words, because 
 in the earlier scenes the Ghost is in his armour, to which the 
 word 'habit' is regarded as inappropriate. In the earlier 
 form of the play, as it appears in the quarto of 1603, the 
 Ghost enters ' in his nightgowne,' and as the words 'in the 
 
 89
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 habit as he lived ' occur in the corresponding passage of that 
 edition, it is probable that on this occasion the Ghost appeared 
 in the ordinary dress of the king, although this is not indi- 
 cated in the stage directions of the other quartos or of the 
 folios." 
 
 As a possible solution of this grave difficulty, 
 we would suggest that, as the Ghost was un- 
 doubtedly in a very hot place, he might have 
 found his nightgown less oppressive than his 
 armour, and though it would certainly have been 
 more decorous to have exchanged his night- 
 gown for his uniform on revisiting the earth, 
 yet, as the visit was to his wife, he thought 
 perhaps less seriously about his apparel than our 
 editors have done. We have nothing to warrant 
 us in assuming that he was in his " ordinary 
 dress." The choice must lie between the night- 
 gown and the armour. But a truce to jesting. 
 If any one would understand the opacity and 
 callousness which philological study induces, we 
 would refer them to the note on Hamlet's last 
 sublime words, " The rest is silence " : 
 
 " The quartos have ' Which have solicited, the rest is 
 silence.' The folios, ' Which have solicited. The rest is 
 silence.' O, O, 0, 0. Dyes. 1 If Hamlet's speech is inter- 
 rupted by his death it would be more natural than the words 
 ' The rest is silence ' should be spoken by Horatio." 
 
 We said at the beginning of this article that 
 there was not a word of commentary on the 
 poetical merits of the play. We beg the editors' 
 pardon. They have in one note, arid in one 
 
 90
 
 AT THE UNIVERSITIES 
 
 note only, ventured on an expression of critical 
 opinion. We all know the lines 
 
 " There is a willow grows aslant a brook 
 That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream," 
 
 etc., etc. We transcribe the note on this passage 
 that it may be a sign to all men of what Philo- 
 logy is able to effect, an omen and testimony of 
 what must inevitably be the fate of Literature 
 if the direction and regulation of its study be 
 entrusted to philologists : 
 
 " This speech of the Queen is certainly unworthy of its 
 author and of the occasion. The enumeration of plants is 
 quite as unsuitable to so tragical a scene as the description 
 of Dover cliff in King Lear iv. 6. 11-24. Besides there was 
 no one by to witness the death of Ophelia, else she would 
 have been rescued." 
 
 As this beggars commentary, transcription 
 shall suffice. 
 
 Now we would ask any sensible person 
 who has followed us, we do not say in our 
 own remarks for they may be supposed to be 
 the expression of biassed opinion but in the 
 specimens we have given of such an edition as 
 this of Hamlet, and of such an edition as we 
 have just reviewed of Adonais, what is likely to 
 be the fate of English Literature, as a subject of 
 teaching, so long as our Universities ignore their 
 responsibilities as the centres of culture by not 
 only countenancing, but assisting in the pro- 
 duction and dissemination of such publications 
 as these ? How can we expect anything but 
 
 91
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 anarchy wherever the subject is treated ? there 
 an extreme of flaccid dilettantism, here an ex- 
 treme of philological pedantry. Conceive the 
 tone and temper which, especially at the impres- 
 sionable age of the students for whom the book 
 is intended, the study of Shakespeare, under such 
 guides as the editors of this Hamlet, would be 
 likely to induce. Is it not monstrous that young 
 students between the ages of about fifteen and 
 eighteen should have such text books as these 
 inflicted on them ? 
 
 The radical fault of those who regulate educa- 
 tion in our Universities and elsewhere, and pre- 
 scribe our schoolbooks, is their deplorable want 
 of judgment. They seem to be utterly incapable 
 of distinguishing between what is proper for 
 pure specialists and what is proper for ordinary 
 students. There is not a page in this edition 
 which does not proclaim aloud, that it could never 
 have been intended for the purposes to which it 
 has been applied, that it is the work of technical 
 scholars, concerned only in textual and philo- 
 logical criticism and exegesis, and appealing 
 only to those who approach the study of Shake- 
 speare in the same spirit and from the same 
 point of view. Anything more sickening and 
 depressing, anything more calculated to make the 
 name of Shakespeare an abomination to the youth 
 of England it would be impossible for man to 
 devise. It is shameful to prescribe such books for 
 study in our Schools and Educational Institutes. 
 
 92
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 I. A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH 
 LITERATURE l 
 
 THIS Short History is evidently designed for 
 the use of serious readers, for the ordinary 
 reader who will naturally look to it for general 
 instruction and guidance in the study of English 
 Literature, and to whom it will serve as a book 
 of reference ; for students in schools and colleges, 
 to many of whom it will, in all likelihood, be 
 prescribed as a textbook ; for teachers engaged 
 in lecturing and in preparing pupils for examina- 
 tion. Of all these readers there will not be one 
 in a hundred who will not be obliged to take its 
 statements on trust, to assume that its facts are 
 correct, that its generalizations are sound, that its 
 criticisms and critical theories are at any rate not 
 absurd. It need hardly be said that, under these 
 circumstances, a writer who had any pretension 
 to conscientiousness would do his utmost to 
 avoid all such errors as ordinary diligence could 
 easily prevent, that he would guard scrupulously 
 against random assertions and reckless misstate- 
 
 1 A Short History of English Literature. By George 
 Saintsbury, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in 
 the University of Edinburgh. 
 
 93
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 ments, that he would, in other words, spare no 
 pains to deserve the confidence placed in him by 
 those who are not qualified to check his state- 
 ments or question his dogmas, and who naturally 
 suppose that the post which he occupies is a 
 sufficient guarantee of the soundness and ac- 
 curacy of his work. But so far from Professor 
 Saintsbury having any sense of what is due to 
 his position and to his readers, he has imported 
 into his work the worst characteristics of irre- 
 sponsible journalism : generalizations, the sole 
 supports of which are audacious assertions, and 
 an indifference to exactness and accuracy, as 
 well with respect to important matters as in 
 trifles, so scandalous as to be almost incred- 
 ible. 
 
 Sir Thomas More said of Tyndale's version of 
 the New Testament that to seek for errors in it 
 was to look for drops of water in the sea. What 
 was said very unfairly of Tyndale's work may be 
 said with literal truth of Professor Saintsbury's. 
 The utmost extent of the space at our disposal 
 will only suffice for a few illustrations. We will 
 select those which appear to us most typical. 
 In the chapter on Anglo-Saxon literature the 
 Professor favours us with the astounding state- 
 ment, that in Anglo-Saxon poetry " there is 
 practically no lyric." 1 It is scarcely necessary 
 to say that not only does Anglo-Saxon poetry 
 1 Page 37. 
 94
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 abound in lyrics, but that it is in its lyrical note 
 that its chief power and charm, consists. In the 
 threnody of the Ruin, and the Grave, in the 
 sentimental pathos of the Seafarer, of Dears 
 Complaint, and of the remarkable fragment 
 describing the husband's pining for his wife, in 
 the fiery passion of the three great war-songs, 
 in the glowing subjective intensity of the Judith, 
 in the religious ecstasy of the Holy Rood and 
 of innumerable passages in the other poems at- 
 tributed to Cynewulf , and of the poem attributed 
 to Csedmon, deeper and more piercing lyric notes 
 have never been struck. Take such a passage 
 as the following from the Satan, typical, it may 
 be added, of scores of others : 
 
 ' thou glory of the Lord ! Guardian of Heaven's hosts, 
 O thou might of the Creator ! O thou mid-circle ! 
 thou bright day of splendour ! O thou jubilee of God ! 
 O ye hosts of angels ! thou highest heaven ! 
 O that I am shut from the everlasting jubilee, 
 That I cannot reach my hands again to Heaven, 
 . . . Nor hear with my ears ever again 
 The clear-ringing harmony of the heavenly trumpets." 1 
 
 1 Ea la drihtenes )rym ! ea la dugua helm ! 
 ea la meotodes miht ! ea la middaneard ! 
 oii la dag ledhta! ea la dream godes! 
 ea la engla >reat ! ea la upheofon ! 
 ea la bat ic earn ealles leas ecan dreames, 
 t>at ic mid handum ne mag heofon geraecan 
 ne mid eagum ne mot up locian 
 ne hum mid earum ne sceal sefre geheran 
 byrhtestan beman stefne. 
 
 Satan, edit. Grein, 164-172. 
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 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 And this is a poetry which has " practically no 
 lyric " ! On page 2 the Professor tells us that 
 there is no rhyme in Anglo-Saxon poetry ; on 
 page 18 we find him giving an account of the 
 rhyming poem in the Exeter Book. Of Mr. Saints- 
 bury's method of dealing with particular works 
 and particular authors, one or two examples 
 must suffice. He tells us on page 125 that the 
 heroines in Chaucer's Legend of Good Women 
 are "the most hapless and blameless of Ovid's 
 Heroides." It would be interesting to know 
 what connexion Cleopatra, whose story comes 
 first, has with Ovid's Heroides, or if the term 
 "Heroides" be, as it appears to be, (for it is 
 printed in italics) the title of Ovid's Heroic 
 Epistles, what connexion four out of the ten 
 have with Ovid's work. In any case the state- 
 ment is partly erroneous and wholly misleading. 
 In the account given of the Scotch poets, the 
 Professor, speaking of Douglas' translation of 
 the jflneid, says, he " does not embroider on his 
 text." This is an excellent illustration of the 
 confidence which may be placed in Mr. Saints- 
 bury's assertions about works on which most 
 of his readers must take what he says on trust. 
 Douglas is continually "embroidering on his 
 text," indeed, he habitually does so. We open 
 his translation purely at random ; we find him 
 turning JEneid II. 496-499 : 
 
 " Non sic, aggeribus ruptis cum spumeus amnis 
 Exiit, oppositasque evicit gurgite moles," 
 96
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 Fertur in arva furens cumulo, camposque per omnes 
 Cum stabulis armenta trahit. 
 
 Not sa fersly the fomy river or flude 
 
 Brekkis over the bankis on spait quhen it is wode. 
 
 And with his brusch and fard of water brown 
 
 The dykys and the schorys betis down, 
 
 Ourspreddand croftis and flattis wyth hys spate 
 
 Our all the feyldis that they may row ane bate 
 
 Quhill housais and the flokkis flittis away, 
 
 The corne grangis and standard stakkys of hay." 
 
 We open ^Eneid IX. 2 : 
 
 "Irim de ccelo misit Saturnia Juno 
 Audacem ad Turnum. Luco turn forte parentis 
 Pilumni Turnus sacrata valle sedebat. 
 Ad quern sic roseo Thaumantias ore locuta est." 
 
 We find it turned : 
 
 "Juno that lyst not blyn 
 Of hir auld malyce and iniquyte, 
 Hir madyn Iris from hevin sendys sche 
 To the bald Turnus malapart and stout ; 
 Quhilk for the tyme was wyth al his rout 
 Amyd ane vale wonnder lovn and law, 
 Syttand at eys within the hallowit schaw 
 Of God Pilumnus his progenitor. 
 Thamantis dochter knelys him before, 
 I moyn Iris thys ilk fornamyt maide, 
 And with hir rosy lippis thus him said." 
 
 We turn to the end of the tenth jEneid and 
 we find him introducing six lines which have 
 nothing to correspond with them in the original. 
 And this is a translator who " does not em- 
 broider on his text " ! It is perfectly plain 
 that Professor Saiutsbury has criticised and 
 
 E.C. 97 Q
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 commented on a work which he could never 
 have inspected. The same ignorance is dis- 
 played in the account of Lydgate. He is pro- 
 nounced to be a versifier rather than a poet, his 
 verse is described as " sprawling and stagger- 
 ing." The truth is that Lydgate's style and 
 verse are often of exquisite beauty, that he was 
 a poet of fine genius, that his descriptions of 
 nature almost rival Chaucer's, that his powers 
 of pathos are of a high order, that, at his best, 
 he is one of the most musical of poets. We 
 have not space to illustrate what must be 
 obvious to any one who has not gone to encyclo- 
 paedias and handbooks for his knowledge of 
 this poet's writings, but who is acquainted with 
 the original. It will not be disputed that Gray 
 and Warton were competent judges of these 
 matters, and their verdict must be substituted 
 for what we have not space to prove and 
 illustrate. "I do not pretend," Gray says, "to 
 set Lydgate on a level with his master Chaucer, 
 but he certainly comes the nearest to him of 
 any contemporary writer that I am acquainted 
 with. His choice of expression and the smooth- 
 ness of his verse far surpass both Gower and 
 Occleve." Of one passage in Lydgate, Gray has 
 observed that " it has touched the very heart 
 strings of compassion with so masterly a hand 
 as to merit a place among the greatest poets." l 
 Warton also notices his " perspicuous and 
 
 1 Some Remarks on Lydgate. Gray, Aldine Ed. v. 292-321. 
 
 98
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 musical numbers," and " the harmony, strength, 
 and dignity " of his verses. 1 
 
 Turn where we will we are confronted with 
 blunders. Take the account given of Shake- 
 speare. He began his metre, we are told, with 
 the lumbering " fourteeners." He did, BO far 
 as is known, nothing of the kind. Again : " It 
 is only by guesses that anything is dated before 
 the Comedy of Errors at the extreme end of 
 1594." In answer to this it may be sufficient 
 to say that Venus and Adonis was published 
 in 1593, that the first part of Henry VI. was 
 acted on 3rd March, 1592, that Titus An- 
 dronicus was acted on 25th January, 1594, and 
 that Lucrece was entered on the Stationers' 
 books 9th May, 1594. This is on a par with the 
 assertion, on page 315, that Shakespeare was tra- 
 ditionally born on 24th April ! On page 320 we 
 are told that Measure for Measure belongs to the 
 first group of Shakespeare's plays, to the series 
 beginning with Love's Labours Lost and culmina- 
 ting with the Midsummer Night's Dream. It 
 
 1 That Lydgate's verso should occasionally be rough and 
 halting is partly to bo attributed to the wretched state in 
 which his text has come down to us from the copyists, and 
 partly to the arbitrary way in which he varies the accent. 
 His heroic couplets in the Storie of Thebes are certainly 
 very unmusical. For the whole question of his versification 
 see Dr. Schick, Introduction to his edition of The Temple of 
 Glas, pp. liv.-lxiii., and Schipper, Altenglische Metrik, 492- 
 500. But neither of these scholars does justice to the ex- 
 quisite music of his verse at its best. 
 
 90
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 is only fair to say that the Professor places a 
 note of interrogation after it in a bracket, but 
 that it should have been placed there, even 
 tentatively, shows an ignorance of the very 
 rudiments of Shakespearian criticism which is 
 nothing short of astounding. Take, again, the 
 account given of Burke. Our readers will prob- 
 ably think us jesting when we tell them that 
 Professor Saintsbury gravely informs us that 
 Burke supported the American Revolution. Is 
 the Professor unacquainted with the two finest 
 speeches which have ever been delivered in any 
 language since Cicero? Can he possibly be 
 ignorant that Burke, so far from supporting 
 that revolution, did all in his power to prevent 
 it? The whole account of Burke, it may be 
 added, teems with inaccuracies. The American 
 Revolution was not brought about under a 
 Tory administration. What brought that 
 revolution about was Charles Townshend's tax, 
 and that tax was imposed under a Whig adminis- 
 tration, as every well-informed Board-school lad 
 would know. Burke did not lose his seat at 
 Bristol owing to his support of Roman Catholic 
 claims. If Professor Saintsbury had turned to 
 one of the finest of Burke's minor speeches the 
 speech addressed to the electors of Bristol he 
 would have seen that Burke's support of the 
 Roman Catholic claims was only one, and that 
 not the most important, of the causes which cost 
 him his seat. Similar ignorance is displayed in 
 
 100
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 the remark (p. 629) that " Burke joined, and 
 indeed headed, the crusade against Warren 
 Hastings, in 1788." The prosecution of Warren 
 Hastings was undertaken on Burke's sole initia- 
 tive, not in 1788, but in 1785. A few lines 
 onwards we are told that the series of Burke's 
 writings on the French Revolution " began with 
 the Reflections in 1790, and was continued in the 
 Letter to a Noble Lord, 1790. A Letter to a Noble 
 Lord had nothing to do with the French Revo- 
 lution, except collaterally as it affected Burke's 
 public conduct, and appeared, not in 1790, but 
 in 1795. 
 
 It seems impossible to open this book anywhere 
 without alighting on some blunder, or on some 
 inaccuracy. Speaking (p. 277) of Willoughby's 
 well-known A visa, the Professor observes that 
 nothing is known of Willoughby or of A visa. 
 If the Professor had known anything about the 
 work, he would have known that Avisa is sim- 
 ply an anagram made up of the initial letters of 
 Amans, vxor, inviolata semper amanda, and that 
 nothing is known of A visa for the simple reason 
 that nothing is known of the site of More's Utopia. 
 On page 360 we are told that Phineas Fletcher's 
 Piscatory Eclogues, which are, of course, con- 
 founded with his Sicelides, are a masque ; on page 
 624, but this is perhaps a printer's error, that 
 Robertson wrote a history of Charles I. On 
 page 482, John Pomfret, the author of one of 
 the most popular poems of the eighteenth cen- 
 
 101
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 tury, is called Thomas. On page 550, Pope's 
 Moral Essays are described as An Epistle to 
 Lord Burlington, presumably because the last 
 of them, the fourth, is addressed to that noble- 
 man. On page 587 we are told that Mickle died 
 in London : he died at Forest Hill, near Oxford. 
 On page 556 we are informed that Prior was 
 part author of a parody of the " Hind and 
 Panther," and that he was " imprisoned for 
 some years." The work referred to is wrongly 
 described, as it only contained parodies of certain 
 passages in Dryden's poem, and he was in con- 
 finement less than two years. On page 358, 
 Brutus, the legendary founder of Britain, is 
 actually described as the son of .ZEneas. If Pro- 
 fessor Saintsbury were as familiar as he affects 
 to be with Geoffrey of Monmouth, with Layamon 
 and with the early metrical romances, he would 
 have known that Brutus is fabled to have been 
 the son of Sylvius, the son of Ascanius, and, con- 
 sequently, the great-grandson of ^neas. Many 
 of the Professor's critical remarks can only be 
 explained on the supposition that he assumes 
 that his readers will not take the trouble to 
 verify his references or question his dogmas. 
 We will give one or two instances. On page 
 468, speaking of seventeenth-century prose, he 
 says, with reference to Milton : " The close of the 
 Apology itself is a very little, though only a very 
 little, inferior to the Hydriotaphia" By the 
 Apology he can only mean the Apology for 
 
 102
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 Smectymnuus, for the defence of the English 
 people is in Latin. Now, will our readers credit 
 that one of the flattest, clumsiest and most 
 commonplace passages in Milton's prose writ- 
 ings, as any one may see who turns to it, is 
 pronounced " only a little inferior " to one of 
 the most majestically eloquent passages in our 
 prose literature. That our readers may know 
 what Professor Saintsbury's notions of eloquence 
 are, we will transcribe the passage : 
 
 "Thus ye have heard, readers, how many shifts and wiles 
 the prelates have invented to save their ill-got booty. And if it 
 be true, as in Scripture it is foretold, that pride and covetous- 
 ness are the sure marks of those false prophets which are to 
 come, then boldly conclude these to be as great seducers as 
 any of the latter times. For between this and the judgment day 
 do not look for any arch deceivers who, in spite of reforma- 
 tion, will use more craft or less shame to defend their love of 
 the world and their ambition than these prelates have done. 
 And if ye think that soundness of reason or what force of 
 argument so ever shall bring them to an ingenuous silence, 
 ye think that which shall never be. But if ye take that 
 course which Erasmus was wont to say Luther took against 
 the pope and monks : if ye denounce war against their 
 riches and their bellies, ye shall soon discern that turban of 
 pride which they wear upon their heads to be no helmet of 
 salvation, but the mere metal and horn work of papal juris- 
 diction ; and that they have also this gift, like a certain kind 
 of some that are possessed, to have their voice in their bellies, 
 which, being well drained and taken down, their great oracle, 
 which is only there, will soon be dumb, and the divine 
 right of episcopacy forthwith expiring will put us no more 
 to trouble with tedious antiquities and disputes." 
 
 And this is " a very little, only a very little, 
 inferior," to the " Hydriotaphia " ! 
 
 103
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 On page 652, Swift's style, that perfection of 
 simple, unadorned sermo pedestris is described 
 as marked by " volcanic magnificence." On 
 page 300 Hooker is described as "having an 
 unnecessary fear of vivid and vernacular ex- 
 pression." Vivid and vernacular expression is, 
 next to its stateliness, the distinguishing cha- 
 racteristic of Hooker's style. It would be in- 
 teresting to know what is meant by the re- 
 mark on page 445 that Barrow's style is " less 
 severe than South's." Another example of the 
 same thing is the assertion on page 517 that 
 Joseph Glanville is one of "the chief ex- 
 ponents of the gorgeous style in the seven- 
 teenth century." Very 'gorgeous' the style 
 of the Vanity of Dogmatizing, of its later 
 edition the Scepsis Scientifica, of the Sadducis- 
 mus Triumphatus, of the Lux Orientalis, and of 
 the Essays ! 
 
 Indeed, the Professor's critical dicta are as 
 amazing as his facts. We have only space for 
 one or two samples. Cowley's Anacreontics are 
 "not very far below Milton "(!) Dr. Donne was 
 " the most gifted man of letters next to Shake- 
 speare." Where Bacon, where Ben Jonson, 
 where Milton are to stand is not indicated. 
 Akenside's stilted and frigid Odes " fall not so 
 far short of Collins." We wonder what Mr. 
 Saintsbury's criterion of poetry can be. But we 
 forget, with that criterion he has furnished us. 
 On page 732, speaking of "a story about a 
 
 104
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 hearer who knew no English, but knew Tenny- 
 son to be a poet by the hearing," he adds that 
 "the story is probable and valuable, or rather 
 invaluable, for it points to the best if not the 
 only criterion of poetry." And this is a critic ! 
 We would exhort the Professor to ponder well 
 Pope's lines : 
 
 " But most by numbers judge a poet's song, 
 ***** 
 
 In the bright muse, tho' thousand charms conspire, 
 Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire, 
 Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear." 
 
 On page 734 we are told Browning's James 
 Lee the Professor probably means James Lees 
 Wife is amongst " the greatest poems of the 
 century." On Wordsworth's line, judged not in 
 relation to its context, but as a single verse 
 " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting " 
 we have the following as commentary: "Even 
 Shakespeare, even Shelley have little more of the 
 echoing detonation, the auroral light of true 
 poetry"; very " echoing," very "detonating" 
 the rhythm of " Our birth is but a sleep and a 
 forgetting." Mr. Saintsbury's notions of what 
 constitutes detonation and auroral light in 
 poetry appear to resemble his notions of what 
 constitutes eloquence in prose. Nothing, we may 
 add in passing, is more amusing in this volume 
 than Mr. Saintsbury's cool assumption of equality 
 as a critical authority with such a critic as 
 
 105
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 Matthew Arnold, whom he sometimes patronises, 
 sometimes corrects, and sometimes assails. The 
 Professor does not show to advantage on these 
 occasions, and he leaves us with the impression 
 that if "Mr. Arnold's criticism is piecemeal, 
 arbitrary, fantastic, and insane," the criticism 
 which appears, where it is not mere nonsense, 
 to take its touchstones, its standards, and its 
 canons from those of the average Philistine is, 
 after all, a very poor substitute. But enough 
 of Mr. Saintsbury's " criticism," which is, almost 
 uniformly, as absurd in what it praises as in 
 what it censures. 
 
 The style, or, to borrow an expression from 
 Swift, what the poverty of our language com- 
 pels us to call the style, in which this book is 
 written, is on a par with its criticism. We will 
 give a few examples. "It is a proof of the 
 greatness of Dryden that he knew Milton for 
 a poet ; it is a proof of the smallness (and 
 mighty as he was on some sides, on others he 
 was very small) of Milton that (if he really did 
 so) he denied poetry to Dryden." * " What the 
 Voyage and Travaile really is, is this it is, so 
 far as we know, and even beyond our know- 
 ledge in all probability and likelihood, the first 
 considerable example of prose in English deal- 
 ing neither with the beaten track of theology 
 and philosophy, nor with the, even in the 
 Middle Ages, restricted field of history and 
 
 1 Page 474. 
 106
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 home topography, but expatiating freely on 
 unguarded plains and on untrodden hills, some- 
 times dropping into actual prose romance and 
 always treating its subject as the poets had 
 treated theirs in Brut and Mori d Arthur, in 
 Troy-book and Alexandreid, as a mere canvas 
 on which to embroider flowers of fancy." 1 
 Again, "With Anglo-Saxon history he deals 
 slightly, and despite his ardent English patriot- 
 ism his book opens with a vigorous panegyric 
 of England, the first of a series extending to 
 the present day (from which an anthology De 
 Laudibus Anglice might be made) he deals 
 very harshly with Harold Godwinson." 8 " He 
 had a fit of stiff Odes in the Gray and Collins 
 manner." " The Hind and Panther (the greatest 
 poem ever written in the teeth of its subject "). 
 " His voluminous Latin works have been 
 tackled by a special Wyclif Society." These 
 are a few of the gems in which every chapter 
 abounds. 
 
 Of Professor Saintsbury's indifference to ex- 
 actness and accuracy in details and facts we 
 need go no further for illustrations than to his 
 dates. Such things cannot be regarded as trifles 
 in a book designed to be a book of reference. 
 We will give a few instances. We are informed 
 on page 238 that Ascham's Schoolmaster was 
 published in 1568 ; it was published, as its title- 
 page shows, in 1570. Hume's Dissertations were 
 1 Page 150. * Page 63. 
 
 107
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 first published, not in 1762, but in 1757. Bale's 
 flight to Germany was not in 1547, when such a 
 step would have been unnecessary, but in 1540. 
 Pecock was, we are told, translated to Chichester 
 in 1550, exactly ninety years after his death ! 
 As if to perplex the readers of this book, two 
 series of dates are given ; we have the dates in 
 the narrative and the dates in the index, and no 
 attempt is made to reconcile the discrepancies. 
 Accordingly we find in the narrative that 
 Caxton was probably born in 1415 in the index 
 that he was born in 1422 ; in the narrative that 
 Latimer, Fisher, Gascoign and Atterbury were 
 born respectively in 1489, in 1465, about 1537 
 and in 1672 in the index that they were born 
 respectively in 1485, 1459, 1525 and 1662 ; in 
 the narrative Gay was born in 1688 in the 
 index he was born in 1685. In the narrative 
 Collins dies in 1756, and Mrs. Browning is born 
 in 1806 in the index Collins dies in 1759, and 
 Mrs. Browning is born in 1809. The narrative 
 tells us that Aubrey was born in 1626, and John 
 Dyer circa 1688 in the index that Aubrey was 
 born in 1624 and Dyer circa 1700. In the index 
 Mark Pattison dies in 1884 in the narrative he 
 dies in 1889. In Professor Saintsbury's eyes 
 such indifference to accuracy may be venial : in 
 our opinion it is nothing less than scandalous. 
 It is assuredly most unfair to those who will 
 naturally expect to find in a book of reference 
 trustworthy information. 
 
 108
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 We mu8t now conclude, though we have very 
 far from exhausted the list of errors and mis- 
 statements, of absurdities in criticism and 
 absurdities in theory, which we have noted. 
 Bacon has obser yed that the best part of beauty 
 is that which a picture cannot express. It may 
 be said, with equal truth, of a bad book, that 
 what is worst in it is precisely that which it is 
 most difficult to submit to tangible tests. In 
 other words, it lies not so much in its errors 
 and inaccuracies, which, after all, may be mere 
 trifles and excrescences, but it lies in its tone 
 and colour, its flavour, its accent. Professor 
 Saintsbury appears to be constitutionally in- 
 capable of distinguishing vulgarity and coarse- 
 ness from liveliness and vigour. So far from 
 having any pretension to the finer qualities of 
 the critic, he seems to take a boisterous pride in 
 exhibiting his grossness. 
 
 If our review of this book shall seem unduly 
 harsh, we are sorry, but a more exasperating 
 writer than Professor Saintsbury, with his in- 
 difference to all that should be dear to a scholar, 
 the mingled coarseness, triviality and dogmatism 
 of his tone, the audacious nonsense of his gen- 
 eralisations, and the offensive vulgarity of his 
 diction and style a very well of English defiled 
 we have never had the misfortune to meet 
 with. Turn where we will in this work, to the 
 opinions expressed in it, to the sentiments, to the 
 verdicts, to the style, the note is the same, the 
 note of the Das Gemeine. 
 
 109
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 II. A SHORT HISTORY OF MODERN 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 1 
 
 r I ^HE author of this work has plainly not 
 JL pondered the advice of Horace, " Sumite 
 materiam vestris, qui scribitis, sequam viribus." 
 His ambitious purpose is " to give the reader, 
 whether familiar with books or not, a feeling of 
 the evolution of English Literature in the primary 
 sense of the term," and he adds that " to do this 
 without relation to particular authors and par- 
 ticular works seems to me impossible." This 
 may be conceded ; for, a feeling of the evolution 
 of English or of any other literature, without 
 reference to particular authors and particular 
 books, would be analogous to the capacity for 
 feeling without anything to feel. But, unfor- 
 tunately, those of Mr. Gosse's readers who wish 
 to have the feeling to which he refers will 
 merely find the conditions without which, as he 
 so justly observes, the said feeling is impossible. 
 
 1 A Short History of Modern English Literature. By 
 Edmund Gosse. London, 1898. 
 
 110
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 In other words, references, in the form of loose 
 and desultory gossip, to particular authors and 
 particular works chronologically arranged, are 
 all that represent the " evolution " of which he 
 is so anxious " to give a feeling." 
 
 Described simply, the work is an ordinary 
 manual of English Literature in which, with 
 Mr. Humphry Ward's English Poets, Sir Henry 
 Craik's English Prose Writers, Chambers' Cyclo- 
 paedia of English Literature, the Dictionary of 
 National Biography, and the like before him, 
 the writer tells again the not unfamiliar story 
 of the course of our Literature from Chaucer 
 to the present time. But Mr. Gosse is no 
 mere compiler, and brings to his task certain 
 qualifications of his own, a vague and inac- 
 curate but extensive knowledge of our seven- 
 teenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century Belles 
 Lettres ; and here, as a rule, he can acquit him- 
 self creditably. Though far from a sound, he 
 is a sympathetic critic ; he has an agreeable 
 but somewhat affected style, and can gossip 
 pleasantly and plausibly about subjects which 
 are within the range indicated. But at this 
 point, as is painfully apparent, his qualifications 
 for being an historian and critic of English 
 Literature end. The moment he steps out of 
 this area he is at the mercy of his handbooks ; 
 so completely at their mercy that he does not 
 even know how to use them. And it is here 
 that Mr. Gosse becomes so irritating, partly be- 
 lli
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 cause of the sheer audacity with which mere 
 inferences are substituted for facts and simple 
 assumptions for deduced generalizations, and 
 partly because of the habitual employment of 
 phraseology so vague and indeterminate that 
 it is difficult to submit what it conveys to posi- 
 tive test. These are serious charges to bring 
 against any writer ; and if they cannot be abun- 
 dantly substantiated, a still more serious charge 
 may justly be urged against the accuser. 
 
 To turn to the work. On page 85 Mr. Gosse 
 favours us with the following account of the 
 Faerie Queene : " A certain grandeur which sus- 
 tains the three great Cantos of Truth, Temper- 
 ance, and Chastity fades away as we proceed. 
 . . . The structure of it is loose and incoher- 
 ent when we compare it with the epic grandeur 
 of the masterpieces of Ariosto and Tasso." It 
 would be difficult to match this ; every word 
 which is not a blunder is an absurdity. Where 
 are " the three great Cantos " ? Can Mr. Gosse 
 possibly be ignorant that the poem is divided 
 into books, each book containing twelve Cantos ? 
 Assuming, however, that he has confounded 
 books with Cantos, where is the great book 
 dealing with ' Truth ' ? As he places it before 
 ' Temperance,' we presume that he means the 
 first book and that he has confounded ' Truth ' 
 with ' Holiness.' This is pretty well, to begin 
 with. Where, we next ask in amazement, 
 is the ' grandeur ' which sustains the prolix 
 farrago of the third book, and which ' fades 
 
 112
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 away' as we proceed to the only book which 
 almost rivals the first and second, the fifth, 
 and the sublimest portion of the whole work, 
 the superb Cantos which represent all that 
 remains of the seventh? What, we gasp, is 
 the meaning of the ' epic grandeur ' of Ariosto ? 
 and "the loose and incoherent structure" of the 
 Faerie Queene when compared with that of the 
 Orlando Furioso? Could any poem be more 
 loose and incoherent in structure than the 
 Orlando, or any term be less appropriate to 
 its tone and style than ' grandeur ' ? On page 
 80 he actually tells us that Fox's well-known 
 Book of Martyrs was written in Latin and trans- 
 lated by John Day, and that it is John Day's 
 translation of the Latin original which repre- 
 sents that work, confounding Fox's Commen- 
 tarii Rerum in Ecclesia gestarum, etc., printed 
 at Basil with the Acts and Monuments of the 
 Church, and making John Day, the publisher of 
 it, the translator of it into English ! And this is 
 his account of one of the most celebrated works 
 in our language. Of Swift's Sentiments of a 
 Church of England Man, we have the following 
 account : " That such a tract as the Sentiments 
 of a Church of England Man, with its gusts of 
 irony, its white heat of preposterous moderation, 
 led on towards Junius is obvious." This is an 
 excellent example of the confidence which may 
 be placed in Mr. Gosse's assertions. Of this 
 pamphlet, it may be sufficient to say that there 
 
 E.C. 113 H
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 is not a single touch of irony or satire in it ; that 
 it stands almost alone among Swift's tracts for 
 its perfectly temperate and logical tone ; it is a 
 calm appeal to pure reason. There is the same 
 audacity of assertion in classing Feltham's 
 Resolves with Hall's and Overbury's Character 
 Sketches, and Earle's Microcosmogonie as "a 
 typical example "of "a curious school of comic 
 or ironic portraiture, partly ethical and partly 
 dramatic." In 1625, we are told that Bacon 
 completed the Sylva Sylvarum. If Mr. Gosse 
 knew anything of Bacon's philosophical writings, 
 he would have known that the Sylva Sylvarum 
 never was and never could have been completed, 
 for it was in itself a fragment a mere collection 
 of materials to be incorporated in the Phcenomena 
 Universi, a work which was to have been six 
 times larger than Pliny's Natural History. In 
 giving an account of Tillotson, he speaks of 
 " the serene and insinuating periods " of the ele- 
 gant latitudinarian who "was assiduous in say- 
 ing what he had to say in the most graceful and 
 intelligible manner possible." A more perfect 
 description of the very opposite of Tillotson's 
 style could hardly be given. Those who are 
 acquainted with Fuller's writings will be equally 
 surprised to find him classed with Jeremy 
 Taylor and Henry More, and to learn that his 
 style is 'florid and involved,' distinguished by 
 its 'long-windedness' and 'exuberance.' Has Mr. 
 Gosse no apprehension of his readers turning to 
 
 114
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 the originals and testing his statements? We 
 have another of these bold assertions in the 
 account of Lydgate, derived, we suspect, from 
 a hasty generalization from a remark made 
 about him in Mr. Ward's British Poets. "Lyd- 
 gate," says Mr. Gosse, " had a most defective 
 ear ; his verses are not to be scanned. His 
 ear was bad and tuneless." Any one who has 
 read Lydgate knows that, if we except his 
 heroic couplets, a more musical poet is not to 
 be found in the fifteenth century, or, indeed, 
 in our language ; the softness and smoothness 
 of his verse, wherever he writes in stanzas, 
 as he generally does, is indeed his chief charac- 
 teristic. These remarks are minor illustra- 
 tions of an accomplishment in which Mr. Gosse 
 has no rival. 
 
 The Euphuists of the sixteenth century drew, 
 for purposes of simile and illustration, on a 
 fabulous natural history which assumed the ex- 
 istence of certain animals, herbs, and minerals, 
 and of certain properties and qualities possessed 
 by them. This gave great point and pictur- 
 esqueness to their style, and though it was cer- 
 tainly misleading and occasionally perplexing 
 to those who went to them for natural history, 
 it had a most charming and imposing effect. 
 Mr. Gosse seems to have imported a similar 
 fiction into criticism. Of this we have a most 
 amusing illustration on page 155. Speaking 
 
 115
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 of Herrick Mr. Gosse remarks, " In the midst 
 of these extravagances, like Meleager winding 
 his pure white violets" the Italics are ours 
 "into the gaudy garland of late Greek Eu- 
 phuism, we find Robert Herrick." Meleager's 
 Anthology is not extant, but the dedication 
 is, and from that dedication we know exactly 
 from what poets it was compiled. It ranged 
 from about B.C. 700 till towards the close of 
 the Alexandrian Age, for, with the exception 
 of Antipater of Sidon, it is very doubtful 
 whether he inserted any epigrams by his con- 
 temporaries, but he admitted a hundred and 
 thirty-one of his own. In other words his 
 collection comprised epigrams composed by the 
 masters preceding the Alexandrian Age from 
 Archilochus downwards, and by those who, 
 during that age and afterwards, cultivated 
 with scrupulous care the simplicity and purity 
 of the early models. Indeed, the poets re- 
 presented in his Anthology are, with one ex- 
 ception, the artists of Greek epigram in its 
 purest, simplest, and chastest form. That one 
 exception is himself. In him are first ap- 
 parent the dulcia vitia of the Decadence ; he 
 is full of dainty subtleties, he is almost more 
 Oriental than Greek, his style is luscious, ela- 
 borate and florid. Such, then, was the com- 
 position of " the gaudy garland of late Greek 
 Euphuism," and such the nature of the "pure 
 
 116
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 white violets" wound into it by Meleager. It 
 is amusing to trace Mr. Gosse's rodomontade 
 to its source. In the well-known dedication 
 to which we have referred, Meleager prettily 
 compares the various poets, from whose works 
 he selects, to flowers, speaking modestly of 
 his own contributions as " early white violets." 
 To critics like Mr. Gosse the rest is easy. 
 Meleager, he no doubt argued, was an ex- 
 cellent poet ; he belonged to a late age : ' Eu- 
 phuism ' a delightfully vague term, is likely 
 to characterise a late age ; a poet who com- 
 pares his verses to white violets had evidently 
 a taste for simplicity, and presumably, there- 
 fore, was no Euphuist ; a gaudy garland is an 
 excellent set off for pure white violets. And 
 so, to the great perplexity of scholars, but to 
 the great satisfaction of those who enjoy a 
 pretty sentence, Meleager will continue "to 
 wind his pure white violets into the gaudy 
 garland of late Greek Euphuism." 
 
 We have a similar illustration of the same 
 thing in Mr. Gosse's account of Shaftesbury. 
 We are told that he " was perhaps the great- 
 est literary force between Dryden and Swift " ; 
 that " he deserves remembrance as the first 
 who really broke down the barrier which ex- 
 cluded England from taking her proper place 
 in the civilization of literary Europe " ; that " he 
 set an example for the kind of prose which was 
 
 117
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 to mark the central years of the century" ; 
 that "his style glitters and rings, and . . . 
 yet so curious that one marvels that it should 
 have fallen completely into neglect" ; that 
 "he was the first Englishman who developed 
 theories of formal virtue, who attempted to 
 harmonize the beautiful with the true and 
 the good " ; that the modern attitude of mind 
 seems to meet us first in the graceful cosmo- 
 politan writings of Shaftesbury ; that " without 
 a Shaftesbury there would hardly have been a 
 Ruskin or a Pater." Such amazing nonsense 
 almost confounds refutation by its sheer ab- 
 surdity. 
 
 With regard to the first statement, it may 
 be sufficient to say that between the period 
 of Dryden's literary activity and the publi- 
 cation of Swift's Battle of the Books and Tale 
 of a Tub were flourishing Hobbes, Izaak Wal- 
 ton, Bunyan, Temple, and Locke ; that between 
 the publication of the Tale of a Tub and of 
 Shaftesbury's collected writings were flourishing 
 Addison, Steele, De Foe, Arbuthnot, Berkeley. 
 With regard to the second statement, it would 
 be interesting to know how a writer who had 
 been preceded by Bacon, Hobbes and Locke, 
 could be described as a writer who had been the 
 first " to break down the barrier which excluded 
 England from taking her proper place in the 
 civilization of literary Europe." The truth is, 
 that Shaftesbury exercised no influence at all 
 
 118
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 on Continental Literature until long after our 
 Literature had generally become influential in 
 France. Equally absurd and baseless is the 
 remark that he " set an example of the kind 
 of prose that was to mark the central years 
 of the century." Whose prose was affected by 
 him? Bolingbroke's? or Fielding's? or Richard- 
 son's ? or Middletoii's ? or Johnson's ? or Gold- 
 smith's ? or Hume's ? or Hawkesworth's ? or 
 Sterne's? or Smollett's? or Chesterfield's? that of 
 the writers in the Monthly Review? or in the 
 Adventurer? or in the World? or in the Connois- 
 seur? To say of Shaftesbury's style that "it glit- 
 ters and rings," is to say what betrays utter 
 ignorance of its characteristics. As a rule, it is 
 diffuse, involved, and cumbrous, affected, but with 
 an affectation which sedulously aims at the very 
 opposite effects of " glittering and ringing." 
 When he is eloquent, as in the Moralists, he imi- 
 tates the style of Plato ; his vice is florid verbos- 
 ity ; it may be doubted whether a single sentence 
 could be found to which Mr. Gosse's description 
 would be applicable. If, it may be added, his style 
 had " fallen completely into neglect," it is some- 
 what surprising that "he should set an example 
 for the kind of prose which was to mark the cen- 
 tral years of the century." When we are told 
 that he was " the first Englishman who attempted 
 to harmonize the beautiful with the true and the 
 good," we ask in amazement whether Mr. Gosse 
 has ever inspected the Hymns of Spenser and 
 
 119
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 the writings of the Cambridge Platonists ; and 
 when he tells us that without a Shaftesbury 
 there would hardly have been a Ruskin or a 
 Pater, we would suggest to him that both 
 Ruskin and Pater were perhaps not ignorant of 
 the Platonic Dialogues. In the account given 
 of Spenser, a poem is attributed to him which 
 he never wrote. "In one of his early pieces, 
 The Oak and The Briar, went far," etc., the oak 
 and the briar is simply an episode in the second 
 eclogue of the Shepherd's Calendar. Mr. Gosse, 
 probably finding it quoted in some book of selec- 
 tions, has jumped to the conclusion that it is a 
 separate poem. Of Mr. Gosse's qualifications for 
 dealing with Spenser, we have, by the way, an 
 excellent example in the following remark : 
 "Spenser, although he boasted of his classical 
 acquirements, was singularly little affected by 
 Greek or even Latin ideas." Spenser's Hymns in 
 honour of Love and in Honour of Beauty are 
 simply saturated with Platonism, being indeed 
 directly derived from the Phcedrus and the 
 Symposium, numberless passages from which 
 are interwoven with the poems. The whole 
 scheme of the Faerie Queene was suggested by, 
 and based on, Aristotle's Ethics with elaborate 
 particularity, Arthur, in his relation to the 
 several knights, corresponding to the virtue 
 f4ya\o^lnr%ia in its relation to the other virtues. 
 The conclusion of the tenth canto of the first 
 book is simply an allegorical presentation of the 
 
 120
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 relation of the /8ib<? OewpijTiicbs to practical life. 
 The " Castle of Medina " in the second book is a 
 minutely technical exposition of the Aristotelian 
 doctrine of the mean, modified by the Platonic 
 theory of morals : the three mothers being the 
 \oyio-TiKij, the eVttfu/tT/Tuct;, and ffvpyrtKij, the three 
 daughters, Elissa, Perissa, and Medina, being 
 respectively the Aristotelian eXXeti/rt?, the 
 inrpl3o\r), and the /xeo-or^?. In fact, the whole 
 passage is simply an allegory of the Aristotelian 
 doctrine of the mean. The whole of the ninth 
 canto of the second book is founded on the famous 
 passage in the Timceus describing the anatomy of 
 man. In truth the poem teems with references 
 to Plato and Aristotle, and with passages imitated 
 from the Greek poets, as every scholar knows. 
 And this is a poet " singularly little affected by 
 Greek ideas ! " 
 
 The same astonishing ignorance is displayed 
 in a remark about Milton. We are told that 
 in his youth he was "slightly subjected to in- 
 fluence from Spenser." If Mr. Gosse had any 
 adequate acquaintance with Milton and Spenser, 
 he would have known that Spenser was to 
 Milton almost what Homer was to Virgil, that 
 Spenser's influence simply pervades his poems, 
 not his youthful poems only, but Paradise 
 Lost and even Paradise Regained. On page 194 
 we find this sentence: "From 1660 onwards 
 . . . what France originally, and then England, 
 chose was the imitatio veterum, the Literature 
 
 121
 
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 in prose and verse which seemed most closely 
 to copy the models of Latin style. Aristotle 
 and Horace were taken, not merely as patterns, 
 but as arbiters." It would be very interesting to 
 know what English author took Aristotle as a 
 pattern for style. Is Mr. Gosse acquainted with 
 the characteristics of Aristotle's style? Should 
 he ever become so, he will probably have some 
 sense of the immeasurable absurdity of asserting 
 that our prose writers from 1660 onwards took 
 that style for their model. On a par with this is 
 the assertion that up to 1605 Bacon had mainly 
 issued his works in " Ciceronian Latin." Is 
 Mr. Gosse aware of the meaning of " Ciceronian 
 Latin " ? Very " Ciceronian " indeed is Bacon's 
 Latinity, and particularly that of the Medita- 
 tiones Sacrce, the only work published in Latin 
 by Bacon up to 1605 ! It is scarcely necessary 
 to say, in passing, that such works as Bacon 
 had published up to 1605 were, with the one 
 exception referred to, all in English. No- 
 thing, it may be added, is so annoying in this 
 book as its slushy dilettantism. Mr. Gosse 
 appears to be incapable of accuracy and pre- 
 cision. Thus he tells us that Chaucer's expe- 
 dition to Italy in 1372 was " the first of several 
 Italian expeditions." Chaucer, so far as is 
 known, visited Italy, after this, exactly once. 
 Again, he tells us that the Complaint of Mars 
 and the Parliament of Fowls are interesting as 
 showing that Chaucer had completely abandoned 
 
 122
 
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 his imitation of French models. Chaucer wrote 
 several poems in the pure French style, and 
 based on French models, after the date of these 
 poems. Such would be the Rondel Merciless 
 Beauty suggested by Williamme d' Amiens, the 
 Compleynt of Venus, partly adapted and partly 
 translated from three Ballades by Sir Otes de 
 Graunson, and the Compleynt to his Empty 
 Purse, modelled on a Ballade by Eustache Des- 
 champs, while French influence continued to 
 modify his work throughout. On page 238 we 
 are told that Thomson revived the Spenserian 
 stanza ; it had been revived by Pope, Prior, 
 Shenstone, and Akenside. On page 151 we 
 are informed that the first instalment of Clar- 
 endon's History remained imprinted till 1752, 
 and the rest of it till 1759. If Mr. Gosse knew 
 anything about one of the most remarkable 
 controversies of the eighteenth century, he 
 would have known that the greater part of 
 it was printed and published between 1702 and 
 1704, and frequently reprinted between 1704 
 and 1731. 
 
 There is not a chapter in the book which 
 does not teem with errors. Trissino's Sofonisba 
 was not the only work in which blank verse 
 had attained any prominence in Italy about 
 1515 ; it had been employed in works equally 
 prominent, by Rucellai in his Rosmunda, and 
 in his Oreste, as well as in his didactic poem 
 L'Api, and by Alamanni in his Antigone, all 
 
 123
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 of which were composed within a few years 
 of that date. On page 120 we are told that 
 Davies was the first to employ, on a long flight, 
 the heroic quatrain ; it had been employed by 
 Spenser in a poem extending to nearly a 
 thousand lines. Nor was Surrey's essay in 
 terza rima " the earliest in the language." 
 Chaucer made the same experiment, though a 
 little irregularly, in the Compleynt to his Lady. 
 We are told on page 79 that Gascoigne was 
 "the first translator of Greek tragedy." Gas- 
 coigne never translated a line from the Greek. 
 His Jocasta, to which presumably the reference 
 is made, is simply an adaptation of Ludovico 
 Dolce's Griocasta. On page 25 we are informed 
 that " Gower's French verse has mainly dis- 
 appeared." Gower is not known to have writ- 
 ten anything in French except the Ballades 
 and the Speculum Meditantis, both of which 
 are extant, as it is inexcusable in any his- 
 torian of English Literature not to know. 
 The account given on page 25 of the Confessio 
 Amantis shows that Mr. Gosse is very im- 
 perfectly acquainted with what he so fluently 
 criticises, or he would have been aware that 
 the seventh book is purely episodical and has 
 nothing whatever to do with " The lover's 
 symptoms and experience." In the account 
 of Pope we are informed that "Boileau dis- 
 couraged love poetry and Pope did not seriously 
 
 124
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 attempt it." Pope is the author of the most 
 famous love poem in the eighteenth century, 
 Eloisa to Abelard, to say nothing of the Elegy 
 to an Unfortunate Lady, of the beautiful 
 hymn to Love in the second chorus in the 
 tragedy of Brutus, and the exquisite fragment 
 supposed to have been addressed to Lady Mary 
 Wortley Montagu. " The satires of Pope," he 
 continues, " would not have been written but for 
 those of his French predecessor." Can Mr. Gosse 
 possibly be ignorant that the satires of Pope 
 are modelled on the Satires and Epistles of 
 Horace, that they owe absolutely nothing to 
 Boileau, not even the hint for applying Roman 
 satire to modern times, as he had precedents 
 in his own countrymen Dryden and Rochester ? 
 Mr. Gosse's criticism is often very amus- 
 ing, as here, speaking of Gibbon : " Perhaps he 
 leaned on the strength of his style too much, 
 and sacrificed the abstract to the concrete" Of all 
 historians who have ever lived, Gibbon is the 
 most " abstract " and has most sacrificed the 
 " concrete " to the " abstract," as every student 
 of history knows. On a par with this is the 
 prodigious statement (p. 291) that there is "an 
 absence of emotional imagination " in Burke ! 
 That excellent man, Mr. Pecksniff, was, we are 
 told, in the habit of using any word that 
 occurred to him as having a fine sound and 
 rounding a sentence well, without much care 
 for its meaning ; " and this," says his biographer 
 
 125
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 "he did so boldly and in such an imposing 
 manner that he would sometimes stagger the 
 wisest people and make them gasp again." 
 This is precisely Mr. Gosse's method. About 
 the propriety of his epithets and statements, so 
 long as they sound well, he never troubles him- 
 self ; sometimes they are so vague as to mean 
 anything, as often they have no meaning at all, 
 as here : " His [that is Shelley's] style, carefully 
 considered, is seen to rest on a basis built about 
 1760, from which it is every moment springing 
 and sparkling, like a fountain, in columns of 
 ebullient lyricism." Could pure nonsense go 
 further? We have another illustration of the 
 same audacity of absurd assertion on page 260. 
 We are there informed Mr. Gosse is speaking 
 of our prose literature about the centre of the 
 eighteenth century that " Philosophy by this 
 time had become detached from belles lettres ; 
 it was now quite indifferent to those who prac- 
 tised it, whether their sentences were harmonious 
 or no. . . . Philosophy in fact quitted litera- 
 ture." If there was any period in our prose 
 literature when philosophy was in the closest 
 alliance with belles lettres, and was most 
 studious of the graces of style, it was between 
 about 1750 and 1771. In those years appeared 
 Hutcheson's System of Moral Philosophy, Adam 
 Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, one of 
 the most eloquent philosophical treatises ever 
 written, Burke's Treatise on the Sublime and 
 
 126
 
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 Beautiful, Reid's Inquiry into the Human Mind, 
 Tucker's Light of Nature Pursued, Beattie's 
 Essay on Truth, to say nothing of Hume's 
 Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, 
 his Political Discourses, and his Natural History 
 of Religion, all of them works pre-eminently 
 distinguished by the graces of style, while so 
 far from philosophy quitting belles lettres, it 
 was during these years that the foundations of 
 philosophical criticism were laid by Burke, 
 Harris, Hurd, Kames, and others. Mr. Gosse 
 appears to have forgotten that he had himself 
 told us (p. 205) that Shaftesbury's style set the 
 example of the prose which was to mark the 
 central years of the century ! Thus again Burton's 
 Anatomy of Melancholy is "an entertaining 
 neurotic compendium " ; Bacon's Essays are 
 "often mere notations . . . enlarged in 
 many cases merely to receive the impressions 
 of a Machiavellian ingenuity." Shelley's Triumph 
 of Life is " a noble but vague gnomic poem, in 
 which Petrarch's Trionfi are summed up and 
 sometimes excelled." Keats' " great odes are 
 Titanic and Titianic." On page 284 we are in- 
 formed that for fifteen years after the close of 
 1800 "poetry may be said to have been stationary 
 in England." When we remember that within 
 these years appeared the best of Wordsworth's 
 poems, the best of Coleridge's, the best of Scott's, 
 the best of Crabbe's, the first two cantos of 
 Childe Harold, the best of Campbell's, the best 
 
 127
 
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 of Moore's, and of Southey's we wonder what 
 can be meant, till we read on to find that it was 
 "on the contrary extremely active." But "its 
 activity took the form of the gradual acceptance 
 of the new romantic ideas, the slow expulsion 
 of the old classic taste, and the multiplication 
 of examples of what had once for all been 
 supremely accomplished in the hollows of the 
 Quantocks." In other words, its activity took the 
 form of its activity, and its activity led to its 
 becoming stationary. Mr. Gosse is sometimes 
 solemnly oracular, as here : " It is a sentimental 
 error to suppose that the winds of God blow 
 only through the green tree ; it is sometimes 
 the dry tree which is peculiarly favourable to 
 their passage." It is not sometimes, we submit, 
 but always that the dry tree will be most pro- 
 pitious to their passage. But we like Mr. Gosse 
 best when he is eloquent, as here : "In the 
 chapel of Milton's brain, entirely devoted though 
 it was to a Biblical form of worship, there were 
 flutes and trumpets to accompany one vast 
 commanding organ." No wonder poor Milton 
 suffered, as we know he did suffer, from 
 
 insomnia 
 
 The statement that " so miserable is the 
 poverty of the first half of the seventeenth 
 century, when we have mentioned Pecock and 
 Capgrave, there is no other prose writer to be 
 named," is bad enough. But to sum up Pecock's 
 work with the remark, " the matter is paradoxi- 
 
 128
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 cal and casuistical reasoning on controversial 
 points, in which he secures the sympathy neither 
 of the new thought nor the old," is to demon- 
 strate that Mr. Gosse knows nothing whatever 
 about it. The Represser is in many important 
 respects one of the most remarkable works in our 
 early prose Literature. It would be interesting 
 to know what is the meaning of the following : 
 "The masterpiece of Chilling worth stands almost 
 alone in a sort of underwood of Theophrastian 
 character sketches." Does Mr. Gosse suppose 
 that English prose Literature in and about 1637 
 is represented by Hall's Characters of Vices and 
 Virtues, by Sir Thomas Overbury's Characters, 
 and by Earle's Microcosmographie, which ap- 
 peared respectively, not in and about 1637, but 
 in 1608, in 1614, and in 1628 ? If this was the 
 underwood in which Chillingworth's work stood, 
 it stood also in a dense forest represented by 
 some of the most celebrated prose writings of 
 the seventeenth century, such as the greater 
 part of the writings of Bacon and of Raleigh, 
 the Anatomy of Melancholy, Selden's Titles of 
 Honour and Mare Clausum, Lord Herbert of 
 Cherbury's De Veritate, Feltham's Resolves, the 
 best of Hall's writings, Purchas' Pilgrims, Bar- 
 clay's Argenis, the Histories of Speed, Stowe, 
 Hayward, and Raleigh, Heylin's Microcosmus, 
 Prynne's Histrio-Mastix, and the famous sermons 
 of Lancelot Andrewes, all of which appeared 
 between 1608 and 1637. These are the sort of 
 B.C. 129 I
 
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 remarks in which Mr. Gosse habitually indulges. 
 We have another example in the following : 
 " Shelley's attitude to style is in the main re- 
 trograde," a generalization based on the fact 
 that he was no admirer of " the arabesque of 
 the cockney school." But were Shelley's chief 
 contemporaries admirers of the arabesque of 
 the cockney school, or were they affected by it ? 
 Was Wordsworth, was Coleridge, or Southey, 
 or Byron, or Crabbe, or Campbell, or Landor ? 
 a question which Mr. Gosse probably never 
 stopped to ask himself. On a par with this is 
 the absurd assertion that " English poetry was 
 born again during the autumn months of 1797." 
 The appearance of the Lyrical Ballads did not 
 make, but mark, an era in our poetry. The 
 revolution of which they were the expression 
 had been maturing, as surely but distinctly as 
 the social and political revolution marked by 
 the assembly of the States-General ten years 
 before. There was hardly a note struck in the 
 Lyrical Ballads which had not been struck in 
 our poetry between 1740 and the date of their 
 appearance. 
 
 To call this compilation a History of Modern 
 English Literature is ludicrous. Mr. Gosse has 
 no conception even of the eras into which our 
 Literature naturally falls, or of the movements 
 which in each of those eras defined themselves. 
 Nothing could be more misleading and inadequate 
 than the accounts given of the historians, theo- 
 
 130
 
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 logians, philosophers, and critics, many of whom 
 nay, whole schools of whom are not noticed 
 at all. Sidney's epoch-marking little treatise is 
 dismissed in four unmeaning lines as " an urbane 
 and eloquent essay, which labours under but one 
 disadvantage, namely, that when it was com- 
 posed in 1581 there was scarcely any poesy in 
 England to be defended. This was posthu- 
 mously printed in 1595." Ben Jonson's not less 
 remarkable Discoveries are not even mentioned. 
 How writers like Bacon, Hooker, Hobbes, Locke, 
 and Berkeley fare we have not space to illus- 
 trate. Mr. Gosse, indeed, judging by his excur- 
 sions into the realms of theology and philo- 
 sophy, has certainly been wise to assign more 
 space to The Flower and the Leaf than is as- 
 signed to Hobbes, Barrow, Butler, and Paley put 
 together. We have by no means exhausted the 
 list of blunders and absurdities to be found in 
 this book ; but we have, we fear, exhausted the 
 patience of our readers, and we must bring our 
 examination of it to a close. 
 
 The melancholy thing about all this is the 
 perfect impunity with which such works as 
 these can be given to the public. We have 
 not the smallest doubt that this book has been 
 extolled to the skies in reviews which have not 
 detected a single error in it, and which have 
 accepted its generalizations and its criticisms 
 with unquestioning credulity ; and we have as 
 little doubt that those scholars who have dis- 
 
 131
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 cerned its defects and absurdities have chosen, 
 from motives possibly of kindness, possibly of 
 prudence, and possibly in mere contempt, to 
 maintain silence about them. Had it appeared 
 twenty years ago, it would instantly have been 
 exposed and exploded, indeed no writer would 
 have dared to insult serious readers by such a 
 publication. What every reader has a right to 
 demand from those who take upon themselves 
 to instruct him are sincerity, industry, and com- 
 petence ; and what no critic has a right to con- 
 done is ostentatious indifference on the part of 
 an author to the responsibilities incurred by him 
 in undertaking to teach the public. 
 
 The sooner Mr. Gosse, and writers like Mr. 
 Gosse, come to understand that, however in- 
 geniously expressed, reckless generalizations, 
 random assertions and the specious semblance 
 of knowledge, erudition, and authority may 
 pass current for a time, but are certain at last 
 to be detected and exposed, the better for them- 
 selves and the better for their readers. If, too, 
 they wish justice to be done to the accomplish- 
 ments which they really possess, they will do 
 well to remember what is implied in the proverb 
 Ne sutor ultra crepidam, and what the Germans 
 mean by VEBMESSENHEIT. 
 
 132
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 WE see no objection to Mutual Admiration 
 Societies ; they are institutions which 
 afford much pleasure, and can, as a rule, do 
 little harm. If vanity be a foible, it is a foible 
 well worth cherishing, and will be treated 
 tenderly even by a philosopher. For, of all the 
 illusions which give a zest to life, the illusions 
 created by this flattering passion are the most 
 delightful and inspiring. They are so easily 
 evoked ; they respond with such impartial ob- 
 sequiousness to the call of the humblest magi- 
 cian. He has but to speak the word and they 
 are made ; to command and they are created. 
 A becomes what B and C pronounce him to 
 be, and what A and C have done for B, that 
 will B and A do in turn for C. It is a deli- 
 cious occupation, no doubt, a feast for each, in 
 which no crude surfeit reigns, where, in Bacon's 
 phrase, satisfaction and appetite are perpetually 
 interchangeable ; it is like the herbage in the 
 Paradise of the Spanish poet, " quanto mas se 
 
 133
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 goza mas renace," the more we enjoy it the 
 more it grows. It is an old game " Vetus 
 fabula per novos histriones " : 
 
 "'Twas, 'Sir, your law,' and 'Sir, your eloquence,' 
 ' Yours Cowper's manner and yours Talbot's sense ' ; 
 Thus we dispose of all poetic merit : 
 Yours Milton's genius and mine Homer's spirit. 
 Walk with respect behind, while we at ease 
 Weave laurel crowns and take what name we please. 
 ' My dear Tihullus ! ' if that will not do, 
 Let me be Horace, and be Ovid you." 
 
 And there is this advantage. If a sufficient 
 number of magicians can, or will, combine, these 
 illusions may not only serve each magician for 
 life, but become, for a time, simply indistinguish- 
 able from realities. Now, as we said before, we 
 see no great harm in this. It is, to say the least, 
 a very amiable and brotherly employment ; and 
 were it quite disinterested and honest, it would 
 be closely allied with that virtue which St. Paul 
 exalts above all virtues. But everything has or 
 ought to have its limits. When Boswell at- 
 tempted to defend certain Methodists who had 
 been expelled from the University of Oxford, 
 Johnson retorted that the University was per- 
 fectly right " They were examined, and found 
 to be mighty ignorant fellows." " But," said 
 Boswell, " was it not hard to expel them ? for I 
 am told they were good beings." " I believe," 
 replied the sage, " that they might be good 
 
 134
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 beings, but they were not fit to be in the 
 University of Oxford. A cow is a very good 
 animal in the field, but we turn her out of a 
 garden." 
 
 To our certain knowledge many of those who 
 owe their reputation to the art to which we 
 are referring are good beings, and we have 
 little doubt that most of those who are least 
 scrupulous in practising it are good beings also. 
 Indeed it may be conceded at once that there 
 is always a strong presumption that members 
 of Mutual Admiration Societies belong to this 
 class. On the reciprocity of essentially Christian 
 virtues their very existence depends. Whatever 
 may be thought of their heads, their hearts are 
 pretty sure to be in the right place. They may, 
 it is true, act more in the spirit of the precept 
 that we should do unto others as we would 
 they should do unto us than in that of the pre- 
 cept which pronounces that it is more blessed 
 to give than to receive. This, however, is a trifle 
 one of those distinctions without differences 
 which are so common in Christian ethics. But 
 for ourselves we must, as we have said before, 
 discriminate. To the cow in the field we have 
 no objection ; it is of the cow in the garden that 
 we complain. 
 
 To drop metaphor : there are certain spheres 
 of literary activity in which the circulation of 
 mutual puffery by this clique or by that clique 
 
 135
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 can do comparatively little harm to any one or 
 to anything. There are some subjects on which 
 every reader is not only perfectly competent to 
 form his own judgment, but is pretty certain to 
 do so. He may amuse himself by seeing what 
 the critics have to say, and he may be induced 
 by them in the first instance to turn to the book 
 which is in question, but he is practically un- 
 affected by any opinions unless they happen to 
 coincide with his own. Such is the case with 
 books of travel, with novels, and, as a rule, with 
 poetry. Here the arts of the log-roller are as 
 harmless as the frolics of whales with tubs. No 
 one takes what he sees seriously except those 
 who are engaged in the pastime. If Mr. A can- 
 not give the general public what it appreciates, 
 nothing that Mr. B can say will cajole that 
 public into believing that it has what it has not. 
 Mr. C and Mr. D may vociferate, till they are 
 hoarse, that " Mr. E is the subtlest and most 
 discriminating critic that the English-speaking 
 world has ever known " ; but if Mr. E's eulogies 
 of Mr. C's verses and of Mr. D's novels are not 
 corroborated by the general reader's independent 
 judgment, the fame of Messrs. C and D will 
 not extend beyond their clique. If in poetry or 
 prose fiction trash succeeds, as it undoubtedly 
 does, it succeeds not because of the skill with 
 which it has been puffed, though this may be a 
 factor in its success, but because it hits the popu- 
 
 136
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 lar taste. The public is seldom deceived except 
 when it wishes to be deceived. Log-rolling has 
 much to answer for : it loads our bookstalls 
 with nonsense and rubbish, it impedes the pro- 
 duction of sound literature, it degrades the 
 standard of taste, it degrades the standard of 
 aim and attainment, and indirectly it is in every 
 way mischievous to literature. But we very 
 much question whether in the case of publica- 
 tions which appeal directly to general readers, 
 and are within the scope of their judgments, 
 the fortune of a book is in any way affected 
 by the arts of the log-roller. Amusement 
 mingled with impatience is probably the pre- 
 vailing sentiment when Mr. C and Mr. D are 
 loud in each other's praises. We remember the 
 amoebaean strains of Hayley and Miss Seward 
 in Person's epigram : 
 
 Miss Seward: Tuneful poet, Britain's glory; 
 
 Mr. Hayley, that is you. 
 Mr. Hayley : Ma'am, you carry all before you ; 
 
 Trust me, Lichfield Swan, you do. 
 
 Miss Seward : Ode, didactic, epic, sonnet ; 
 
 Mr. Hayley, you're divine. 
 Mr. Hayley : Ma'am, I'll take my oath upon it, 
 
 You yourself are all the nine. 
 
 Or, in a less good-natured mood, we may per- 
 haps recall with a certain satisfaction Pope's 
 cruel but pathetic picture of the minor log- 
 rollers of his day : 
 
 137
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 Next plunged a feeble but a desperate pack, 
 With each, a sickly brother at his back. 
 Sons of a day! just buoyant on the flood, 
 Then numbered with the puppies in the mud. 
 
 But there are certain subjects and certain 
 spheres in which the arts of the log-roller, if 
 equally contemptible, are not quite so harm- 
 less. 
 
 During the last fifteen years the Press has 
 been teeming with books designed to circulate 
 among readers who are seriously interested in 
 belles lettres and criticism. Some of them have 
 appeared as volumes in a series, some as inde- 
 pendent monographs and manuals, and some in 
 the humbler forms of editorial introductions 
 and notes. Among them may be found works 
 of really distinguished scholars, and works in 
 every way worthy of such scholars ; and it is no 
 doubt works like these which have given credit 
 and authority generally to publications of this 
 kind. The popularity of these productions has 
 been extraordinary, and their manufacture has 
 become one of the most lucrative of hackney 
 employments. Nor is this all. Their professed 
 purpose is the dissemination of serious instruc- 
 tion, is to become text-books in literary history 
 and in literary criticism ; and, as text-books on 
 those subjects, they have made their way, or 
 are making their way, not merely into our public 
 libraries, but also into the libraries of nearly 
 
 138
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 every educational institute in England. Indeed 
 it would not be too much to say that if, among 
 general readers, about eighty in every hundred 
 derive almost all they know about English 
 literature, both historically and critically, from 
 these volumes, in our schools and colleges, 
 the average number of those whose studies 
 are and ought to be independent of them is 
 yearly diminishing. It is of these text-books 
 and of the responsibilities incurred by those 
 who produce and circulate them that we wish 
 to speak. 
 
 We have already commented on the distinc- 
 tion which must be drawn between what is best 
 and what is inferior in the publications to which 
 we have been referring ; and, in truth, the differ- 
 ence is one not of degree but in kind. As our 
 desire is, in Swift's phrase, to lash the vice but 
 spare the name, we shall not specify the works 
 which we have selected as typical of log-rolling 
 in relation to education. Till we saw them we 
 had no conception of the lengths to which this 
 sort of thing has run. Ostensibly the works 
 before us are critical and biographical mono- 
 graphs designed to become text-books for 
 students of English literature ; they may be 
 more correctly described as complete epitomes 
 of the art of puffery. The writers begin by 
 assuming that the objects of their ludicrous 
 adulation who are, like themselves, contribu- 
 
 139
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 tors of the average order to current periodicals, 
 and the authors of monographs similar to their 
 own are by general consent critics of classical 
 authority. The most deferential references are 
 made to them in almost every page. Now it is 
 " Goethe and Mr. So-and-so have observed," or 
 " Coleridge has remarked, but Mr. So-and-so is 
 inclined to think," etc. Sometimes it assumes 
 the form of a sort of awful reverence, as " Mr. 
 So-and-so is a little uncertain, but surely he 
 more than hints," or " Mr. So-and-so, as we all 
 know, was once of opinion, though he has re- 
 cently found reason to alter," etc. We saw not 
 long ago in the notes to a certain edition of a 
 
 classical author : " Socrates and Mr. X of 
 
 Trinity have observed," etc. Occasionally this 
 homage expresses itself and this is more seri- 
 ous in the form of long extracts from Mr. So- 
 and-so's writings. Nothing is more common in 
 works like these than to find critics and writers 
 of classical authority either completely ignored, 
 or, if cited at all, cited only in the connection 
 which we have indicated. That the gentlemen 
 who are the subjects of this grotesque flattery 
 either have paid or will pay their friends in 
 kind may, of course, be taken for granted. 
 Thus one factitious reputation builds up another, 
 and one bad book ushers in twenty which are 
 worse. 
 
 Macaulay has an amusing passage in which he 
 140
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 has collected the names of those who, according 
 to Horace Walpole, were " the first writers " in 
 England in 1753. It might have been expected 
 that Hume, Fielding, Dr. Johnson, Richardson, 
 Smollett, Collins, and Gray would at least have 
 had a place among them. Not at all. They were 
 Lord Bath, Mr. W. Whithed, Sir Charles Wil- 
 liams, Mr. Soame Jenyngs, Mr. Cambridge, and 
 Mr. Coventry ; in other words, a clique of politi- 
 cians and men of fashion of the very titles of 
 whose writings even a reader tolerably well 
 read in the literature of those times might ex- 
 cusably be ignorant. We are not exaggerating 
 when we say that this system of strenuous and 
 well-directed mutual puffery is, in our own 
 time, leading to similarly perverted conceptions 
 about the relative position of those who owe 
 their celebrity to these ignoble arts and those 
 on whose fame Time's test has set its seal, not 
 merely on the part of the general public, but on 
 the part of those who are responsible for the 
 books introduced into schools and educational 
 institutes. We will give an illustration. 
 
 At a meeting held not long ago, for the purpose 
 of prescribing books for a Reading Society, 
 the choice lay between some of Johnson's 
 Lives, Select Essays by Sainte Beuve, and Select 
 Essays by Matthew Arnold on the one hand, 
 and on the other certain books typical of the 
 literature of which we have been speaking. 
 
 141
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 The debate which ensued was very amusing. 
 A member of the committee, a gentleman of 
 conservative temper, strongly urged the claims 
 of Johnson, Sainte Beuve, and Arnold, on the 
 ground that it was the duty of the Society to 
 encourage the study of what was excellent and 
 of classical quality, especially in criticism ; that 
 it was not merely the information contained in 
 a book which had to be considered, but the 
 style, the tone, the touch ; that the mono- 
 graphs proposed as an alternative could scarcely 
 be regarded as of the first order, either in ex- 
 pression or in matter, for he had observed, 
 though he had only glanced at them, several 
 solecisms in grammar and several inaccuracies 
 of statement ; and he concluded by adding that 
 other writings of these particular authors with 
 which he happened to be more familiar had not 
 prejudiced him in their favour. Upon that, 
 another member of the council, who had been 
 busily conning the Press notices inserted in the 
 monographs in question, pleaded their claim 
 to preference. " Dr. Johnson," he remarked, 
 " was no doubt a great man in his day, but his 
 day had long been over ; no one read him now. 
 Sainte Beuve and Matthew Arnold might be 
 classical and all that, but they were not up to 
 date." He could not talk as an expert on 
 literary matters, and therefore he would not 
 contradict what the former speaker had said, 
 
 142
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 "but there could be no doubt that Messrs. So- 
 and-so," the authors of the monographs in ques- 
 tion, "were very big men bigger men, I should 
 think (glancing at the Press notices in his hand), 
 than Sainte Beuve and Matthew Arnold. At 
 any rate, everybody has heard of them ; and," 
 he continued, " listen to this." He then pro- 
 ceeded to read out some of the notices, adding 
 that it was difficult, if he might say so without 
 offence, to reconcile what his friend, the pre- 
 ceding speaker, had said with what was said in 
 these notices. He was a little staggered for, 
 though a simple, he was a shrewd man when 
 the very remarkable similarity between Mr. A's 
 eulogies of Mr. B and Mr. B's eulogies of Mr. A 
 was pointed out to him, and when, in reference 
 to anonymous testimony, he was reminded that 
 one voice may have many echoes. It was 
 generally felt, more especially as Mr. A or 
 Mr. B had, we believe, more than one acquaint- 
 ance among the committee, that the debate 
 was taking rather an embarrassing turn. The 
 question was then put to the vote, and the 
 monographs were carried by a majority of 
 three to one. 
 
 What occurred at this meeting is occurring 
 every day, variously modified, wherever the 
 choice of books is in question, whether in public 
 libraries or in educational institutions. A litera- 
 ture, the sole credentials of which are derived 
 
 143
 
 LOG-ROLLING AND EDUCATION 
 
 from those who produce and circulate it, is 
 gradually superseding that of our classics. We 
 seem in truth to be losing all sense of the 
 essential distinction between the writings of 
 the average man of letters and those of the 
 masters. 
 
 144
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 III. BOOKS WORTH READING 1 
 
 WERE it not for its melancholy significance, 
 this would be one of the most amusing 
 books which it has ever been our fortune to 
 meet with. Of Mr. Frank W. Raffety we have 
 not the honour to know anything, except what 
 we have gathered from this little volume and 
 from its title-page. But he must be a singularly 
 interesting gentleman. His enthusiasm for 
 books, his portentous ignorance of them ; his 
 strenuous desire to improve the popular taste 
 by pleading for the best, his instinctive tendency 
 to make in all cases for the worst ; his sublime 
 intolerance of everything in literature which 
 falls short of excellence, his more than sublime 
 indifference to the commonest rules of grammar 
 and syntax in expressing that intolerance ; the 
 nawet6, the frankness, the recklessness with 
 which he displays his incompetence for the task 
 which he has undertaken in these qualifications 
 
 1 Books Worth Reading. A Plea for the Best and an 
 Essay towards Selection, with Short Introductions. By 
 Frank W. Raffety, London. 
 
 B.C. 145 K
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 and accomplishments Mr. Raffety is not perhaps 
 alone, but he has certainly no superior. 
 
 Mr. Raffety aspires to guide his readers 
 through the chief literatures of the world. 
 Now the task of a reviewer, who has a con- 
 science, is not always a cheerful one, and we 
 confess that, when we had generally surveyed 
 Mr. Raffety's work, we resolved to amuse our- 
 selves by trying to discover of which of the 
 literatures, to which Mr. Raffety constitutes 
 himself a guide, Mr. Raffety is probably most 
 ignorant. It is a nice point. Let our readers 
 judge. We will begin with Mr. Raffety and the 
 Classics. Of Theognis, the most voluminous of 
 the Greek Gnomic poets, it is said that " only 
 a few sentences" Mr. Raffety is presumably 
 under the impression that Theognis wrote in 
 prose "quoted in the works of Plato and others 
 survive." " The Greek Anthology," we are 
 astounded to learn, "is by Lord Neaves " and 
 " is one of the best volumes in the A.C.E.R. 
 series." What Mr. Raffety no doubt means is, 
 that Lord Neaves is the author of a monograph 
 on the Greek anthology, as he certainly was. 
 With regard to Herodotus, Mr. Raffety has 
 evidently got some information not generally 
 accessible. His History, we are told, " is a great 
 prose epic. . . . The second book is of the 
 most interest. In other works are the histories 
 of Croesus, Cyrus," etc. It would be interesting 
 to know what other works besides his History 
 
 146
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 Herodotus has left. Of the Prometheus Bound 
 of JEschylus Mr. Raffety gives the following 
 interesting account. It contains, he says, " the 
 story of Prometheus and his defiance of Jupiter, 
 who condemned him to be bound to a rock, 
 where he died rather than yield." We exhort 
 Mr. Raffety, before his work passes into a second 
 edition, to consult his Classical Dictionary. 
 
 Of the translations recommended by Mr. 
 Raffety we should very much like to get a 
 sight of the translation of Pindar by Calverley, 
 of the joint translation of the same classic by 
 Messrs. E. Myers and A. Lang, and of the joint 
 translation of Thucydides " by Jowett and Rev. 
 H. Dale, 2 vols." Of Herodotus, of ^Eschylus, 
 of Sophocles, of Pindar, of Polybius, of Demos- 
 thenes, what are, by general consent, esteemed 
 the best translations are not so much as men- 
 tioned. Latin literature fares even worse in 
 the hands of our guide. Mr. Raffety appears 
 to know no more about Catullus than that he 
 was a writer of epigrams. Such trifles as the 
 Attis, the Peleus and Thetis, the Julia and 
 Manlius marriage song, the Coma Berenices, the 
 love lyrics and threnodies he does not conde- 
 scend to notice. In " guiding " his readers to 
 translations of Lucretius and Juvenal, Munro's 
 version of the first in prose and Gifford's version 
 of the second in verse which Conington pro- 
 nounced to be the best version of any Roman 
 classic in our language are not so much as 
 
 147
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 referred to. Nor, again, in the case of Plautus 
 and Terence, are the excellent versions of Thorn- 
 ton and Coleman noticed. Tacitus, who is oddly 
 described as " the foremost man of the day," 
 an estimate which might have pleased but 
 which would certainly have surprised him, 
 chronicled, we are told, " the foundation of the 
 Christian religion." Mr. Raffety' s assurance on 
 this point will probably disappoint inquisitive 
 readers. Equally surprising are the portions of 
 the work dealing with the modern literatures. 
 In the course of these we learn that " the Nibe- 
 lungen Lied is the oldest drama in Europe " ; 
 that the Areopagitica and the Defence of the 
 People of England are Milton's best prose writ- 
 ings Mr. Raffety apparently not being aware 
 that the second work is in Latin, and that if 
 he means the first Defence, it is anything but 
 one of the best of Milton's writings. We are 
 also informed that Dryden was most valuable 
 as a translator from the Greek and Latin ; 
 Dryden's versions from the Greek begin and 
 end with paraphrases of four Idylls of Theoc- 
 ritus, the first book of the Iliad and the parting 
 of Hector and Andromache from the sixth, and 
 are notoriously the very worst things he ever 
 did. 
 
 Sometimes Mr. Raffety fairly takes our breath 
 away, as when he informs us that Gray's tomb 
 can be seen in the little churchyard of Stoke Pogis 
 "with the Elegy written upon it." Can Mr. 
 
 148
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 Raffety be acquainted with the length of the 
 Elegy and with the proportions of a tomb- 
 stone? Chaucer, we are informed, wrote some 
 poems in Italian. We should very much like to 
 see them, and so probably would Professor Skeat, 
 for they appear to have escaped the notice of 
 all Chaucer's editors. Swift's Tale of a Tub 
 was written, we are told, " against the teaching 
 of Hobbes ! " 
 
 It is indeed impossible to open this book any- 
 where without alighting on some most discredit- 
 able blunder or absurdity. Thus we are informed 
 that Macaulay's essay on Burleigh treats of the 
 time of James I. Burleigh, as we need hardly 
 say, dying nearly five years before James came 
 to the throne, and Macaulay's essay having no 
 reference at all to James L's time. " There is," 
 says Mr. Raffety, "no more stirring lyric than 
 The Cotters Saturday Night," a remark which 
 shows that Mr. Raffety does not know what a 
 lyric poem is. But to look for blunders in Mr. 
 Raffety's pages would be to look for leaves in 
 a summer forest. His critical remarks and bio- 
 graphical notes are truly delightful. We wish 
 we had space to quote some of them. Of their 
 general quality the following profound remark 
 is a fair specimen : " Dante requires study, and 
 an endeavour after appreciation." Mr. Raffety 
 is always anxious to conduct his readers by 
 short cuts and to save them trouble. Macaulay's 
 Essays, for example, should be read before his 
 
 149
 
 OUR LITERARY GUIDES 
 
 History ; " they will be more easily tackled," 
 he says, " than the History in the first in- 
 stance." But on the subject of Gibbon Mr. 
 Raffety is adamant, being fully of the late Pro- 
 fessor Freeman's opinion " Whatever else is 
 read, Gibbon must be read." How Gibbon is to 
 be read, or why Gibbon is to be read, or in what 
 edition he should be read, Mr. Raffety does not 
 explain. 
 
 Now, what possible end can be served by 
 books like these, except to misguide and mis- 
 inform ? Here is a writer, who certainly leaves 
 us with the impression that he cannot read the 
 Greek and Latin classics in the original, setting 
 up as a director of classical study, and pro- 
 nouncing ex cathedrd on the merits of transla- 
 tions of these classics. His knowledge of the 
 modern literature is, as is abundantly manifest, 
 though we have neither space nor patience to 
 illustrate, equally insufficient and unsubstantial, 
 and yet he undertakes to initiate and guide the 
 inexperienced in these studies. This book is 
 presented to the public in a most attractive 
 form, being excellently printed on excellent 
 paper, and will naturally be taken seriously by 
 those to whom it appeals. It is for this reason 
 that we also have felt it our duty to take it 
 seriously. And, as we believe that every bad 
 book stands in the way of a good one, we can 
 promise Mr. Raffety, and writers like Mr. Raffety, 
 that we shall continue to take them seriously. 
 
 150
 
 THE NEW CRITICISM 1 
 
 NEARLY two thousand years ago Horace 
 observed that, though every calling pre- 
 supposed some qualification in those who fol- 
 lowed it, and a man who knew nothing of 
 marine affairs would not undertake to manage 
 a ship, or a man who knew nothing of drugs to 
 compound prescriptions, yet everybody fancied 
 himself competent to commence poet. Qualified 
 or unqualified, at it we all go, he complains, and 
 scribble verses. But times have changed, and 
 those who in Horace's day were the pests of 
 poetry, with which they could amuse themselves 
 without mischief, have now become the pests 
 of another kind of literature in which their 
 diversions are not quite so harmless. Where 
 the poetaster once stood the criticaster now 
 stands. The transformation of the one pest 
 into the other, where they do not, as they often 
 do, become both, is easily accounted for, and as 
 Dr. Johnson has so excellently explained it, we 
 
 1 Retrospective Reviews. A Literary Log. By Richard 
 Le Gallienne. 2 vols. 
 
 151
 
 THE NEW CRITICISM 
 
 cannot do better than transcribe his words. 
 " Criticism," says the Doctor, " is a study by 
 which men grow important and formidable at 
 a very small expense. The power of invention 
 has been conferred by nature upon few, and the 
 labour of learning those sciences which may by 
 mere labour be attained is too great to be wil- 
 lingly endured ; but every man can exert such 
 judgment as he has upon the works of others, 
 and he whom nature has made weak and idleness 
 keeps ignorant may yet support his vanity by 
 the name of critic." But criticasters and their 
 patrons have improved on this for " he whom 
 nature has made weak and idleness keeps ignor- 
 ant" may, in our time, not merely support his 
 vanity, but support himself. 
 
 Till we inspected the volumes before us, we 
 had really no conception of the pass to which 
 things have now come in so-called criticism. 
 The writer sits in judgment on most of the 
 authors who have, during recent years, been 
 before the public. He passes sentence not 
 merely on current novelists, poets, and essayists, 
 but on some of our classics, and on books like 
 the late Mr. Pater's Lectures on Plato and 
 Platonism and Dr. Wharton's edition of Sappho. 
 To any acquaintance with the principles of 
 criticism, to any conception of criticism in 
 relation to principles, to any learning, to any 
 scholarship, to any knowledge of the history of 
 literature and of the masterpieces of literature, 
 
 152
 
 THE NEW CRITICISM 
 
 either in our own language or in other lan- 
 guages, he has not the smallest pretension. Nor 
 does he allow this to be gathered simply from 
 the work itself, where it is, needless to say, 
 abundantly apparent, but with a ndivet6 and 
 impudence which are at once ludicrous and ex- 
 asperating he glories in his ignorance. Litera- 
 ture and its interpretation are to him what the 
 Bible and its interpretation were to the ranting 
 sectaries of Dryden's satire. In its explanation 
 knowledge and learning were folly, nothing was 
 needed but " grace." 
 
 " No measure ta'en from knowledge, all from grace, 
 Study and pains were now no more their care, 
 Texts were explained by fasting and by prayer." 
 
 So to our critic knowledge and learning are of 
 equal unimportance nay, equally contemptible 
 and all that is needed to take the measure of 
 Plato and Wordsworth is, in his own words, 
 " the capacity for appreciation." With this very 
 slender outfit he sits down to the work of criti- 
 cism, to enlighten the world de omni scibili in 
 literature, from the lyrics of Sappho, " the singer, 
 a single petal of whose rose is more than the 
 whole rose-garden of later women singers," to 
 " the statesmanlike reach and grasp " of Mr. E. 
 Gosse's essays. 
 
 To discuss seriously the opinions or impres- 
 sions of a writer of this kind would be as absurd 
 as to attempt to fight gnats with a sword, and 
 
 153
 
 THE NEW CRITICISM 
 
 we shall merely content ourselves with tran- 
 scribing, without comment, a few of the aphorisms 
 with which these volumes are studded. " Criti- 
 cism is the art of praise." " Shakespeare is the 
 greatest English poet, not because he created 
 Hamlet and Lear, but because he could write 
 that speech about Perdita's flowers and Claudio's 
 speech on death in Measure for Measure" 
 " The perfection of prose is the essay, of poetry 
 the lyric, and the most beautiful book is that 
 which contains the most beautiful words." These 
 specimens will probably suffice. Mr. Le Gal- 
 lienne is also of opinion that " culture is mainly 
 a matter of temperament " that " a man is 
 born cultured," that mere education and study 
 are to such a one not simply superfluities, but 
 impertinences. " What matters it," he elo- 
 quently asks, "that one does not remember or 
 even has never read great writers? Our one 
 concern is to possess an organization open to 
 great and refined impressions." A paltry scholar, 
 for example, may be able to construe Sappho, 
 but it is only " an organization open to great 
 and refined impressions " which can discern (in 
 a crib) " the pathos of eternity in some twenty 
 words " of " this passionate singer of Lesbos." 
 Plato may be studied by poor pedants, but to an 
 organization of this kind the binding of a volume 
 is sufficient enlightenment ; "to merely hold in 
 the hand and turn over its pages is a counsel in 
 style," for do not " the temperate beauty, the 
 
 154
 
 THE NEW CRITICISM 
 
 dry beauty beloved of Plato, find expression in 
 the sweet and stately volume itself " [he is " re- 
 viewing " the late Mr. Pater's lectures on Plato], 
 "with its smooth night-blue binding, its rose- 
 leaf yellow pages, its soft and yet grave type " ? 
 The value of Mr. Le Gallienne's judgments, of 
 his praise, and of his censure, which, ludicrous 
 to relate, are quoted by some publishers as 
 recommendations, or " opinions of the press," 
 may be estimated by these dicta, and by this 
 theory of a critical education. 
 
 Macaulay somewhere speaks of a certain non- 
 descript broth which, in some Continental inns, 
 was kept constantly boiling, and copiously poured, 
 without distinction, on every dish as it came up 
 to table. The writer of these essays appears, 
 metaphorically speaking, to be provided with a 
 similar abomination. Whatever be his theme, 
 poem, essay, novel, picture, he contrives to serve 
 it up with the same condiment, a sickly and 
 nauseous compound of preciosity and senti- 
 mentalism. 
 
 The melancholy thing about all this is the 
 profound unconsciousness on the part of the 
 author of those volumes that he is exciting 
 ridicule ; that he is, hi Shakespeare's phrase, 
 making himself a motley to the view. But 
 there are considerations more melancholy still. 
 We should not have noticed these volumes had 
 they not been representative and typical of a 
 school of so-called critics which is becoming 
 
 155
 
 THE NEW CRITICISM 
 
 more and more prominent. Incredible as it 
 may seem, there are certain sections of literary 
 society and of the general public which take 
 Mr. Le Gallienne and his dicta quite seriously, 
 and to which the prodigious nonsense in these 
 volumes does not present itself as absurdity, but 
 as the articles of a creed. These essays have, 
 moreover, appeared in publications the names of 
 some of which carry authority. It is, therefore, 
 high time that some stand should be made, some 
 protest entered against writings which cannot 
 fail to corrupt popular taste and to degrade the 
 standard of popular literature. Of one thing 
 we are very certain, that no self-respecting 
 literary journal which undertook to review 
 these volumes could allow them to pass without 
 denunciation. 
 
 Of Mr. Le Gallienne we know nothing per- 
 sonally. He is, if we are rightly informed, still 
 a young man, and we would in all kindness 
 exhort him to turn the abilities which he un- 
 doubtedly possesses to better account. There is 
 much in these essays which shows that he was 
 intended for something better than to further the 
 decadence. If, instead of sneering at scholars, 
 affecting to despise learning and study, indulging 
 in silly paradoxes, tinsel epigrams, and absurd 
 generalisations, he would read and think, and 
 endeavour to do justice to himself and to his 
 opportunities, he might, we make no doubt, 
 obtain an honourable reputation. There is much 
 
 156
 
 THE NEW CRITICISM 
 
 which is attractive in his work, and in tho 
 personality reflected in it. He is not a char- 
 latan, for though he is ignorant, he is honest. 
 Genial and sympathetic, he has much real 
 critical insight, and, in going through his 
 volumes, we have noted many remarks which 
 were both sound and fine. At its best his style 
 is excellent, clear, lively, and engaging. Let 
 him cease to play the buffoon, which can only 
 end in his gaining the applause of mere fools 
 and the contempt of every one else. 
 
 157
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF SELF- 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 THE illustrious Barnum once observed that, 
 if a man's capital consisted of a shilling, 
 one penny of that shilling should be spent in 
 purchasing something, and the remaining eleven- 
 pence should be invested in advertising what was 
 purchased. There was, perhaps, a touch of ex- 
 aggeration in that great man's remark, but it 
 was founded on a profound knowledge both of 
 human nature and of the world. Intrinsically 
 nothing is valuable ; things are what we make 
 or imagine them. Even the diamond, as a costly 
 commodity, exists on suffrage. If a man cannot 
 persuade his fellow-creatures that he has genius, 
 talent, learning, "'twere all alike as if he had 
 them not." What Persius asks with a sneer, 
 " Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat 
 alter?" is your knowledge nothing, unless some 
 one else know that you are knowing ? a wiser 
 man would ask in all seriousness. Shakespeare 
 was never nearer the truth than when he 
 wrote 
 
 158
 
 GENTLE ART OF SELF-ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 " No man is the lord of anything, 
 Though in and of him there be much consisting, 
 Till he communicates his parts to others; 
 Nor doth he of himself know them for aught, 
 Till he behold them formed in the applause 
 Where they are extended." 
 
 And never was a man more mistaken than 
 the old preacher who said to his congregation, 
 " If you have a talent in your napkin, you 
 should take care not to hide it ; but if you have 
 no talent, but only a napkin, you should not so 
 flourish your napkin as to create the impression 
 that it is full of talents." Why, this is just what 
 nine men in ten who court fame have to do. 
 Nature is kind, but seldom profuse. If she 
 really endows a man with what, if trumpeted, 
 would make him famous, the odds are she 
 couples with her gifts pride, modesty, or self- 
 respect, which, to say the least, heavily handicap 
 him in the race for reputation. When she does 
 not endow with the reality, she compensates by 
 bestowing the power of acquiring the credit for 
 it. She is, as a rule, much too thrifty to heap 
 on the same man the keen pleasures of genuine 
 enthusiasm and the sweets of popular applause. 
 An impartial mother, she loves all her children, 
 and divides her favours equally between shams 
 and true men. This Churchill marks in his 
 brutal way ; speaking of a certain contemporary, 
 he describes him as endowed with 
 
 " That low cunning which in fools supplies, 
 And amply too, the place of being wise, 
 
 159
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF 
 
 Which Nature, kind, indulgent parent, gave 
 To qualify the blockhead for a knave." 
 
 But our business is not with knaves and block- 
 heads, but with " gentler cattle," and the quota- 
 tion demands an apology. 
 
 The importance of the art of self-advertise- 
 ment, as must be abundantly clear from the 
 preceding remarks, can scarcely be overesti- 
 mated. Though it is perhaps still in its infancy, 
 its progress during the last few years has been 
 most encouraging. The old coarse methods so 
 familiar to us in the past, and still successfully 
 practised in the present we mean mutual ad- 
 miration cliques, log-rolling, and what is vul- 
 garly known as " pulling the strings " have 
 been greatly improved upon and refined. Bent- 
 ley's famous remark when, explaining how it 
 was that he took to commentating, he said, 
 that as he despaired of standing on his own 
 legs in the Temple of Fame, he got on to the 
 shoulders of the Ancients, appears to have 
 suggested one of the most ingenious of modern 
 expedients. This consists of " getting up " a 
 memorial to some distinguished man a statue, 
 it may be, or modest bust. Some labour, some 
 ability, and some learning are involved in the 
 more cumbrous device of Bentley. But here 
 all is simple and very easy. You are on the 
 shoulders of your great man at a bound, and 
 stand side by side with him in a trice. There 
 is nothing which redounds to his credit which 
 
 160
 
 SELF-ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 does not redound to your own. As the Red 
 Indian is under the impression that in possess- 
 ing himself of a scalp he possesses himself of 
 the virtues belonging to the former owner of 
 the scalp, so this tribute of enthusiastic admira- 
 tion quietly assumes, without trouble, all that 
 enthusiastic admiration naturally implies. Is 
 the object of your homage a poet, a critic, a 
 scholar, the very fact that you pay him homage 
 is, in itself, testimony of your own right to one 
 or other of these honourable titles. If, more- 
 over it should happen that you know very little 
 about the writings of the author whom you have 
 elected to honour, this is of no consequence ; for 
 of all the disguises which ignorance can assume, 
 " enthusiasm " is the most effective. Nor are 
 these the only advantages of this particular 
 method of getting reputation. The collection of 
 subscriptions and the formation of a committee 
 bring you into contact, or may, if judiciously 
 managed, bring you into contact with all your 
 distinguished contemporaries ; and we know 
 what the proverb says " Noscitur a sociis " a 
 man is what his companions are. 
 
 But nothing is more effectual, for purposes of 
 self -advertisement, than a device which has lately 
 been practised with signal success. This consists 
 of scraping up an acquaintance with some per- 
 son, whose name is not unknown to the public, 
 even a second-rate novelist will do and wait- 
 ing till he dies. As there is a tide in the affairs 
 
 E.O. 101 L
 
 THE GENTLE ART OF 
 
 of men, so, as we all know, there is a moment 
 at the demise of literary men when the voracity 
 of public curiosity knows neither distinction nor 
 satiety. This is the moment for the self -adver- 
 tiser to nick ; this is the time for him to float, 
 with his defunct friend, on the lips of men. He 
 will find readers for anything he may choose to 
 print that letter with its exquisite compli- 
 ments, that conversation in which his poor 
 attainments were so generously over-estimated, 
 or the importance of his slight literary services 
 so much exaggerated. Of course, the value of 
 such advertisements will be in proportion to the 
 eminence of the subject of the reminiscences 
 and happy, thrice happy, those who were able to 
 turn men like Darwin, Tennyson, and Browning 
 to this account ; their reputation may be re- 
 garded as made. But it is not always necessary 
 to wait till great men die, though it is an ex- 
 periment too bold and perilous for most as- 
 pirants to make this sort of capital out of them 
 while they are still alive. Still audentes fortuna 
 juvat, and it has been done. A certain minor 
 poet published in an American magazine, not 
 many years ago, an article entitled " A Day with 
 Lord Tennyson," in which he represented the 
 Laureate as turning the conversation on his 
 (the minor bard's) poetry. We are told how the 
 great man, after fervently reiterating a stanza 
 of that minor bard which pleased him, requested 
 his son to take it down in writing ; how that son, 
 
 162
 
 SELF-ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 though the day was cold and blowy, took it 
 down ; how Tennyson grasped, at parting, his 
 brother poet's hand, and begged in transport 
 that he would " come again and come often." 
 He caine, we believe, no more. But what of 
 that? He had accomplished a feat so simple 
 and yet so original that it may fairly be ques- 
 tioned whether what Mr. Burnum used to call 
 his masterpiece was in any way comparable to 
 it. To interview a great man, even on an as- 
 sumption of equality, is, as we all know, a com- 
 paratively easy matter, but to turn the conver- 
 sation of the great man into a seasonable puff 
 of yourself requires a combination of qualities 
 not often united in a single person. The worst 
 of feats like these is that they must have a ten- 
 dency to make great men a little shy of en- 
 couraging the acquaintance of those to whom 
 they can be so useful. But simplicity, as Thucy- 
 dides remarks, is one of the chief ingredients of 
 greatness, and it is a quality very difficult to 
 wear out. 
 
 If Tennyson's interviewer has ever had a rival 
 in the important art which has been discussed 
 for the benefit of youthful ambition in this 
 article, we are inclined to think that that rival 
 was the Rev. Aris Willmott. This now almost 
 forgotten writer was a very voluminous author 
 both in verse and prose ; but his merits were 
 not appreciated by an ungrateful public so much 
 as they ought to have been. He resorted, there- 
 
 163
 
 GENTLE ART OF SELF-ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 fore, to the following exquisitely ingenious de- 
 vice. He published a handsome volume, which 
 is now before us, entitled Gems from English 
 Literature, thus arranged : Bacon, Rev. Aris 
 Willmott, Jeremy Taylor, Rev. Aris Willmott, 
 Barrow, Rev. Aris Willmott, sandwiching him- 
 self regularly through the prose classics, and in 
 the same way through the poets Shakespeare, 
 Rev. Aris Willmott, Milton, Rev. Aris, etc. As 
 birthday books, press notices, interviews at 
 home, portraits of distinguished authors in their 
 studies, and the like are getting a little stale, 
 we cordially recommend this rev. gentleman's 
 expedient it may be judiciously modified to 
 the notice of all who are unable to distinguish 
 fame from notoriety. 
 
 164
 
 R. L. STEVENSON'S LETTERS 
 
 late Robert Louis Stevenson is a writer 
 A who has every title to commiseration, and 
 the appearance of the volumes before us may be 
 said to mark the climax of his misfortunes. 
 Diseased and sickly from his birth, with his life 
 frequently hanging on a thread, he probably 
 never knew the sensation of perfect health. 
 During the impressionable years of early youth 
 his surroundings appear to have been most un- 
 congenial ; he was forced into a profession for 
 which he had no taste and no aptitude. In 
 constant straits for money, at times he was 
 miserably poor ; his apprenticeship to letters 
 was long and arduous, for he was not one of 
 Nature's favourites, and attained what he did 
 attain by unsparing and severe labour. His 
 wandering and restless life, bringing him as it 
 did into contact with all phases of humanity and 
 with all parts of the world, was of course in 
 
 1 The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson to his Family and 
 Friends. Selected and Edited with Notes and Introduction 
 by Sidney Colvin. 2 vols. 
 
 165
 
 R. L. STEVENSON'S LETTERS 
 
 many respects favourable to his work, but it 
 had at the same time serious disadvantages. It 
 gave him little time for reflection ; it imported 
 a certain feverishness into his energy, and 
 rendered that concentration and steadiness, 
 without which no really great work can be 
 accomplished, impossible. That in these cir- 
 cumstances Stevenson should have produced so 
 much, and so much which is of a high order 
 of merit, is most creditable to him, and not a 
 little surprising. " He stands," says his friend 
 Professor Colvin, " as the writer who in the last 
 quarter of the nineteenth century has handled 
 with the most of freshness and inspiriting power 
 the widest range of established literary forms 
 the moral, critical and personal essay, travels 
 sentimental and other, parables and tales of 
 mystery, boys' stories of adventure, memoirs ; 
 nor let lyrical and meditative verse both English 
 and Scottish, and especially nursery verse, a 
 new vein for genius to work in, be forgotten." 
 With some reservation this may be conceded, 
 and this is as far as eulogy can legitimately be 
 stretched. 
 
 But, unhappily, some of Stevenson's admirers 
 have made themselves and their idol ridiculous, 
 by raising him to a position his claims to which 
 are preposterous. If he be measured with his 
 contemporaries the comparison will generally 
 be in his favour he certainly did best what 
 hundreds can do well. His essays have distinc- 
 
 166
 
 R. L. STEVENSON'S LETTERS 
 
 tion and excellence ; his novels, travels, and 
 short tales, though scarcely entitled to the praise 
 of originality, as they strike no new notes and 
 are mere variants of the work of Scott, King- 
 ston, Ballantyne, De Quincey and Poe, bear the 
 impress of genius as distinguished from mere 
 talent, and reflect a very charming personality ; 
 his verse, too, is pleasing and skilful. But when 
 we are told that he will stand the third in a trio 
 with Burns and Scott, and when we have to listen 
 to serious appeals to Edinburgh to raise a statue 
 to him beside the author of Marmion and the 
 Waverley Novels, all who truly appreciate his 
 work may well tremble for the reaction which is 
 certain to succeed such extravagant overestima- 
 tion. The truth is that poor Stevenson, himself 
 one of the simplest, sincerest and most modest 
 of men, got involved with a clique who may be 
 described as manufacturers of factitious reputa- 
 tions, the circulators of a false currency in 
 criticism. In these days of appeals to the masses 
 it is as easy to write up the sort of works which 
 are addressed to them popular essays, tales and 
 novels as it is to write up the commodities of 
 quack doctors and the shares of bogus com- 
 panies. The production of popular literature is 
 now a trade, and in some cases this kind of 
 puffery is the work of deliberate fraud, origin- 
 ating from various motives. In many cases it 
 simply springs from ignorance and critical in- 
 competence, current criticism being, to a con- 
 
 167
 
 R. L. STEVENSON'S LETTERS 
 
 siderable extent, in the hands of very young men 
 who, having neither the requisite knowledge nor 
 the proper training, are unable to judge a writer 
 comparatively. In other cases it is to be attri- 
 buted to good nature and the tendency in the 
 genial appreciation of real merit to indulge in 
 extravagant expression. But the result is the 
 same. A reputation, so grotesquely out of pro- 
 portion to what is really merited that sober 
 people are inclined to suspect thac all is im- 
 posture, is gradually inflated. Eulogy kindles 
 eulogy ; hyperbole is heaped on hyperbole ; a 
 ludicrous importance is attached to every trifle 
 which falls, or which ever has fallen, from this 
 Press-created Fetish. While he is alive he is 
 encouraged, or rather importuned, to force his 
 power of production to keep pace with the 
 demand for everything bearing his signature ; 
 when he is dead the very refuse of his study 
 finds eager publishers. 
 
 This kind of thing has obviously many ad- 
 vantages, which are by no means confined to 
 the object of the idolatry itself. In the first 
 place it means business ; it is the creation of a 
 goose which can lay golden eggs, and it is, in 
 the second place, a creation which reflects no 
 little glory on the creators. Is it nothing 
 to be the satellites of so radiant a luminary ? 
 When the familiar correspondence of the great 
 man is printed, will not what he was pleased 
 
 168
 
 R. L. STEVENSON'S LETTERS 
 
 to say, with all the friendly license of private 
 intercourse, in the way of compliment and 
 eulogy, be proclaimed from the house-tops ? 
 
 All this is exactly what has happened in the 
 case of poor Stevenson. No man ever took 
 more justly his own measure, or would have 
 been more annoyed at the preposterous eulo- 
 gies of which he has been made the subject, 
 on the part of interested or ill-judging friends. 
 We wonder what he would himself have said, 
 could he have seen the letters before us de- 
 scribed, as they were described in one of the 
 current Reviews, as " the most exhaustive and 
 distinguished literary correspondence which 
 England has ever seen." We entirely absolve 
 Professor Colvin from any suspicion of being 
 actuated by unworthy motives in publishing 
 them. It is abundantly clear that he has not 
 published them to puff himself, that his labour 
 has been a labour of love, and that he be- 
 lieved himself to be piously fulfilling a duty 
 to his friend. But they ought never to have 
 been given to the world. More than two- 
 thirds have nothing whatever to justify their 
 appearance in print, and merely show, what 
 will surprise those who knew Stevenson by his 
 literary writings, how vapid, vulgar and com- 
 monplace he could be. In their slangy famili- 
 arity and careless spontaneity they remind us 
 of Byron's, but what a contrast do these trivial 
 
 169
 
 R. L. STEVENSON'S LETTERS 
 
 and too often insipid tattlings present to Byron's 
 brilliance and point, his wit, his piquancy, his 
 insight into life and men ! Only here and there, 
 in a touch of description, or in a casual reflec- 
 tion, do we find anything to distinguish them 
 from the myriads of letters which are inter- 
 changed between young men every day in the 
 year. Their one attraction lies in the glimpses 
 they reveal of Stevenson's own charming person- 
 ality, his kindliness, his sympathy, his great 
 modesty, his manliness, his transparent truthful- 
 ness and honesty. It is amusing to watch him 
 with one of his correspondents who was evidently 
 endeavouring to establish a mutual exchange 
 of flattery. The urbane skill with which this 
 gentleman's persistently fulsome compliments 
 are either fenced or waived aside, the ironical 
 delicacy with which, when a return is extorted, 
 they are repaid, in a measure strictly adjusted to 
 desert and yet certain not to disappoint ex- 
 pectant vanity, are quite exquisite. " The suns 
 go swiftly out," he writes to him, referring to 
 the death of Tennyson and Browning and 
 others, " and I see no suns to follow, nothing 
 but a universal twilight of the demi-divinities, 
 with parties like you and me beating on toy 
 drums, and playing on penny whistles about 
 glow-worms." The indignant letter to the New 
 York Tribune, in defence of James Payn, who 
 had been accused of plagiarising from one of 
 Stevenson's fictions, well deserves placing on 
 
 170
 
 R. L. STEVENSON'S LETTERS 
 
 permanent record, as an illustration of his 
 chivalrous loyalty to his friends. 
 
 We are sorry, we repeat, that these letters 
 have been given to the world. So far as 
 Stevenson's reputation is concerned they can 
 only detract from it. When they illustrate him 
 on his best side they merely emphasise what 
 his works illustrate so abundantly that further 
 illustration is a mere work of supererogation. 
 When they present him, as for the most part 
 they do, in dishabille, they exhibit him very 
 greatly to his disadvantage. If Professor Colvin 
 had printed about one-third of them, and re- 
 tained his excellent elucidatory introductions, 
 which form practically a biography of Stevenson, 
 he would have produced a work for which all 
 admirers of that most pleasing writer would 
 have thanked him. As it is, he has been guilty, 
 in our opinion, of a grave error of judgment. 
 
 171
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM l 
 
 AMONG the worthies of the fifteenth century 
 there is no more interesting and pictur- 
 esque figure than the Poet-King of Scotland, 
 James I. Long before the poem on which his 
 fame rests was given to the world, tradition had 
 assigned him a high place among native makers, 
 and his countrymen had been proud to add to 
 the names of Dunbar and Douglas, of Henryson 
 and Lyndsay, the name of the best of their 
 kings. Great was their joy, therefore, when, in 
 1783, William Tytler gave public proof that the 
 good King's title to the laurel was no mere title 
 by courtesy, but that he had been the author of 
 a poem which could fairly be regarded as one of 
 the gems of Scottish literature. There cannot, 
 in truth, be two opinions about the Kingis 
 Quair. It is a poem of singular charm and 
 beauty, and, though it is modelled closely on 
 certain of Chaucer's minor poems, and is in 
 other respects largely indebted to them, it is 
 
 1 The Authorship of the Kingis Quair. A New Criticism 
 by J. T. T. Brown. 
 
 172
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 no servile imitation ; it boars the impress of 
 original genius, not so much in details and in- 
 cident as in tone, colour, and touch ; it is a 
 brilliant and most memorable achievement, and 
 Rossetti hardly exaggerates when he describes 
 it as 
 
 "More sweet than ever a poet's heart 
 Gave yet to the English tongue." 
 
 For more than a hundred years it has been the 
 delight of all who care for the poetry of the 
 past, and the story it tells, and tells so patheti-' 
 cally, is now among the " consecrated legends ' 
 which every one cherishes. "The best poet 
 among kings, and the best king among poets," 
 the name of the author of the Kingis Quair 
 heads the list of royal authors. The stanza 
 which he employed, though invented or adopted 
 by Chaucer, takes its title from the King, and 
 " the rime royal " will be in perpetual evidence 
 of his services to poetry, as the University of St. 
 Andrews will be of his services to learning and 
 education. No generation has passed, from Sir 
 Walter Scott to Mrs. Browning, and from Mrs. 
 Browning to Gabriel Rossetti, which has not 
 been lavish of honour and homage to him. 
 
 But, it seems, we have all been under a delu- 
 sion. Our simple ancestors believed that James 
 was the author of Peebles to the Play and 
 Christ's Kirk on the Green ; but Peebles to 
 the Play and Christ's Kirk on the Green 
 " are now " Mr. J. T. T. Brown is speaking 
 
 173
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 "relegated to the anonymous poetry of the 
 sixteenth century, inexorably deposed by the 
 internal evidence " ; and Mr. Brown aspires to 
 send the Kingis Quair the same way. His 
 fell purpose is " to deprive James of his singing 
 garment, and reduce him to the humbler rank 
 of a King of Scots." There is something almost 
 terrible in the exultation with which Mr. Brown 
 assumes that the King's claim to every other 
 poem attributed to him having been completely 
 demolished it only remains to deprive him of 
 the Kingis Quair, to make his poetical bankruptcy 
 complete. And to the demolition of the King's 
 claim to the " Quair " Mr. Brown ruthlessly pro- 
 ceeds. Now we have no intention of entering 
 into the question of the authenticity of the 
 minor poems to which Mr. Brown refers ; but 
 we shall certainly break a lance with this 
 destructive critic in defence of James's claim 
 to the Kingis Quair. 
 
 Mr. Brown contends, first, that there is no 
 satisfactory external evidence in favour of the 
 King's authorship of the poem ; and, secondly, 
 that the internal evidence is almost conclusive 
 against him. What are the facts ? In the Bod- 
 leian Library is a MS. the date of which is un- 
 certain, but it cannot be assigned to an earlier 
 period than 1488. This MS. contains certain 
 poems of Chaucer, Hoccleve, Lydgate, and others, 
 together with the Kingis Quair. Of the Kingis 
 Quair it is, so far as is known, the only MS., and 
 
 174
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 to it alone we owe the preservation of the poem. 
 Both title and colophon assign the work to 
 James I., the words being : " Heireefter followis 
 the quair Maid be King James of Scotland ye 
 first, callit ye Kingis quair, and Maid quhen his 
 Ma. wes in Ingland," the colophon running, 
 " Explicit, &c., &c., quod Jacobus primus sco- 
 torum rex Illustrissimus." This is surely pre- 
 cise enough ; but Mr. Brown insists that the 
 statement carries very little weight, being no 
 more than the ipse dixit of not merely an 
 irresponsible, but of an unusually reckless copy- 
 ist. The recklessness of this copyist Mr. Brown 
 deduces from the fact that, of ten poems at- 
 tributed to Chaucer in the same MS., five un- 
 doubtedly do not belong to him. On this we 
 shall only remark that it would be interesting 
 to know whether these poems have been attri- 
 buted to Chaucer in other MSS. In any case, 
 Mr. Brown musfc surely know that it is a very 
 different thing for a copyist to miss-assign a 
 few short poems and to make a statement so 
 explicit as the statement here made with re- 
 gard to the Kingis Quair. He must either 
 have been guilty of deliberate fraud and 
 what right have we to assume this? or he 
 must have been misled, an hypothesis which is 
 equally unwarrantable, unless it be adequately 
 supported. And how does Mr. Brown proceed 
 to support it? He contends that we have no 
 satisfactory evidence from other sources that 
 
 175
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 James was the author of the poem. Walter 
 Bower, the one contemporary historian, though 
 he gives in his Scotichronicon an elaborate ac- 
 count of the King's accomplishments, is silent, 
 Mr. Brown triumphantly observes, about his 
 poetry. This may be conceded. But Weldon is 
 equally silent about the poetry of James VI., 
 and Buchanan about the poetry of Mary. And 
 what says the next historian, John Major? "In 
 the vernacular " we give the passage in Mr. 
 Brown's own version " he was a most skilful 
 composer. . . . He wrote a clever little 
 book about the Queen before he took her to 
 wife and while he was a prisoner," a plain 
 reference to the Kingis Quair. Testimony to 
 his poetical ability is also given by Hector Boyes 
 in his History of Scotland, " In lingua vernacula 
 tarn ornata faciebat carmina, ut poetam natum 
 credidisses." So say John Bellenden, John Les- 
 lie, and George Buchanan. Of these witnesses 
 Mr. Brown coolly observes that they carry little 
 or no weight, because they only echo each other 
 and Major. Major, Mr. Brown insists, is " the 
 sole authority for the ascription to James of the 
 vernacular poems." Certainly fame in the face 
 of such critics as Mr. Brown is held on a very 
 precarious tenure. Dunbar, in his Lament of 
 the Makaris, enumerates, continues our critic, 
 twenty-one Scottish poets, but passes James 
 over in silence, therefore James's title to being 
 a poet was unknown to him. Possibly ; but 
 
 176
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 that Dunbar's list was not meant to be ex- 
 haustive is proved by the fact that he makes 
 no mention of a poet, and of a considerable poet, 
 who must have been well known to him, Thomas 
 of Ercildoune. Nothing can be more misleading 
 than deductions like these. Ovid has given us 
 an elaborate catalogue of the poets of his time, 
 but makes no mention of Manilius. Heywood 
 and Taylor have given elaborate catalogues of 
 the contemporary Elizabethan dramatists and 
 make no mention of Cyril Tourneur. Addison 
 has given us an account of the principal English 
 poets, and makes no mention of Shakespeare. If 
 Dante's and Chaucer's acquaintance with their 
 distinguished brethren is to be estimated by 
 those whom they noticed, it must have been far 
 more limited than we know it, by other evidence, 
 to have been. Lyndsay, again, is cited as testi- 
 mony of ignorance of James's title to rank 
 among poets ; but in the list, in which he is silent 
 about James, ho is silent about poets so famous 
 as Barbour, Blind Harry, Wyntown, Kennedy, 
 and Douglas. 
 
 Mr. Brown next proceeds to the question of 
 internal evidence. He cannot understand how 
 it could come to pass, that a Scotchman, who left 
 his native country when he was under twelve 
 years of age, and who was educated by English 
 tutors in England, should, after eighteen years 
 of exile, employ " the Lowland Scottish dialect." 
 This is surely not very difficult to explain. 
 
 E.C. 177 M
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 Nothing so much endears his country to a man 
 as exile, and nothing is more cherished by a 
 patriot than his native language. Ten years' 
 exile among the Getse did not corrupt the Latin- 
 ity of Ovid, and more than twenty years' exile 
 did not impair the purity of Thucydides' Attic. 
 The King may have had English tutors, but 
 Wyntown distinctly tells us that he was al- 
 lowed to retain, as his companions, four of his 
 countrymen. When he served in France he had 
 a Scottish bodyguard. The document in the 
 King's own handwriting, printed by Chalmers, 
 proves that in 1412 he was conversant with the 
 Lowland dialect. In all probability, therefore, 
 he carefully cherished his native language. The 
 consensus of tradition places it beyond all doubt 
 that he composed poetry in the vernacular, and 
 as he wrote the Kingis Quair when he knew 
 that he was about to return to Scotland as its 
 king, it was surely the most natural thing in the 
 world that he should compose a poem which told 
 the story of himself and his young bride, whom 
 he was introducing to his subjects as their queen, 
 in the language of the country. But, says Mr. 
 Brown, it is the Lowland dialect, with inflex- 
 ions peculiar to Midland English, with many 
 Chaucerian inflections engrafted on it. And 
 what more natural? The Midland dialect was 
 the dialect of his English teachers. The poems 
 of Chaucer he probably had by heart. 
 
 Mr. Brown's object in all this is to relegate 
 178
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 the Kinffis Quair to that group of poems 
 which are represented by the Romaunt of the 
 Rose, The Court of Love, and Lancelot of the Lak, 
 which appeared late in the fifteenth century, 
 and in which all these peculiarities are very 
 pronounced. Into philological details we have 
 not space to enter, but this we will say. We 
 will admit that ane before a consonant, the 
 past participle in yt or it, the pronouns thaire 
 and thame, the plural form quhilkis, the employ- 
 ment of the verb to do in the emphatic conjuga- 
 tion and the like, are peculiarities which belong 
 to a period not earlier than about 1440, and 
 that all these peculiarities are to be found in 
 the poem. But, we contend that these are just 
 as likely to be due to the transcriber as they 
 are to the author. Nothing was so common 
 with copyists as to import into their texts 
 the peculiarities of their own dialects, indeed it 
 was habitual with them. Thus Hampole's Pricke 
 of Conscience was greatly altered by southern 
 scribes. Thus, in the Bannatyne MS., Chaucer's 
 minor poems were similarly altered by northern 
 scribes. It is, in truth, the very height of rashness 
 to dispute the genuineness of an original, in con- 
 sequence of the presence of peculiarities which 
 might quite well have been imported into it by 
 a copyist. The resemblances between this poem 
 and the Court of Love are, we admit, not 
 likely to have been mere coincidences, and we 
 are quite ready to admit that the Court of Love 
 
 179
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 in the form in which we have it now, must be 
 assigned to a much later date, more than a 
 century later, than the date (1423) assigned to 
 the Kingis Quair. But this is certain that 
 many, and very many, of the resemblances 
 between the two poems are to be attributed 
 to the fact that the writers were saturated 
 with the influence of Chaucer, and delighted 
 in imitating and recalling his poetry. If, 
 again, it be assumed that one poem was the 
 exemplar of the other, this is indisputable, that 
 the Court of Love was modelled on the Kingis 
 Quair, and not the Kingis Quair on the Court 
 of Love. For, setting aside peculiarities which 
 may be assigned to transcribers, there can be 
 little doubt that the Court of Love belongs to 
 the sixteenth century at the very earliest, 
 while Mr. Brown himself admits that the MS. 
 of the Kingis Quair may be approximately 
 fixed at 1488. 
 
 Nothing can be more unsatisfactory than Mr. 
 Brown's attempt to show that the poem breaks 
 down in autobiographical details, and that it 
 derives these details from Wyntown's Chronicle. 
 James does not mention the exact year in which 
 he was taken prisoner. He tells us that he 
 commenced his voyage when the sun had begun 
 to drive his course upward in the sign of Aries, 
 that is, on or about the 12th of March and that 
 he had not far passed the state of innocence, 
 " bot nere about the nowmer of zeris thre " in 
 
 180
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 other words, that he was about ten years of age. 
 Hereupon Mr. Brown, assuming that Wyntown 
 gives the date of the King's birth correctly, pro- 
 ceeds to point out that the King was not at this 
 time " about ten," but that he was about eleven 
 and a half ; and then asks triumphantly whether 
 James would have been likely to forget his own 
 age. Again, he contends that the King's capture 
 could not have taken place in March, because it 
 is highly probable that at the end of February, 
 or at the beginning of March, the King was in 
 the Tower. For the fact that he was in the 
 Tower at that date there is not an iota of proof, 
 or even of tolerably satisfactory presumptive 
 evidence. How the author of the Kingis 
 Quair could have been indebted to Wyntown's 
 Chronicle for the autobiographical details it is, 
 indeed, difficult to see. The poem gives March 
 as the date of the capture ; the Chronicle gives 
 April. According to the poem, the King's age 
 at the time of his capture was about ten ; 
 according to the Chronicle, about eleven and a 
 half. The Chronicle gives the year of the cap- 
 ture ; the poem does not. The Chronicle gives 
 details not to be found in the poem ; the poem 
 details not to be found in the Chronicle. Mr. 
 Brown has no authority whatever for asserting 
 that Book IX. chap. xxv. of the Chronicle was 
 certainly written years before James returned 
 to Scotland. All we know about the Chronicle 
 is that it was finished between the 3rd of 
 
 181
 
 LITERARY ICONOCLASM 
 
 September, 1420, and the return of James in 
 April, 1424. 
 
 Mr. Brown must forgive us for expressing 
 regret that he should have wasted so much time 
 and learning, in attempting to support a para- 
 dox which can only serve to perplex and mis- 
 lead. Scholars, especially in these days, would 
 do well to remember, that nothing can justify 
 destructive criticism but a conscientious desire, 
 on the part of those who apply it, to correct 
 error and to discover truth. And they would 
 also do well to ponder over Bacon's weighty 
 words : " Like as many substances in Nature 
 which are solid do putrify and corrupt into 
 worms, so it is the property of good and sound 
 knowledge to putrify and dissolve into a number 
 of subtle, idle, unwholesome, and, as I may 
 term them, vermiculate questions, which have 
 indeed a kind of quickness and life of spirit, but 
 no soundness of matter nor goodness of sub- 
 stance." 
 
 182
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 1 
 
 BOSWELL tells us that he once offered to 
 teach Dr. Johnson the Scotch dialect, that 
 the sage might enjoy the beauties of a certain 
 Scotch pastoral poem, and received for his reply, 
 " No, sir ; I will not learn it. You shall retain 
 your superiority by my not knowing it." It 
 would not be true to say that Dr. Johnson's 
 indifference to the Scotch language and to 
 Scotch poetry has been shared by all cultivated 
 Englishmen, but it has certainly been shared by 
 a very large majority in every generation. The 
 superb merit of many of the Scotch ballads, the 
 lyrics of Burns and the novels of Scott have 
 practically done little to diminish this majority 
 and to induce English readers to acquire the 
 knowledge which Dr. Johnson disdained. Nine 
 Englishmen out of ten read Burns, either with 
 an eye uneasily fishing the glossary at the bottom 
 of the page, or ad sensum, that is, in contented 
 ignorance of about three words in every nine. 
 
 1 William Dunbar. By Oliphant Smeaton. Edinburgk : 
 Oliphant. 
 
 183
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 
 And this is, perhaps, all that can reasonably be 
 expected of the Southerner. Life is short ; the 
 world of Scotch drink, Scotch religion and 
 Scotch manners is not, as Matthew Arnold ob- 
 served, a lovely one, and the time which such 
 an accomplishment would require would be far 
 more profitably spent in acquiring, say, the 
 language of Dante and Ariosto, or even the 
 language of the Romancero General and of Cer- 
 vantes. A modern reader may stumble, with 
 more or less intelligence, through a poem of 
 Burns, catching the general sense, enjoying 
 the lilt, and even appreciating the niceties of 
 rhythm. But this is not the case with the Scotch 
 of the fifteenth century the golden age of the 
 vernacular poetry, the age when poets were 
 writing thus : 
 
 " Catyvis, wrechis, and ockeraris, 
 Hud-pykis, hurdaris, and gadderaris, 
 
 All with that warlo went ; 
 Out of thair throttis thay schot on xxdder 
 Hett moltin gold, me thocht, a fudder 
 
 As fyre-flawcht, maist fervent, 
 Ay as thay tumit them of schot, 
 Feyndis fild thame new up to the thrott 
 With gold of allkin prent." 
 
 The usual consequences have been the result 
 of this ignorance. The Scotch have had it all 
 their own way in estimating the merits of 
 their vernacular classics, and the few outsiders 
 whether English or German, who have made 
 the Scotch language and literature a special 
 
 184
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 
 subject of study, have very naturally not been 
 willing to underestimate the value of what it 
 has cost them labour to acquire, and so have 
 supported the exaggerated estimates of the 
 Scotch themselves. What Voltaire so absurdly 
 said of Dante, that his reputation was safe be- 
 cause no intelligent people read him, is literally 
 true of such poets as Henryson, Douglas, and 
 Dunbar. We simply take them on trust, and, 
 as with most other things which are taken on 
 trust, we seldom trouble ourselves about the 
 titles and guarantees. It may be accepted as 
 an uncontrolled truth that the world is al- 
 ways right, and very exactly right, in the long 
 run. That mysterious tribunal which, resolved 
 into the individuals which compose it, seems 
 resolved into every conceivable source of ignor- 
 ance, error, and folly, is ultimately infallible. 
 There are no mismeasurements in the reputa- 
 tion of authors with whom readers of every 
 class have been familiar for a hundred years. 
 But, in the case of minor writers who appeal 
 only to a minority, critical literature is the 
 record of the most preposterous estimates. The 
 history of the building up of these pseudo- 
 reputations is generally the same in all cases. 
 First we have the obiter dictum of some famous 
 man whose opinion naturally carries authority, 
 uttered, it may be, carelessly hi conversation, 
 or committed, without deliberation, to paper, in 
 a letter or occasional trifle. Then comes some 
 
 185
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 
 little man, who takes up in deadly seriousness 
 what the great man has said, and out comes, 
 it may be, an essay or article. This wakes 
 up some dreary pedant, who follows with an 
 "edition" or "Study," which naturally elicits 
 from some kindred spirit a sympathetic review. 
 Thus the ball is set rolling, or, to change the 
 figure, bray swells bray, echo answers to echo, 
 and the thing is done. Meanwhile, all that is 
 of real interest and importance in the author 
 thus resuscitated is lost sight of ; in advocating 
 his factitious claims to attention his real claims 
 are ignored. For the true point of view is 
 substituted a false, and the whole focus of 
 criticism, so to speak, is deranged. The first 
 requisite in estimating the work and relative 
 position of a particular author is the last thing 
 which these enthusiasts seem to consider, that 
 is, the application of standards and touchstones 
 derived not simply from the study of the author 
 himself, but from acquaintance with the prin- 
 ciples of criticism, and with what is excellent 
 in universal literature. 
 
 All this has been illustrated in the case of the 
 poet who is the subject of the volume before 
 us. As Mr. Ruskin has pronounced Aurora 
 Leigh to be the greatest poem of this century, 
 so Sir Walter Scott, who has, by the way, 
 been singularly unjust to Lydgate and Hawes, 
 pronounced Dunbar to be "a poet unrivalled 
 by any that Scotland has ever produced." a 
 
 186
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 
 reckless judgment which he could never have 
 expressed deliberately. Ellis followed suit, and 
 in Ellis' notice Dunbar is "the greatest poet 
 Scotland has produced." These judgments have, 
 in effect, been reverberated by successive writers 
 and editors. In due time, some fourteen years 
 ago, appeared the inevitable German mono- 
 graph, " William Dunbar : sein Leben und seine 
 Gedichte," by Dr. J. Schipper, to whom Mr. 
 Oliphant Smeaton appropriately and reverently 
 inscribes the present monograph. 
 
 In Mr. Oliphant Smeaton's work Dunbar 
 assumes the proportions which might be ex- 
 pected he is a " mighty genius." " The peer, 
 if not in a few qualities, the superior of Chaucer 
 and Spenser. By the indefeasible passport 
 of the supreme genius he has an indisputable 
 title to the apostolic succession of British poetry 
 to that place between Chaucer and Spenser, 
 that place which can only be claimed by one 
 whose genius was co-ordinate with theirs." As 
 probably eight out of every ten of Mr. Smeaton's 
 readers will know nothing more of Dunbar than 
 what Mr. Smeaton chooses to tell them, and as 
 we, considering the space at our disposal, can- 
 not refute him by a detailed examination of 
 Dunbar's works, it is fortunate that he has 
 given us a succinct illustration of the value of 
 his critical judgment. The following are four 
 typical stanzas of a poem which Mr. Smeaton 
 ranks with Milton's Lycidas and Shelley's 
 
 187
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 
 Adonais ; we give them as Mr. Smeaton gives 
 them, modernised : 
 
 "I that in health was and gladness 
 Am troubled now with great sickness. 
 Enfeebled with infirmity, 
 
 Timor mortis conturbat me. 
 
 " Our pleasure here is all vain glory, 
 This false world is but transitory, 
 The flesh is brittle, the fiend is slee, 
 
 Timor mortis conturbat me. 
 
 " The state of man doth change and vary, 
 Now sound, now sick, now blyth, now sary 
 Now dancing merry, now like to dee, 
 
 Timor mortis conturbat me. 
 
 " No state on earth here stands sicker, 
 As with the wind waves the wicker, 
 So waves this world's vanity, 
 
 Timor mortis conturbat me." 
 
 As the following is pronounced to be one of 
 the finest stanzas Dunbar ever penned, it is 
 interesting as illustrating what is, in Mr. Smea- 
 ton's opinion, the best work of this rival of 
 Chaucer and Spenser : 
 
 ' Have mercy, love, have mercy, lady bright; 
 What have I wrought against your womankeid, 
 That you should murder me a sackless wight, 
 Trespassing on you nor in word nor deed ? 
 That ye consent thereto, O God forbid ; 
 Leave cruelty and save your man for shame, 
 Or through the world quite lose'd is your name." 
 
 It may be added that what are by far the finest 
 
 188
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 
 passages in Dunbar's poems are passed unnoticed 
 and unquoted by Mr. Smeaton. Indeed, his 
 acquaintance with D unbar, or, at all events, his 
 taste in selection, is exactly on a par with that 
 of Ned Softley's with Waller. " As that admir- 
 able writer has the best and worst verses among 
 our English poets, Ned," says Addison, " has got 
 all the bad ones by heart, which he repeats 
 upon occasion to show his reading." Should 
 Mr. Smeaton ever meet his idol in Hades, we 
 would in all kindness advise him to avoid an 
 encounter ; let him remember that the fulsome 
 eulogy is his own, but that the verses quoted 
 are the poet's. Attempted murder so the irate 
 shade might argue is less serious than com- 
 pulsory suicide. 
 
 Dunbar was undoubtedly a man of genius, 
 but a reference to the poets who immediately 
 preceded him will make large deductions from 
 the praises lavished on him by his eulogists. 
 He struck no new notes. The Thistle and the 
 Rose and The Golden Terge are mere echoes of 
 Chaucer and Lydgate, and, in some degree, of 
 the author of The King's Quair, and are indeed 
 full of plagiarisms from them. The Dance of 
 the Seven Deadly Sins is probably little more 
 than a faithful description of a popular mum- 
 mery. His moral and religious poems had their 
 prototypes, even in Scotland, in such poets as 
 Johnston and Henryson. His most remarkable 
 characteristic is his versatility, which ranges 
 
 189
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 
 from the composition of such poems as The 
 Merle and the Nightingale to the Twa Maryit 
 Wemen and the Wedo, from such lyrics as the 
 Meditation in Winter to such lyrics as the Plea 
 for Pity. Mr. Smeaton calls him "a giant hi 
 an age of pigmies." The author or authoress of 
 The Flower and the Leaf was infinitely superior 
 to him in point of style, Henryson was infinitely 
 superior to him in originality, and Gavin Douglas 
 at least his equal in power of expression and 
 in description. 
 
 Let us do Dunbar the justice which Mr. 
 Smeaton has not done him, and take him at 
 his very best. Here is part of a picture of a 
 May morning, 
 
 " For mirth of May, wyth skippis and wyth hoppis 
 The birdis sang upon the tender croppis, 
 
 With curiouse notis, as Venus Chapell clerkis. 
 The rosis yong, new spreding of their knoppis, 
 War powderit brycht with hevinly beriall droppis ; 
 Throu bemes rede, birnyng as ruby sperkis, 
 The skyes rang for schoutyng of the larkia." 
 
 This is brilliant and picturesque rhetoric 
 touched into poetry by the " Venus Chapell 
 clerkis," and the magical note in the last line ; 
 so too the touch in The Golden Terge, liken- 
 ing the faery ship to " blossom upon the spray." 
 But in his allegorical poem he is too fond of 
 the "quainte enamalit termes," and his verse 
 has a certain metallic ring. It will be admitted, 
 we suppose, that the best of his moral poems 
 
 190
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 
 would be The Merle and the Nightingale and 
 " Bo Merrie Man " ; but the utmost which can 
 be said for them is, that the philosophy is ex- 
 cellent and its expression adequate ; that is, 
 that they have little to distinguish them from 
 hundreds of other poems of the same class. 
 
 In speaking of Dunbar's satires, Mr. Smeaton 
 indulges himself in the following nonsense, 
 " From the genial, jesting, and ironical incon- 
 gruities of Horace and Persius we are intro- 
 duced at once into the bitter, vitriolic scourgings 
 of Juvenal," and in the following rhodomontade, 
 telling us that they unite " the natural direct- 
 ness of Hall, the subtle depth of Donne, the 
 delicate humour of Breton, the sturdy vigour 
 of Dryden, the scalding, vitriolic bitterness of 
 Swift, the pungency of Churchill, the rural 
 smack of Gay, united to an approach at least 
 to the artistic perfection of Pope." Stuff like 
 this and indiscriminate eulogy are, no doubt, 
 much easier to produce than an estimate of a 
 writer's historical position and importance. Of 
 the relation of Dunbar to his predecessors and 
 contemporaries in England and Scotland, of his 
 prototypes and models in French and Provon<jal 
 literature, of the influence which he undoubtedly 
 exercised 011 subsequent poetry, and especially 
 on Spenser, Mr. Smeaton has nothing to say. 
 It never seems to occur to him that his hero, 
 like every one else, must have had his limita- 
 tions, that " the many-sidedness of that genius 
 
 191
 
 WILLIAM DUNBAR 
 
 which has a ring " the metaphors are not ours, 
 but Mr. Smeaton's " almost Shakespearian, 
 about it," could hardly have been distinguished 
 by uniformity of excellence ; that " that painter 
 of contemporary manners, who had all the 
 vividness of a Callot, united to the broad 
 humour of a Teniers and the minute touch of 
 a Meissonier," who "reflected in his verse the 
 most delicate nuances, as well as the most 
 startling colours of the age wherein he lived," 
 must have had degrees in success. 
 
 We have singled out this volume for special 
 notice, not because of any intrinsic title it 
 possesses to serious attention, but because it is 
 typical of a species of literature which is rapidly 
 becoming one of the pests of our time. While 
 every encouragement should be given to sober, 
 judicious, and competent reviews of our older 
 writers, every discouragement should be given, 
 out of respect to the dead, as well as in the 
 interests of the living, to such books as the 
 present. For they are as mischievous as they 
 are ridiculous. They misinform ; they mislead ; 
 they corrupt, or tend to corrupt, taste. After 
 laying down a volume like this we feel, and 
 we expect Dunbar would have felt, that there 
 is something much more formidable than the 
 old horror, " the candid friend," even that in- 
 dicated by Tacitus pessimum inimicorum genus 
 laudantes. 
 
 192
 
 A GALLOP THROUGH ENGLISH 
 LITERATURE 1 
 
 THERE is a breeziness and hilarity, a gay 
 irresponsibility and abandon, about M. 
 Jusserand which is perfectly delightful. He is 
 the very Autolycus of History and Criticism. 
 What more sober students, who have some con- 
 science to trouble them, are " toiling all their 
 lives to find " appears to be his as a sort of 
 natural right. The fertility of his genius is 
 such, that it seems to blossom spontaneously 
 into erudition. Like the lilies he toils not, but 
 unlike the lilies he spins, and very pretty 
 gossamer too. It is impossible to take him 
 seriously. 
 
 The truth is that M. Jusserand belongs to a 
 class of writers which, thanks to indulgent 
 publishers, a more indulgent public, and most 
 indulgent reviewers, is just now greatly in the 
 ascendant. " Encyclopaedical heads," who took 
 all knowledge for their province, probably died 
 
 1 A Literary History of the English People from the 
 Origins to the Benaisnance. By J. J. Jusserand. 
 E.C. 193 N
 
 A GALLOP THROUGH 
 
 with Bacon, but encyclopaedical heads who take 
 all Literature or all History for their province 
 appear to be as common as the " excellence " 
 which, in opposition to Matthew Arnold's opin- 
 ion, the American lady maintained was so 
 abundant on both sides of the Atlantic. These 
 are the gentlemen who complacently sit down 
 " to edit the Literatures of the world," or " to 
 trace the development of the human race, from 
 its picturesque cradle in the valleys of Central 
 Asia, to its infinite ramifications in our own 
 day " within " the moderate compass of an 
 octavo volume." 
 
 M. Jusserand's first feat is to dispose of some 
 six centuries in ninety-three pages, in a narra- 
 tive which simply tells over again, though cer- 
 tainly after a more jaunty fashion, what Ten 
 Brink, Henry Morley, and others have told much 
 more seriously, and, we may add, much more 
 effectively. The Norman Conquest and an ac- 
 count of the Anglo-Norman literature occupy 
 about a hundred and ten pages, while some 
 eighty pages more, dealing with the fusion of 
 the races and the gradual evolution of the Eng- 
 lish people and language, bring us to Chaucer. 
 It might have been expected that M. Jusserand 
 would have justified his survey of a period so 
 often reviewed before, either by tracing, with 
 more fulness and precision than his predeces- 
 sors, the successive stages in the development of 
 our nationality and its expression in literature, 
 
 194
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 or by adding to our knowledge of the character- 
 istics and peculiarities of the literature itself. 
 He has done neither. He has, on the contrary, 
 obscured the first by the constant introduction 
 of irrelevant matter, and he has apparently no 
 notion of the relative importance of the authors 
 on whose works he dilates or touches. Thus 
 Richard Rolle of Hampole fills more space than 
 Layamon, whose work is despatched in a page ! 
 Thus two lines in a note suffice for the Ormulum, 
 two lines for Mannyng's Handlyng of Synne, a 
 singularly interesting and significant work, ten 
 lines for Robert of Gloucester, who is rather 
 perplexingly described as " a distant ancestor of 
 Gibbon and Macaulay," while four pages are 
 accorded to Tristan and five to the Roman du 
 Renart. How the Latin Chroniclers fare may 
 be judged from the fact that a little more than 
 a page serves for Geoffrey of Monmouth, a line 
 for Ordericus Vitalis, and two for Giraldus 
 Cambrensis. In the chapter on Chaucer M. 
 Jusserand does more justice to his subject, and 
 it is to be regretted for his own sake that he 
 has not confined himself to such essays. He is 
 never safe except when he is on the beaten 
 path. Nothing could be more inadequate than 
 the section on Gower. It certainly indicates 
 that M. Jusserand is not very familiar with 
 the Confessio Amantis. Not one word is said 
 about the remarkable prologue, and to dismiss 
 such a work in less than three pages, observing 
 
 195
 
 A GALLOP THROUGH 
 
 that " it contains a hundred and twelve short 
 stories, two or three of which are very well 
 told, one, the adventure of Florent, being, per- 
 haps, related even better than in Chaucer," is 
 not quite what we should expect in a work pur- 
 porting to narrate the " literary history of the 
 English people." M. Jusserand has not even 
 taken the trouble to keep pace with modern 
 investigation in his subject, but actually tells 
 us that Gower's Speculum Meditantis is lost ! 
 If Gower's writings are not of much intrinsic 
 value, they are of immense importance from 
 an historical point of view. John de Trevisa, a 
 most important name in the history of English 
 prose, is despatched in eight lines of mere biblio- 
 graphical information, without a word being said 
 about his great services to our literature, and 
 without any reference being made either to the 
 remarkable preface to his great work, or to his 
 version of the Dialogue attributed to Occam. 
 
 The only satisfactory chapter in the book is 
 the chapter dealing with Langland and his 
 works ; but it is certainly surprising that no 
 account should be given of the very remarkable 
 anonymous poem entitled Piers Ploughman's 
 Crede. Again, whole departments of literature, 
 such as the Metrical Romances, the Laies, Fab- 
 liaux, early lyrics and ballads, are most inade- 
 quately treated, some of the most memorable 
 and typical being not even specified. Surely 
 Minot was not a man to be dismissed, with a 
 
 196
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 flippant joke, in half a page, or King Horn and 
 Havelok poems to be relegated to passing refer- 
 ence in a note. 
 
 But it is in dealing with the literature of the 
 fifteenth century that M. Jusserand's superfici- 
 ality and, to put it plainly, incompetence for his 
 ambitious task become most deplorably appar- 
 ent. In treating the earlier periods ho had 
 trustworthy guides even in common manuals, 
 and he could not go far wrong in accepting 
 their generalizations and statements. Books 
 easily attainable, and indeed in everybody's 
 hands, could enable him to dance airily through 
 the Anglo-Saxon literature and through the 
 period between Layamon and Chaucer. No 
 one can now very well go wrong in Chaucer 
 and his contemporaries, who has at his side 
 some half-dozen works which any library can 
 supply. But it is otherwise with the literature 
 of the fifteenth century. Here, as every one 
 who happens to have paid particular attention 
 to it knows, popular manuals and histories are 
 most misleading guides. Deterred, no doubt, 
 by the prolixity of the poetry and by the com- 
 paratively uninteresting nature of the prose 
 literature, modern historians and critics have 
 contented themselves with accepting the ver- 
 dicts of Warton and his followers, who prob- 
 ably had as little patience as themselves ; and 
 so a kind of conventional estimate has been 
 formed, which appears and reappears in every 
 
 197
 
 A GALLOP THROUGH 
 
 manual and handbook. We turned, therefore, 
 with much curiosity to this portion of M. Jus- 
 serand's work. We had, we own, our suspicions 
 about his first-hand knowledge of the literature 
 through which he glided so easily in the earlier 
 portions of his book, and here, we thought, 
 would be the crucial test of his pretension to 
 original scholarship. Would he do voluminous 
 Lydgate the justice which, as the specialist 
 knows, has so long been withheld from him? 
 Would he point out the strong human interest 
 of Hoccleve ; the great historical interest of 
 Hardyng ; the power and beauty of the ballads ; 
 or, if he included Hawes within the century, 
 would he show what a singularly interesting 
 poem, intrinsically and historically, the Pastime 
 of Pleasure really is ? If, again, he included 
 the Scotch poets, how would he deal with the 
 problems presented by Huchown? Would he 
 accord the proper tribute to the genius of Dun- 
 bar ; would he estimate what poetry owes re- 
 spectively to James I., Henry the Minstrel, 
 Robert Henryson, and Gavin Douglas ? In our 
 prose literature, would he comment on the great 
 importance of Pecock's memorable work, of 
 Fortescue's two treatises, of the Paston Letters, 
 of Caxton's various publications? How would 
 he deal with the one " classical " work of the 
 century, Malory's Morte d 'Arthur? 
 
 Now, of Lydgate, "to enumerate whose 
 pieces," says Warton, "would be to write the 
 
 198
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 catalogue of a little library," it is not too much 
 to say that he was one of the most richly gifted 
 of our old poets, that as a descriptive poet he 
 stands almost on the level of Chaucer, that his 
 pictures of Nature are among the gems of their 
 kind, that his pathos is often exquisite, " touch- 
 ing," as Gray said of him, "the very heart- 
 strings of compassion with so masterly a hand 
 as to merit a place among the greatest of 
 poets." His humour is often delightful, and his 
 pictures of contemporary life, such as his London 
 Lickpenny and his Prologue to the Storie of 
 Thebes, are as vivid as Chaucer's. In versatility 
 he has no rival among his predecessors and 
 contemporaries. Gray notices that, at times, 
 he approaches sublimity. His style often is 
 beautiful, fluent, copious, and at its best emi- 
 nently musical. The influence which he ex- 
 ercised on subsequent English and Scotch 
 literature would alone entitle him to a promi- 
 nent position in any history of English poetry. 
 But the handbooks think otherwise, and he 
 occupies just three pages in M. Jusserand's 
 work, the only estimate of his work being 
 confined to the assertion that " he was a worthy 
 man if ever there was one, industrious and 
 prolific," etc., and the only criticism is the re- 
 mark that his " prosody was rather lax." And 
 this is how poor Lydgate fares at our his- 
 torian's hands. To Hoccleve are assigned just 
 one page and a few lines. Hardyng figures only 
 
 199
 
 A GALLOP THROUGH 
 
 in the bibliography at the bottom of a page. 
 The ballads are despatched in fifteen lines. 
 Hawes' Pastime of Pleasure, memorable alike 
 both for the preciseness with which it marks the 
 transition from the poetry of medisevalism to 
 that of the Renaissance, for its probable influ- 
 ence on Spenser, and for its intrinsic charm, its 
 pathos, its picturesqueness, and its sweet and 
 plaintive music, is curtly dismissed, as the hand- 
 books dismiss it, as "an allegory of unendurable 
 dulness." If M. Jusserand would throw aside 
 the manuals and turn to the original, he would 
 probably see reason to modify his verdict. Our 
 author's breathless gallop through the Scotch 
 poets, to whom he allots nine pages, can only 
 be regarded with silent astonishment by readers 
 who happen to known anything about those 
 most remarkable men. Huchown is not so 
 much as mentioned. The amazing nonsense 
 which he writes in summing up Dunbar, we 
 will transcribe, ut ex uno discas omnia : 
 
 " Dunbar, with never-flagging spirit, attempts every style. 
 . . . His flowers are too flowery, his odours too fragrant ; 
 by moments it is no longer a delight, but almost a pain. It 
 is not sufficient that his birds should sing ; they must sing 
 among perfumes, and these perfumes are coloured." 
 
 Has M. Jusserand ever read The Dance of the 
 Seven Deadly Sins, The Twa Maryit Wernen and 
 the Wedo, and the minor poems of Dunbar ? If 
 he has, would he pronounce that these "flowers" 
 are "too flowery" these "odours" "too fra- 
 
 200
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 grant," or would he feel the absurdity of general- 
 izing on ludicrously insufficient knowledge? His 
 verdicts on the other Scotch poets are marked 
 by the same superficiality, and we regret to add 
 flippancy. To class Henryson among poets 
 whose style is "florid" and whose roses are 
 " splendid but too full-blown " is to show that 
 M. Jusserand knows as little about him as he 
 seems to know about Dunbar. In all Henry- 
 son's poems there are only three short passages 
 which could by any possibility be described as 
 florid. The prose of the fifteenth century fares 
 even worse at his hands. Capgrave is men- 
 tioned only in the bibliography ! Of the in- 
 terest and importance of Pecock, historically 
 and intrinsically, he appears to have no concep- 
 tion ; on the real significance of the Represser 
 he never even touches, and how indeed could 
 he in the less than one page which is assigned 
 to one of the most remarkable writers in the 
 fifteenth century ? A page suffices for the Pas- 
 ton Letters, and four lines for Malory's Morte 
 d 1 Arthur I 
 
 Now we would ask M. Jusserand, in all serious- 
 ness, what possible end can be served by a book 
 of this kind, except the encouragement of every- 
 thing that is detestable to the real scholar : 
 superficiality, want of thoroughness, and false 
 assumption, and what is more, the public dis- 
 semination of error, and of crude and misleading 
 judgments. Such a work as the present, the 
 
 201
 
 ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 
 soundness and trustworthiness of which ninety- 
 nine readers in every hundred must necessarily 
 take for granted, can only be justified when it 
 proceeds from one who is a master of his im- 
 mense subject, from one whose generalizations 
 are based on amply sufficient knowledge, whose 
 suppressions and omissions spring neither from 
 carelessness nor from ignorance, but from dis- 
 crimination, and in whose statements and judg- 
 ments implicit reliance can be placed. To none 
 of these qualifications has M. Jusserand the 
 smallest pretension. 
 
 We have no wish to seem discourteous to M. 
 Jusserand or to say anything which can cause 
 him annoyance, but it is no more than simple 
 duty in any critic with a becoming sense of 
 responsibility to discountenance in every way 
 the production of such books as these. They 
 are not only mischievous in themselves, but they 
 form precedents for books which are more mis- 
 chievous still. We like M. Jusserand's enthu- 
 siasm, but we would exhort him to reduce the 
 flatulent dimensions, which his ambition has 
 here so unhappily assumed, to that more tem- 
 pered ambition which gave us the monographs 
 on Piers Ploughman and on the Tudor novelists. 
 
 202
 
 DE QUINCEY AND HIS FRIENDS l 
 
 TO a thoughtful reader there is, perhaps, 
 no sadder spectacle than those sixteen 
 volumes which represent all that remains to 
 us of Thomas De Quincey. What superb 
 powers, what noble and manifold gifts, what 
 capacity for invaluable and imperishable achieve- 
 ments had Nature lavished on this extraordin- 
 ary man ! Metaphysics might for all time 
 have been a debtor to that vigorous, acute, 
 and subtle intellect, at once so speculative and 
 logical, so inquisitive and discriminating. ^Es- 
 thetic criticism might have found in him a 
 second Lessing, and literary criticism a superior 
 Sainte-Beuve. For, in addition to all that would 
 have enabled him to excel in abstract thought, 
 he had and in ample measure the qualities 
 which make men consummate critics : rare power 
 of analysis, the nicest perception, sensibility, 
 
 1 Personal Recollections, Souvenirs, and Anecdotes of 
 Thomas De Quincey and his Friends and Associates, 
 Written and collected by James Hogg. 
 
 203
 
 DE QUINCEY AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 sympathy, good taste, good sense, immense 
 erudition. He might have contributed master- 
 pieces to Theology, to History, to Economic 
 Science. But they know not his name. He has 
 set his seal on nothing but on English style. 
 About a hundred and fifty articles contributed 
 to magazines and encyclopaedias, some of them 
 of a high order of literary merit, many of them 
 simply worthless, the majority of them contain- 
 ing what is inferior so disproportionately in 
 excess of what is valuable that they may be 
 likened to dustbins, with jewels here and there 
 glittering among the rubbish ; this is what re- 
 presents him. It is as a master of style, by virtue 
 of what he accomplished as a rhetorician and 
 prose poet only, that he will live. But this, com- 
 paratively scanty as it is, is of pre-eminent, of 
 unique value, and will suffice to secure him a 
 place for ever among the classics of English prose. 
 He has also another claim, if not to our rever- 
 ence, at least to our curious attention and in- 
 terest, and that attention and interest he can 
 scarcely fail to excite in every generation, his 
 autobiographical writings give us a picture, and 
 that with fascinating power, of one of the most 
 extraordinary personalities on record. 
 
 Indiscriminating admiration is among the most 
 pleasing traits of youth, but in men of mature 
 years it loses its attractiveness. When it is no 
 longer the effervescence of juvenile enthusiasm 
 for which all make allowance, it becomes, like 
 
 204
 
 DE QUINCEY AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 the levities of boyhood affected in middle life, 
 merely vapid folly. In relation to its object it 
 not only defeats its own ends, but is apt to make 
 recipient and donor alike ridiculous. Nor is this 
 all. By some curious law of association which 
 we cannot pretend to explain, its almost inevit- 
 able ally is dulness, and dulness of a peculiarly 
 wearisome and exasperating kind. During the 
 last few years those peculiarities have become so 
 alarmingly epidemic that it really seems high 
 time to form, on the principle of Mr. Morris's 
 Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monu- 
 ments, a Society for the Preservation of Literary 
 Reputations. When those " of whom to be dis- 
 praised were no small praise " take to eulogy and 
 editing, an unhappy Classic may well look to his 
 true friends. It is nothing less than appalling to 
 behold the mountains of rubbish now gradually 
 accumulating over the work the real work of 
 such poets as Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats ; 
 rubbish of their own, rescued with cruel industry 
 from the oblivion to which they would them- 
 selves have consigned it, rubbish of their com- 
 mentators and editors, dulness and inanity un- 
 utterable. " What, sir," asked an Eton boy of 
 Foote, " was the best thing you ever said ? " 
 " Well," was the reply, " I once saw a chimney- 
 sweep on a high prancing, high-mettled horse. 
 'There,' said I, 'goes Warburton on Shakespeare." 
 But it is not in the Warburtons, not in the 
 chimney-sweepers, that the mischief lies ; it is in 
 
 205
 
 DE QUINCEY AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 those who may be called the scavengers and 
 sextons of literature, in those who, utterly un- 
 able to discern between what is precious and 
 what is worthless in a man's work, thrust all, 
 without distinction, into prominence, and thus 
 not only enable an author to " write himself 
 down," but, by their indiscriminating eulogies, 
 assist him in his suicide. The subtlest form, 
 indeed, which detraction can assume is over- 
 praise, for a man is thus forced to give the lie to 
 his own reputation. 
 
 No one, perhaps, has suffered so much from 
 ill-judging admirers as De Quincey. If ever an 
 author needed a judicious adviser, when prepar- 
 ing his works for publication in a permanent 
 form, and a judicious editor, when the time had 
 come for that final edition on which his title to 
 future fame should rest, it was the English 
 opium-eater. But, unhappily, he had no such 
 adviser in his lifetime, and he has had no such 
 editor since. He consequently reprinted much 
 which ought never to have been reprinted at all, 
 and he omitted to reprint some things which 
 would have done honour to him. His besetting 
 faults, even in his vigour, were loquacity and 
 silliness, a habit of " drawing out the thread of 
 his verbosity finer than the staple of his argu- 
 ment" a tendency to peddle and dawdle, as well 
 as to indulge in a sort of pleasantry, so attenu- 
 ated as to border closely on inanity. As he 
 grew older these habits became more confirmed. 
 
 206
 
 DE QUINCEY AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 His puerility and garrulousness in his later writ- 
 ings are often intolerable. But this was not the 
 worst. In revising some of his earlier papers, 
 and particularly the Confessions, he not only 
 imported into them tiresome irrelevancies and 
 superfluities, but, in emending, ruined the glori- 
 ous passages on which his fame as a rhetorician 
 and prose poet rests ; such has been the fate, 
 among others, of the exquisite description of the 
 powers of opium, the superb passage beginning, 
 " The town of L . . represented the earth with 
 its sorrows and its graves," l and of the dreams in 
 the second part of the Confessions, particularly 
 of the sublime one beginning, " The dream com- 
 menced with a music." 8 
 
 Mr. James Hogg tells us that his design in 
 publishing the present volume was that he 
 might "place a stone upon the cairn of the 
 man " who had treated him " with an almost 
 paternal tenderness." We sincerely sympathize 
 with Mr. Hogg's pious intention, but we submit 
 that the truest kindness which he, or any other 
 admirer of De Quincey could do him, would be 
 not to augment but to lighten the cairn which 
 indiscreet admirers are so industriously piling 
 over him. To change the figure, the best service 
 which could be rendered to De Quincey would 
 be to relieve him of his superfluous baggage, not 
 
 1 See Works. Black's Edit., Vol. I. p. 212, compared with 
 original Edit., pp. 11S-114. 
 
 1 Id., p. 272 and original Edit., pp. 177-178. 
 
 207
 
 DE QUINCEY AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 to add to it. His fame would stand much higher, 
 if his sixteen volumes were vigorously weeded ; 
 if the sweepings and refuse of his study, so in- 
 judiciously given to the world by Dr. Japp and 
 Mr. Hogg, were given instead to the flames ; and 
 if reminiscents and biographers would only leave 
 him to tell, in his own fashion, his own story, 
 especially as it is one of those stories the interest 
 of which depends purely on the telling. We 
 have already expressed our sympathy with Mr. 
 Hogg's pious intention. It only remains for us 
 to express our regret that Mr. Hogg's piety 
 should have taken the form of the most bare- 
 faced piece of book-making which we ever re- 
 member to have met with. Addison, if we are 
 not mistaken, somewhere describes a man to 
 whom a single volume afforded all the amuse- 
 ment and variety of a whole library, for, by the 
 time he had arrived at the middle, he had com- 
 pletely forgotten the beginning, and when he 
 arrived at the end, he had completely forgotten 
 the whole. Mr. Hogg appears to proceed on the 
 assumption that it is pretty much the same with 
 the public and its memory, that its capacity for 
 amusement is permanent, but that its recollec- 
 tion of what has amused it is so treacherous, that 
 repetition will be sure to have all the attraction 
 of novelty. This is, no doubt, unhappily true. 
 But it is a truth which no critic has a right to 
 concede. 
 
 All that is of interest in this volume is little 
 208
 
 DE QUINCEY AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 more than the literal reproduction, in another 
 shape, of material embodied in a Life of De 
 Quincey, published by Dr. Alexander Japp, under 
 the pseudonym of H. A. Page, in 1877. Its exact 
 composition is as follows. Eliminating the pre- 
 face and the index, the book consists of 359 
 pages. Of these, seventy consist of a dreary 
 rechauffe by Dr. Japp himself of his own Life of 
 De Quincey, and of the additional information 
 contained in his edition of the Posthumous 
 Works. Next comes a series of reminiscences, 
 extracted from Dr. Japp's Life, from Dr. Gar- 
 nett's edition of the Confessions, from the Quar- 
 terly Review, and from other sources all equally 
 accessible. Then Mr. Hogg himself opens fire 
 with Days and Nights with De Quincey. An 
 essay " On the supposed Scriptural Expression 
 for Eternity " excellently illustrating De Quin- 
 cey in his senility, is reprinted, with awe-struck 
 admiration, from the American edition of his 
 works. 
 
 For the purpose, presumably, of adding to the 
 bulk of the book, Moir's ballad, De Quincey s 
 Revenge, is included, though its sole connec- 
 tion with De Quincey is, that it deals with a 
 legend concerning the possible ancestors of a 
 possible branch of his possible family. Then we 
 have one of Mr. Shadworth Hodgson LL.D.'s 
 Outcast Essays, " On the genius of De Quincey," 
 the reason for the hospitable entertainment of 
 the outcast being by no means apparent. Among 
 
 E.C. 209 o
 
 DE QUINCEY AND HIS FRIENDS 
 
 other dreary trifles is a reprint of a Latin theme, 
 one of De Quincey's college exercises. As Mr. 
 Hogg has chosen to reprint and translate this, it 
 would have been as well to print and translate 
 it correctly. " Quse ansibus obstant" should, of 
 course, have been " ausibus," and " oculi per- 
 stringuntur " cannot possibly mean " are spell 
 bound," but " are dazzled." 
 
 The republication of these pieces was, we 
 repeat, a great mistake, another lamentable il- 
 lustration of the cruel wrong which officious 
 and ill-judging admirers may inflict on a writer's 
 reputation. Talleyrand once observed that, a 
 wise man would be safer with a foolish than 
 with a clever wife, for a foolish wife could 
 only compromise herself, but a clever wife 
 might compromise her husband. Substituting 
 ' unambitious ' for ' foolish ' and ' ambitious ' for 
 ' clever,' we are very much inclined to apply 
 the same remark to a great writer and his 
 friends. It requires a Johnson to support a 
 Boswell, and a Goethe to support an Eckermann. 
 
 210
 
 LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 1 
 
 IT is a pleasure to turn from the slovenly and 
 perfunctory work, from the plausible charla- 
 tanry and pretentious incompetence which it has 
 so often been our unwelcome duty to expose in 
 these columns, to such a volume as the volume 
 before us. It is books like these which retrieve 
 the honour of English scholarship. A wide 
 range of general knowledge, immense special 
 knowledge, scrupulous accuracy, both in the 
 investigation and presentation of facts, the 
 sound judgment, the tact, the insight which in 
 labyrinths of chaotic traditions and conflicting 
 testimony can discern the clue to probability and 
 truth these are the qualifications indispensable 
 to a successful biographer of Shakespeare. And 
 these are the qualifications which Mr. Lee pos- 
 sesses, in larger measure than have been pos- 
 sessed by any one who has essayed the task 
 which he has here undertaken. A ranker and 
 more tangled jungle than that presented by the 
 traditions, the apocrypha, the theories, the con- 
 jectures which have gradually accumulated 
 
 1 A Life of Shakespeare, By Sidney Lee. 
 211
 
 LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 round the memory of Shakespeare since the 
 time of Rowe, could scarcely be conceived. In 
 this jungle some, like Charles Knight, have 
 altogether lost themselves ; others, like Joseph 
 Hunter, have struck out vigorously into wrong 
 tracks, and floundered into quagmires. Halliwell 
 Phillipps, sure-footed and wary though he was, 
 certainly had not the clue to it. But Mr. Lee, 
 who can plainly say with Comus, 
 
 " I know each lane, and every alley green 
 Dingle or bushy dell of this wild wood, 
 And every bosky bourne from side to side, 
 My daily walks and ancient neighbourhood," 
 
 has thridded it, and taught others to thrid 
 it, as no one else has done. And he will 
 have his reward. He has produced what de- 
 serves to be, and what will probably become, 
 the standard life of our great national poet. 
 
 Mr. Lee's book is substantially a reproduction 
 of his article on Shakespeare, contributed to the 
 Dictionary of National Biography, the high 
 merits of which have long been recognised by 
 scholars ; and he has certainly done well to 
 make that article popularly accessible by re- 
 printing it in a separate form. But the present 
 volume is not a mere reproduction of his con- 
 tribution to the Dictionary ; it is much more. 
 He has here filled out what he could there 
 sketch only in outline ; what he could there 
 state only as results and conclusions, he here 
 illustrates and justifies by corroboration and 
 
 212
 
 LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 proof. He has, moreover, both in the text and 
 hi the appendices, brought together a great 
 mass of interesting and pertinent collateral 
 matter which the scope of the Dictionary neces- 
 sarily precluded. 
 
 More than a century ago George Steevens 
 wrote : " All that can be known with any degree 
 of certainty about Shakespeare is that he was 
 born at Stratford-on-Avon, married and had 
 children there, went to London, where he com- 
 menced actor, wrote poems and plays, returned 
 to Stratford, made his will, died, and was buried 
 there." And, if we set aside probable inferences, 
 this is all we do know of any importance about 
 his life. His pedigree cannot certainly be traced 
 beyond his father. Nothing is known of the 
 place of his education that he was educated at 
 the Stratford Grammar School is pure assump- 
 tion. His life between his birth and the pub- 
 lication of Venus and Adonis in 1593, is an 
 absolute blank. It is at least doubtful whether 
 the supposed allusion to him in Greene's Groat's 
 Worth of Wit, and in Chettle's Kind Heart's 
 Dream have any reference to him at all ; it is 
 still more doubtful whether the William Shake- 
 speare of Adrian Quiney's letter, or of the Rogers 
 and Addenbroke summonses, or the William 
 Shakespeare who was assessed for property hi 
 St. Helens, Bishopsgate, was the poet. We 
 know practically nothing of his life in London, 
 or of the date of his arrival in London ; we are 
 
 213
 
 LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 ignorant of the date of his return to Stratford, 
 of his happiness or unhappiness in married life, 
 of his habits, of his last days, of the cause of his 
 death. Not a sentence that fell from his lips 
 has been authentically recorded. At least one- 
 half of the alleged facts of his biography is as 
 purely apocryphal as the life of Homer attri- 
 buted to Herodotus. 
 
 But probability, as Bishop Butler says, is the 
 guide of life, and on the basis of probability 
 may be raised, it must be owned, a fairly satis- 
 factory biography. Mr. Lee has not been able 
 to contribute any new facts to Shakespeare's 
 life, which is certainly not his fault ; but he 
 has given us a recapitulation, as lucid as it is 
 exhaustive, of all that the industry of successive 
 generations of memorialists from Ben Jonson 
 to Halliwell Phillipps has succeeded in accumu- 
 lating, and he has been as judicious in what 
 he has rejected as in what he has adopted. 
 From the curse of the typical Shakespearian 
 biographer we mean the statement of mere in- 
 ference and hypothesis as fact he is absolutely 
 free. He has done excellent service in giving, 
 if not finishing, at least swashing blows to the 
 monstrous fictions of the theorists on the sonnets, 
 particularly to the Fitton-Pembroke mare's nest, 
 fictions which have been gradually generating a 
 Shakespeare, as purely apocryphal as the Roland 
 of the song or the Apollonius of Philostratus. 
 
 Mr. Lee's most remarkable contribution to 
 214
 
 LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 speculative Shakespearian criticism, in which, 
 we are glad to say, he does not often indulge, is 
 his contention that the W. H. of the dedication 
 to the sonnets was William Hall, a small pirat- 
 ical stationer. It is never wise to speak posi- 
 tively on what must necessarily be, till certain 
 evidence is obtainable, a matter of speculation. 
 But we are very much inclined to think that Mr. 
 Lee's contention has at least something in its 
 favour. Our readers will remember that one of 
 the chief points in the enigma of the sonnets is 
 the dedication, and it runs thus : "To the onlie 
 begetter of these ensuing Sonnets, Mr. W. H., all 
 happiness and that eternitie promised by our 
 ever-living poet wisheth the well-wishing adven- 
 turer in setting forth. T. T." It has generally 
 been assumed that the "W. H." is the youth who 
 is the hero of the first group of sonnets, and the 
 poet's friend, and he has commonly been identi- 
 fied either with William Herbert, third Earl of 
 Pembroke, or with Henry Wriothesley, third Earl 
 of Southampton. The difficulties in the way of 
 either hypothesis and on each hypothesis not 
 Babels merely, but cities of Babels have been 
 raised are to an unprejudiced mind insur- 
 mountable. Mr. Lee maintains with plausible 
 ingenuity, but not, we think, conclusively, that 
 there is no proof that the youth of the sonnets 
 was named " Will " at all. His analysis of the 
 " Will " sonnets is a masterpiece of subtle in- 
 genuity, and well deserves careful attention. 
 
 215
 
 LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 He then proceeds to adopt the theory that the 
 word " begetter " is not to be taken in the sense 
 of " inspirer," but simply as " procurer " or 
 " obtainer " of the sonnets for T. T., i.e., the 
 publisher, Thomas Thorpe. In other words, that 
 Thorpe dedicated the sonnets to W. H., in return 
 for W. H. having piratically obtained them for 
 him. This is at least doubtful. In the first 
 place it may reasonably be questioned whether 
 " begetter" could have the meaning which is here 
 assigned to it; the passages quoted from Hamlet 
 (" acquire and beget a temperance ") and from 
 Dekker's Satiro-mastix, " I have some cousins 
 german at Court shall beget you the reversion 
 of the Master of the King's Revels," are any- 
 thing but conclusive. Still, Thorpe, who is by no 
 means remarkable for the purity of his English, 
 may have used it in the sense which Mr. Lee's 
 theory requires. 
 
 Shakespeare's sonnets, as is well known, 
 were circulating among his friends in manu- 
 script, and Mr. Lee has discovered that one 
 William Hall was well known as an Autolycus 
 among publishers, and had already edited, under 
 the initials W. H., a collection of poems left 
 by the Jesuit poet, Southwell in other words 
 had already done for the publisher, George Eld, 
 what it is assumed that he now did for Thomas 
 Thorpe. Mr. Lee's theory is, it must be admitted, 
 plausible, and few would hesitate to pronounce 
 it far more probable than the theory which 
 
 216
 
 LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 would identify the enigmatical initials with 
 the names of Pembroke or Southampton. 
 
 The chapters dealing with the sonnets are, in 
 our opinion the most valuable contribution which 
 has ever been made to this important province 
 of Shakespearian study, and it may be said of 
 Mr. Lee, as Person said of Bentley, that we may 
 learn more from him when he is wrong than 
 from many others when they are right. His 
 contention is, and it is supported with exhaus- 
 tive erudition, that these poems are, in the main, 
 a concession to the fashion, then so much in 
 vogue, of sonnet writing ; that their themes are 
 the conventional themes treated in those compo- 
 sitions ; that some of them were dedicated to 
 Southampton, that some may be autobiogra- 
 phical, but that they are wholly miscellaneous, 
 and tell no consecutive story, as so many critics 
 have erroneously assumed. We cannot accept 
 all Mr. Lee's theories and conclusions, but one 
 thing is certain, that they are supported with 
 infinitely more skill and learning than any other 
 theories which have been broached on this hope- 
 lessly baffling problem. 
 
 We will conclude by noticing what seem to us 
 slight blemishes in this admirable work. There 
 is nothing to warrant the assertion on p. 158 that 
 most of Shakespeare's sonnets were produced in 
 1594, which is to cut the knot of a most difficult 
 question. Indeed, with respect to the whole 
 question of the sonnets, Mr. Lee is, we venture 
 
 217
 
 LEE'S LIFE OF SHAKESPEARE ' 
 
 to submit, a little too dogmatic. It is a question 
 which no one can settle as positively as Mr. Lee 
 seems to settle it. There is surely no good, or even 
 plausible reason for doubting the authenticity of 
 Titus Andronicus, whatever innumerable Shake- 
 spearian critics may say, external and internal 
 evidence alike being almost conclusive for its 
 genuineness. There is nothing to warrant the 
 supposition that Shakespeare was on bad terms 
 with his wife. The famous bequest in his Will 
 was probably a delicate compliment, and we are 
 surprised that Mr. Lee should not have noticed 
 this. Among the testimonies to Shakespeare 
 in the seventeenth century, Mr. Lee should 
 have recorded that of Archbishop Sharp, who, 
 according to Speaker Onslow, used to say " that 
 the Bible and Shakespeare had made him Arch- 
 bishop of York." 
 
 Mr. Lee must also forgive us for adding that, 
 in this work at least, aesthetic criticism is not 
 his strong point, and he would have done well 
 to keep it within even narrower bounds than he 
 has done. Many of those who would be the first 
 to admire his erudition and the other scholarly 
 qualities which are so conspicuous in every 
 chapter of his book, will, we fear, take exception 
 to much of his criticism, especially in relation to 
 the sonnets. It is too positive ; it is unsympa- 
 thetic ; it is too mechanical. But our debt to Mr. 
 Lee is so great, that we feel almost ashamed to 
 make any deductions in our tribute of gratitude. 
 
 218
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 1 
 
 r I ''HERE goes a story that an ingenuous youth, 
 A who had the privilege of an introduction 
 to Lord Beaconsfield, resolved to make the best of 
 the occasion, by extracting, if possible, from that 
 astute political sage the secret of success in life. 
 It might take the form, he thought, of a little 
 practical advice. For that advice, explaining 
 the object with which it was asked, he accord- 
 ingly applied. " Yes," said Lord Beaconsfield, 
 " I think I can give you some advice which may 
 possibly be of use to you. Never trouble your- 
 self about The Man in the Iron Mask, and never 
 get into a discussion about the authorship of the 
 Letters of Junius." In all seriousness we think 
 it is high time that the " closure " should be 
 
 1 The Mystery of Shakespeare's Sonnets: an attempted 
 Elucidation. By Cuming Walters. Testimony of the 
 Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearian Plays 
 and Poems. By Jesse Johnson. Shakespeare's Sonnets 
 Reconsidered and in part Re-arranged, with Introductory 
 Chapters, Notes and a Reprint of the Original 1609 Edition. 
 By Samuel Butler. 
 
 219
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 applied to a debate on another " mystery " of 
 which every one must be tired to death, except 
 perhaps those who contribute to it. If some pro- 
 gress could be made towards the solution of the 
 Mystery of Shakespeare's Sonnets, if there was 
 the faintest indication of any dawn on the dark- 
 ness, even the wearied reviewer would be patient. 
 But the thing remains exactly where it was, 
 before this appalling literary epidemic set in. 
 During the last three or four years scarcely a 
 month has passed without its " monograph," 
 many of these treatises, mere replicas of their 
 predecessors, differing only in degrees of stupidity 
 and uselessness. Mr. Cuming Walters' volume, 
 sensible enough and intelligent, we quite con- 
 cede, simply thrashes the straw. It professes to 
 be an original contribution to the question. There 
 is not a view or theory in it, which is not now 
 a platitude to every one who has had the patience 
 to follow this controversy. It analyses the 
 Sonnets ; they have been analysed hundreds of 
 times. It asks who was W. H. ; it answers the 
 question as it has been answered usque ad 
 nauseam. It discusses the dark lady, and lands 
 us in the same shifting quagmire of opinion in 
 which Mr. Tyler and his coadjutors and opponents 
 have been floundering for the last four years. 
 It assumes, it rejects, it questions, it suggests, 
 what has been assumed, rejected, questioned, 
 and suggested over and over again. Indeed, it 
 may now be said with literal truth that, unless 
 
 220
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 some fresh discovery is made, nothing new, 
 whether in the way of absurdity or sense, can 
 be advanced on this subject. But books are 
 multiplied with such rapidity and in such pro- 
 digious numbers in these days, that they thrive, 
 like cannibals, on one another. The last comer 
 is simply its forgotten predecessor in disguise. 
 
 But platitude is the very last charge that can 
 be brought against Mr. Jesse Johnson's contribu- 
 tion to the curiosities of Shakespearian criticism. 
 The theory advanced here is, that Shakespeare 
 never wrote the Sonnets at all, that he was quite 
 unequal to their composition, that the author of 
 them "was probably fifty, perhaps sixty, and 
 that he was besides a man of genius, which 
 Shakespeare certainly was not. I would not," 
 says Mr. Jesse Johnson, " deny to Shakespeare 
 groat talent. His success in and with theatres 
 certainly forbids us to do so. That he had a 
 bent or a talent for rhyming or for poetry, an 
 early and persistent tradition and the inscrip- 
 tion over his grave indicate. And otherwise 
 there could hardly have been attributed to him 
 so many plays, besides those written by the 
 author of the Sonnets." Shakespeare may have 
 been equal to trifles like Hamlet or Lear for 
 Mr. Jesse Johnson would be the last to dispute 
 the claim made for Shakespeare as a hard- 
 working playwright clearing his twenty-five 
 thousand dollars a year (Mr. Jesse Johnson is 
 calculating his income according to the present 
 
 221
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 time) but " to Shakespeare working as an actor, 
 adapter or perhaps author came a very great 
 poet, one who outclassed all the writers of that 
 day, and it is the poetry of that great unknown 
 which, flowing into Shakespeare's work, comprises 
 all or nearly all of it which the world treasures 
 or cares to remember." If we told Mr. Jesse 
 Johnson, and all who resemble Mr. Jesse Johnson, 
 the truth about their productions, we are quite 
 certain of one thing but the one thing of which 
 we are certain it would, perhaps, be good taste in 
 us to leave unsaid. 
 
 Of a very different order is Mr. Samuel 
 Butler's Shakespeare's Sonnets Reconsidered. 
 This is the work of a scholar, but of a scholar 
 mounted on a hobby-horse of unusually vigorous 
 mettle. Mr. Butler begins with a tremendous 
 onslaught on the theories of the Southampton- 
 ites, the Herbertists and the anti-autobiographical 
 party ; and in this part of his work he has certainly 
 much to say which is both pertinent and plaus- 
 ible, nay, in our opinion, convincing. But he is 
 less successful in construction than in demolition. 
 His own contention is, that the Sonnets are 
 undoubtedly autobiographical, and very deroga- 
 tory to Shakespeare's moral character. He is 
 satisfied that " Mr. W. H. " was the youth who 
 inspired them, not the youth who simply 
 collected, or procured them, and gave them to 
 Thorpe, but that this youth was neither the 
 Earl of Southampton nor the Earl of Pembroke, 
 
 222
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 nor, indeed, any one of superior social rank to 
 the poet, though this has always been assumed. 
 Adopting the theory of Tyrwhitt and Malone 
 that the key to the youth's name is to be found 
 in the seventh line of the twentieth sonnet, 
 
 "A man in hew all Hewes in his controlling." 
 
 and deducing, with them, from Sonnets cxxxv., 
 cxxxvi. and cxliii. that the youth's Christian 
 name was William, Mr. Butler believes, as they 
 did, that the youth's name was William Hughes, 
 or Hewes ; and Mr. Butler is inclined to identify 
 him, though he speaks, of course, by no means 
 confidently, with a William Hughes, who served 
 as steward in the Vanguard, Swiftsure and 
 Dreadnought, and who died in March, 1636-7. 
 Mr. Butler supports his theories with hypotheses 
 which an impartial judge of evidence will find 
 it difficult to concede. In the face of Sonnets 
 xxxvi., xxxvii. and cxxiv. the contention that 
 the youth was not in a superior social station to 
 the poet cannot be maintained with any con- 
 fidence. There are still graver difficulties in the 
 way of supposing that the Sonnets were written 
 between January, 1585-6 and December, 1588. 
 That they could be the work of a young man 
 between his twenty-first and his twenty-fourth 
 year, and have preceded by some four years 
 the composition of Venus and Adonis and the 
 Rape of Lucrece, is simply incredible ; but it is a 
 question which cannot be argued, for we have 
 
 223
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 nothing but mere hypothesis to go upon. Mr. 
 Butler's arrangement and interpretation of the 
 Sonnets are, moreover, purely fanciful. When 
 Mr. Butler would have us believe that some of 
 the Sonnets in the second group, from cxxvii. 
 to clii., are addressed to and concern not the 
 woman, but the youth, he asks us to accept a 
 theory which is not only revolting, but which 
 sets all probability at defiance. Similarly absurd, 
 he must forgive us for saying, is his grotesquely 
 repulsive interpretation of Sonnet xxxiv. Nor 
 is there anything to justify the interpretation 
 placed on Sonnets xxxiii. and xxxiv. or the col- 
 location of cxxi. All that can be said for Mr. 
 Butler's exceedingly ingenious and admirably 
 argued theory is, that it supports a view of the 
 question which, if it admits of no positive con- 
 futation, produces no conviction. No theory, 
 based on an arbitrary arrangement of these 
 poems and on positive deductions drawn, or 
 rather strained, from most ambiguous evidence 
 and from pure hypotheses, can possibly be satis- 
 factory. 
 
 The problem presented in these Sonnets is 
 undoubtedly the most fascinating problem in 
 all literature, and it is as exasperating as it 
 is fascinating. It appears to be so simple, it 
 seems constantly to be on the verge of its 
 solution, and yet the moment we get beyond a 
 certain point in inquiry, the more complex its 
 apparent simplicity is discovered to be, the more 
 
 224
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 hopeless all prospect of explaining the enigma. 
 Take the difficulty of assuming, what seems 
 to be obvious, that they are autobiographical. 
 Hero we have the poet, and that poet Shake- 
 speare, admitting the world into the innermost 
 secrets of his life, taking his contemporaries, 
 without the least reserve, into his confidence, 
 inviting and assisting them to the study of his 
 own morbid anatomy, and, in a word, stripping 
 himself bare with all the shameless abandon of 
 Jean Jacques and of Casanova. Everything 
 that wo know of Shakespeare seems to dis- 
 countenance the probability of his having any 
 such intention. No anecdote, with the smallest 
 pretence to authenticity, couples his name with 
 scandal. The theory which identifies him with 
 the W. S. of Willobie's Avisa has no real basis 
 to rest on, and without corroboration is 
 absolutely inadmissible as evidence. Whatever 
 Shakespeare's private life may have been, it 
 is quite clear that he carefully regarded the 
 decencies, and would have been the last man in 
 the world to pose publicly in the character pre- 
 sented to us in the Sonnets. If the poems are 
 autobiographical, we can only conclude that 
 they were published without his consent, and 
 even to his great annoyance. This may cer- 
 tainly have been the case, and is indeed often 
 assumed to have been so. But even then it 
 is, to say the least, curious, that there should 
 have been no tradition about the extraordinary 
 H.O. 225 P
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 story which they tell, especially considering the 
 distinction of the dramatis persona?. Assuming 
 that the youth, who is their hero, was a real 
 person, he must, judging from Sonnets xxxvi., 
 xxx vii. and cxxiv., have been conspicuous in the 
 society of that time ; assuming the rival poet to 
 be a real person, he must have been equally con- 
 spicuous in another sphere, while Shakespeare 
 himself, at the time the Sonnets were published, 
 was the most distinguished poet and playwright 
 in London. It is, therefore, extraordinary that 
 all traces of an affair in which persons of so 
 much eminence were involved, and which would 
 have furnished scandal-mongers with the topics 
 in which such gossips most delight, should have 
 entirely disappeared. We must either conclude 
 that posterity has been very unfortunate in the 
 loss of records which would have thrown light 
 on the matter, or that Shakespeare's contem- 
 poraries knew nothing of the facts, and con- 
 tented themselves with the poetry ; or, lastly, that 
 what we may call the fable of the Sonnets, the 
 drama in which W. H., " the dark lady," and the 
 rival poet play their parts, is as fictitious as the 
 plot of The Midsummer Night's Dream or The 
 Tempest. 
 
 It is not our intention to support any of the 
 numerous theories which pretend to give us the 
 key to these Sonnets, still less to propose any 
 new one, but simply to show that the enigma 
 presented by them is as insoluble as ever, and 
 
 226
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 that all attempts to throw light on it have 
 served to effect nothing more than to make 
 darkness visible and confusion worse confounded. 
 Let us briefly review the facts. In 1609, Thomas 
 Thorpe, a well-known Elizabethan bookseller, 
 published a small quarto volume, entitled Shake- 
 speare s Sonnets, having apparently not obtained 
 them from the poet himself, and to this volume 
 was prefixed the following dedication : " To 
 the onlie begetter of these ensuing Sonnets, Mr. 
 W. H., all happiness and that eternitie promised 
 by our ever-living poet wisheth the well-wishing 
 adventurer in setting forth. T. T." Here begins 
 and ends all that is certainly known about 
 W. H. and his relation to these poems. No one 
 knows who he was ; no one knows what is 
 exactly meant by the word " begetter," whether 
 it is to be taken in the sense of inspirer, whether 
 that is to say W. H. is the youth celebrated 
 in the Sonnets " the master-mistress " of the 
 poet's passion, or whether it simply means the 
 person who got or procured the poems for 
 Thorpe, hi which case the identification of the 
 initials is of no consequence, unless we are 
 to suppose that the youth who inspired them 
 presented them to Thorpe. Mr. Sidney Lee, in 
 his very able paper in the Fortnightly Review for 
 February, 1898, and in his Life of Shakespeare, 
 argues that there is no proof that the youth 
 of the Sonnets was named " Will," though 
 this has always been assumed to be the case. 
 
 227
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 The evidence on which the point must be 
 argued will be found in the puns on " Will " 
 in Sonnets cxxxiv.-vi. and cxliii. It seems to 
 us, we must own, that the balance of proba- 
 bility, though not certainly in favour of the 
 affirmative, decidedly inclines towards it. 
 Granting then, for it is, after all, only an 
 hypothesis, that the initials W. H. are those of 
 the youth celebrated in the Sonnets, to whom 
 are they to be assigned ? The youth, whoever he 
 was, is represented as being in a social position 
 superior to that of the poet ; he has apparently 
 rank and title ; he has wealth ; he is young and 
 eminently handsome, his beauty being of a 
 delicate, effeminate cast ; he is highly cultivated 
 and accomplished ; he is on terms of the closest 
 intimacy with the poet, by whom he is passion- 
 ately beloved ; he lives a free, loose life, and he 
 intrigues with his friend's mistress. 
 
 Passing by all preposterous theories about 
 William Harte, William Hughes, William Him- 
 self and the like, we come to the two names 
 which seem worth serious consideration, William 
 Herbert, third Earl of Pembroke, and Henry 
 Wriothesly, third Earl of Southampton. The 
 Pembroke theory, with Mr. Thomas Tyler's 
 corollary identifying the " dark lady " with 
 Mary Fitton, has been adopted by Dr. Brandes 
 in his work on Shakespeare just published. But 
 the difficulties in the way of accepting it are 
 insuperable. They have been admirably dis- 
 
 228
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 cussed by Mr. Sidney Lee in the article to which 
 we have referred. In the first place, while 
 Shakespeare must have been on terms of more 
 than brotherly intimacy with the youth of the 
 Sonnets, there is no evidence at all that he had 
 ever been in any other relation with the Earl 
 than in the ordinary one of servant and patron. 
 The words of Heminge and Condell, in the dedi- 
 cation of the first folio to Pembroke and his 
 brother, merely state that they had both of 
 them " prosequted " him with favour ; in other 
 words, been to him what they had been to 
 many other dramatists and men of letters ; and 
 that is the only evidence of any connection 
 between Shakespeare and Pembroke. Tradition 
 was certainly silent about any relations between 
 them, for Aubrey, as Mr. Lee has pointed out, 
 though he has collected much information about 
 both, says nothing about their acquaintance- 
 ship, though he mentions Pembroke's connec- 
 tion with Massinger, and Southampton's with 
 Shakespeare. But Thorpe's dedication is con- 
 clusive against Pembroke. In 1609, Pembroke, 
 who had succeeded to the title on the death of 
 his father in January, 1G01, was Lord Chamber- 
 lain, a Knight of the Garter, and one of the 
 most distinguished noblemen in England. Is 
 it credible that Thorpe would address him as 
 Mr. W. H., more especially as in the other 
 works which he inscribed to him, and he 
 inscribed several, he is careful to give him all 
 
 229
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 his titles, and to address him with the most 
 fulsome servility? Again, Pembroke, as Mr. 
 Lee points out, was never a " Mister" at all. As 
 the eldest son of an earl, he was designated by 
 courtesy Lord Herbert, and as Lord Herbert he 
 is always spoken of in contemporary records. 
 The appellation " Mr. " was not, as Mr. Lee 
 observes, used loosely, as it is now, and could 
 never have been applied to any nobleman, 
 whether holding his title by right or by courtesy. 
 Whatever allowance may be made for a poet's 
 passion and fancy, some weight must be attached 
 to the insistence made in the Sonnets on the 
 youth's delicate and effeminate beauty. It is 
 true that we have no portraits of Pembroke 
 before he arrived at middle age, but those 
 portraits justify us in concluding that he 
 could never, at any time, have been distin- 
 guished by beauty of the type indicated in the 
 poems. 
 
 Against all this the advocates of the Pembroke 
 theory have nothing to place but conjectures, a 
 series of insignificant coincidences and the 
 assumption that the woman in the Sonnets is to 
 be identified with the woman who bore Herbert 
 a child, Mary Fitton. The publication of Sonnet 
 xliv. by Jaggard, in 1599, shows that the intrigue 
 between the youth and the dark lady, which is 
 the central event of the Sonnets, was already, 
 and had probably been for some time, in full 
 career, while there is no evidence that Pem- 
 
 230
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 broke was involved with Mary Fitton before 
 the summer of 1600. But what finally disposes 
 of this theory is the testimony afforded by 
 Lady Newdigate-Newdegate's recently published 
 Gossip from a Muniment Room. Indispens- 
 able requisites in the lady of the Sonnets are, 
 that she should be dark, a " black beauty " with 
 " eyes raven black," with hair which resembles 
 " black wires," and that she should be a married 
 woman ; but the portraits and there are two of 
 them of Mary Fitton, show that she had a fair 
 complexion, with brown hair and grey eyes; and 
 she remained unmarried, until long after her 
 connection with Pembroke had ceased. 
 
 The theory which identifies W. H. with the 
 Earl of Southampton is slightly more plausible, 
 but the difficulties in the way of accepting it are, 
 in truth, equally insuperable. This theory has 
 at least one great point in its favour. Shake- 
 speare was acquainted, and it may be inferred 
 intimately acquainted, with Southampton, as 
 the dedications of Venus and Adonis and the 
 Rape of Lucrece indicate. Of his affection and 
 respect for this nobleman he has left an expres- 
 sion almost as remarkable as the language of the 
 sonnets. " The love I dedicate to your lordship 
 is without end. . . . What I have done is yours; 
 what I have to do is yours : being part in all I 
 have devoted yours. Were my worth greater, 
 my duty would show greater." This bears a 
 singularly close resemblance to Sonnet xxvi., 
 
 231
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 Lord of ray love, to whom in vassalage 
 
 Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, 
 
 To thee I send this written embassage 
 
 To witness duty, not to show my wit, 
 
 Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine 
 
 May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it." 
 
 And there is much in the Sonnets which can be 
 made to coincide with what we know of South- 
 ampton. But, as we push inquiry, difficulties of 
 all kinds begin to swarm in on us. The first is, 
 as in the case of Pembroke, with the dedication. 
 To say nothing of the fact that " W. H." is not 
 " H. W." the possibility of the appellation of 
 "Mr." being applied to one who had been an 
 Earl since 1581, and who had twice been ad- 
 dressed in dedications by his full titles, and that 
 by Shakespeare himself, is a wholly inadmissible 
 hypothesis. To argue that this was merely " a 
 blind," is simply to beg the question. If the 
 Sonnets were addressed to Southampton, they 
 must have been written between 1593 and 1598. 
 In 1593 Southampton was in his twenty-first 
 year, in 1598 in his twenty-sixth; Shakespeare, 
 respectively, in his thirty-first and thirty-fifth 
 year. Now, what is especially emphasized in the 
 sonnets is the youthfulness of the young man to 
 whom they are dedicated, and the advanced 
 age of the poet. In' Sonnet cviii. the youth is 
 addressed as "a sweet boy," in cxxvi. as "a 
 lovely boy," in liv. as "a beauteous and lovely 
 youth " ; in xcv. his " budding name " is referred 
 
 232
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 to, while the poet speaks of himself as " old," as 
 " beaten and chopped with tanned antiquity," as 
 being " with Time's injurious hand crushed and 
 o'erworn." And so, as has been more than once 
 pointed out, we have this anomaly a man of 
 thirty-four describing himself as a thing of 
 " tanned antiquity " in writing to " a sweet and 
 lovely boy " of twenty-five. No one could have 
 been less like the effeminate youth of the Son- 
 nets than Southampton. All we know about 
 him, including his portraits, indicates that he 
 was eminently masculine and manly. Again, it 
 is matter of history that he greatly distin- 
 guished himself on the Azores expedition in 
 1597, acquitting himself with so much gallantry 
 that, during the voyage, he was knighted by 
 Essex. To this expedition, which must have 
 involved one of those absences of which we hear 
 so much in the Sonnets, to this exploit and this 
 honour, which afforded so much opportunity for 
 peculiarly acceptable compliment, Shakespeare 
 makes no reference at all. There is nothing to 
 indicate that the youth of the Sonnets had 
 gained any military or political distinction, had 
 taken any part in public life, or had ever been 
 absent from England. To assume with Mr. Lee 
 that the Sonnets were written in or before 1594, 
 and therefore before Southampton had become 
 distinguished, is to involve ourselves in inextric- 
 able difficulties. Even Mr. Lee admits that 
 Sonnet cvii. must have reference to the death 
 
 233
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 of Elizabeth in 1603. With regard to the 
 supposed references to Southampton's relations 
 with Elizabeth Vernon, no certain, or, to speak 
 more accurately, no even plausible inferences 
 can be drawn in any particular : all that they 
 can be reduced to are degrees of improbability. 
 
 If, again, we accept the theory of Tyrwhitt and 
 Malone, supported by Mr. Butler, and suppose 
 that W. H. was some obscure person, we are 
 proceeding on mere hypothesis, and a hypothesis 
 seriously shaken by the plain meaning expressed 
 in Sonnets xxxvi., xxxvii., and cxxiv. 
 
 The enigma of these Sonnets is, we repeat, as 
 insoluble now as it was when inquiry was first 
 directed to them. Whether they are to be re- 
 garded as autobiographical, as dramatic studies, 
 as a mixture of both, as a collection of mis- 
 cellaneous poems, as written to order for others, 
 as mere exercises in the sonnet-cycle, or as all 
 of these things, is alike uncertain. Our know- 
 ledge of the time of their composition begins 
 and ends with the facts, that some of them 
 were, presumably, in circulation in or before 
 1598, that two of them had certainly been com- 
 posed in or before 1599, and that all of them 
 had been written by 1609. The rest is mere 
 conjecture ; and on mere conjecture and mere 
 hypothesis is based every attempt to solve 
 their mystery. If certainty about them can 
 ever be arrived at, it can only be attained by 
 evidence of which, as yet, we have not even an 
 
 234
 
 SHAKESPEARE'S SONNETS 
 
 inkling. The probability is, that it was Shake- 
 speare's intention, or rather Thorpe's intention, 
 to baffle curiosity, and, except in the judgment 
 of fanatics, he has certainly succeeded in doing 
 so. 
 
 For our own part we are very much inclined 
 to suspect, that they owed their origin to the 
 fashion of composing sonnet-cycles, that those 
 cycles suggested their themes and gave them 
 the ply ; that the beautiful youth, the rival poet, 
 and the dark lady are pure fictions of the 
 imagination ; and that these poems are autobio- 
 graphical only in the sense in which Venus and 
 Adonis, the Rape of Lucrece, Romeo and Juliet 
 and Othello are autobiographical 
 
 235
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 IT would be scarcely possible for a critic of 
 Mr. Palgrave's taste and learning to produce 
 a treatise on any aspect of poetry, which would 
 not be full of interest and instruction, and the 
 present volume is a contribution, and in some 
 respects a memorable contribution, to a par- 
 ticularly attractive subject of critical inquiry. 
 Its purpose is to trace the history of descriptive 
 poetry in its relation, that is to say, to natural 
 objects and more particularly to landscape, by 
 illustrating its characteristics at different periods, 
 and among different nations. Beginning with 
 the Homeric poems, Mr. Palgrave reviews suc- 
 cessively the " landscape " of the Greeks, the 
 Romans, the Hebrews, the mediaeval Italians, 
 the Celts, the Anglo-Saxons, and of our own 
 poets, from the predecessors of Chaucer to Lord 
 Tennyson. That a work, covering an area so 
 immense, should be far less satisfactory in some 
 portions than in others is no more than what 
 
 1 Landscape in Poetry from Homer to Tennyson. By 
 Francis T. Pal grave. 
 
 236
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 might be expected, and Mr. Palgrave would 
 probably be himself the first to admit that, ex- 
 cept when he is dealing with the classical poetry 
 of Hellas, of ancient and mediaeval Italy, and of 
 our own country, his treatise has no pretension 
 to adequacy. Even within these bounds there 
 is much which is irrelevant, and much which is 
 surprisingly defective. Where, as in a subject 
 like this, the material at the author's disposal is 
 necessarily so superabundant, surely the utmost 
 care should have been taken both to keep within 
 the limits of the theme proposed, and to select 
 the most pertinent and typical illustrations. 
 But when Mr. Palgrave illustrates " Homeric 
 landscape " by the simile describing the heifers 
 frisking about the drove of cows in the fold- 
 yard, and the " Sophoclean landscape " by the 
 simile of the blast-impelled wave rolling up the 
 shingle, he lays himself open to the imputation 
 of drawing at random on his commonplace 
 book. Indeed, the pleasure with which lovers 
 of classical poetry will read this book cannot 
 fail to be mingled with the liveliest surprise and 
 disappointment. Take the Homeric poems. If 
 a reader, tolerably well versed in the Iliad and 
 Odyssey, were asked for illustrations of the 
 power with which natural phenomena are de- 
 scribed, to what would he turn ? Certainly not 
 to Mr. Palgrave's meagre and trivial examples, 
 three of which alone have any title to perti- 
 nence. He would turn to the winter landscape 
 
 237
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 in Iliad, xii. 278-286, to the lifting of the cloud 
 from the landscape in Iliad, xvi. 296 : 
 
 ' 
 
 8' or' dfp 1 vi/fj/AJJr Kopixp^s opeos /ieyaXoio 
 
 fjv vt(p(^.rjv a-Tfponrjyfpfra Z(vs, 
 T' tcpavfv Tracrai trKoirial KOI nptaoixs anpoi 
 Kal vdrrai, ovpavodev 8' ap' vTrtppdyrj aa-ntros aldqp. 
 
 " As when Zeus, the gatherer of the lightning, moves a 
 thick cloud from the high head of some mighty mountain, 
 and all the cliffs and the jutting crags and the dells start 
 into light, and the immeasurable heaven breaks open to its 
 highest " ; 
 
 to the descent of the wind on the sea, Ib. xi. 
 305-308 :- 
 
 its OTrore Z((pvpos vttpta crrti0eAi')' / 
 dpytffTao Noroto, Paddy AaiAcnrt TVITTUV' 
 TroAAoi/ 8e rp6(f)i KVJJ.(I KvAiVSerai, v\lr6(Te 8' (ix vr l 
 (TKtSvarat ft- aj/e'/xoio TroAuTrAayKTOio iof)s. 
 
 "As when the west wind buffets the cloudlets of the 
 brightening south wind, lashing them with furious squall, 
 and the big wave swells up and rolls along, and the spray is 
 scattered on high by the blast of the careering gale " ; 
 
 or to the pictures of the billow-buffeted headland, 
 and the wave bursting on the ship in Iliad, xv. 
 618-628 ; or to the storm-cloud coming over the 
 sea in Iliad, iv. 277 ; or to the descent of the 
 wind on the standing corn, Iliad, ii. 147. He 
 would point, above all, to the description of 
 Calypso's grotto, in Odyssey, v. 63-74; to that 
 of the harbour of Phorcys, in Odyssey, xiii. 
 97-112 ; to the fountain in the grove, xvii. 
 205-211. Mr. Palgrave comments justly on 
 Homer's minute observation of nature ; but he 
 
 238
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 only gives one illustration, where it is noticed in 
 Odyssey, vi. 94, that the sea, in beating on the 
 coast, " washed the pebbles clean." He might 
 have added with propriety many others : as 
 the " earth blackening behind the plough," in 
 Iliad, xviii. 548 ; the bats in the cave, Odyssey, 
 xxiv. 5-8 ; the birds escaping from the vultures, 
 niad, xxii. 304, 305 ; the wasps " wriggling as 
 far as the middle," o-^/ee? pkaov aloXoi, Iliad, 
 xii. 167 ; the dogs and the lions, Iliad, xviii. 
 585, 586. 
 
 Mr. Palgrave observes that Homer " was not 
 only familiar with the sea, but loved it with a 
 love somewhat unusual in poets." We venture 
 to submit that there is not a line in Homer 
 indicating that he " loved " the sea, except for 
 poetical purposes ; like most of the Greeks he 
 probably dreaded it ; his real feeling towards 
 it is no doubt indicated in his own words : 
 
 ov yap t'yci) ye ri (/>'//" KdKaTfpov aXXo 6a\d(rcrtjs 
 avdpa yt 
 
 nothing crushes a man's spirit more than 
 the sea. Mr. Palgrave justly points out that 
 Hesiod's rude prosaic style and matter are not 
 congenial to the poetic landscape, yet it is only 
 fair to Hesiod to say, that his poetry is not with- 
 out vivid touches of natural description, as the 
 winter scene in Works and Days, 504 sqq., and 
 his description of the beginning of spring, 
 565-569, show. Professor Palgrave next glances 
 
 239
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 at the treatment of nature in the lyric poets, 
 and very properly cites the lovely fragment of 
 Alcman : 
 
 /ydXe 817 3aAe KT)pv\os (irjv 
 
 6s r' tVJ KVfjLaros tivdos a/i' dXicvovecrcri nroTr/rcu, 
 rop ()(a>i>, a\nr6p<pvpos eiapos opvis, 
 
 but in translating it makes a truly extraordinary 
 blunder. 
 
 " Would I were the kingfisher, as he flies, with his mates 
 in his feeble age, between wind and water." 
 
 vr)\eye<i rjrop meaning, as we need hardly say, 
 "reckless heart"; it is exactly Byron's, "With 
 all her reckless birds upon the wing." In 
 the quotations from Sappho, Ibycus, and 
 Pindar, Mr. Palgrave has been judicious and 
 happy, but surely he ought to have found place 
 for the lovely flower cradle of lamus in the sixth 
 Olympic Ode, and for the moonlight evening 
 in the third Olympian, only seven words, but 
 what a picture ! while, in the popular poetry, 
 the omission of the Swallow Song is inexplic- 
 able. 1 Nor can we forgive him the omission 
 of the magnificent simile of the spring wind 
 clearing away the clouds, in the thirteenth of 
 the fragments attributed to Solon. 
 
 But it is in dealing with the Greek dramatists 
 that Mr. Palgrave is most defective in illustration. 
 It is not to the opening of the Prometheus, or to 
 the conclusion, or, indeed, to any of the passages 
 
 1 See Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Carm. Pop. xxix. 
 240
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 from this poet which Mr. Palgrave cites, that 
 we must turn for jEschylean landscape, or for 
 illustration of this poet's power of natural de- 
 scription. It is to his brief picture his pictures 
 of scenery, though singularly vivid, are always 
 brief of the airy seat "against which the 
 watery clouds drift into snow," 
 
 Xtoxrat atytXc^ (inpt'xrKdKros olncjtpuv xpr/xar 
 yvnias irfrpa (Supplices, 772-8), 
 
 where almost every word is a perfect picture, 
 literally beggaring mere translation ; it is to his 
 description, so magical in its rhythm, of the 
 mid-day sea slumbering in summer calm (Aga- 
 memnon, 548-50), 
 
 ir6vros iv 
 
 tvSoi irtavtv, 
 
 to his picture of the keen brisk wind, clearing 
 the clouds away, to bring into relief against the 
 sky the dark masses of waves tossing on the hori- 
 zon (Agamemnon, 1152-54), to his world-famous 
 
 ycXacr/xa. 
 " The multitudinous laughter of the ocean waves." 
 
 Prometfieus, 89-90. 
 
 Mr. Palgrave has, of course, cited with reference 
 to Sophocles the great chorus in the (Edipus 
 Coloneus, but he has omitted to notice that, if 
 Sophocles has not elsewhere given us so elabo- 
 rate a piece of natural description, innumerable 
 E.G. 241 Q
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 touches in the dramas, and more particularly in 
 the fragments, show that he observed nature 
 almost as minutely as Shakespeare. Nothing 
 could be more vivid than the touches of descrip- 
 tion in the Philoctetes. From Euripides Mr. Pal- 
 grave cites nothing, observing that he rarely goes 
 beyond somewhat conventional phrases. Surely 
 Mr. Palgrave must have forgotten the magnifi- 
 cent description of Parnassus, as seen from the 
 plain, in the Phcenissce, the glorious description 
 of a moonlight night, as represented on the 
 tapestry, in the /on, the vivid touches of natural 
 description in the Bacchce, that of the meadow 
 in the Hippolytus, and the chorus about Athens 
 in the Medea, to say nothing of the charming 
 rural picture in the fragments of the Phaeton. 1 
 To say of Aristophanes that, in his treatment of 
 nature, he rarely goes beyond somewhat common 
 phrases, is to say what is refuted, not merely in 
 the chorus referred to by Mr. Palgrave, but in 
 the Frogs and in the Birds. He stands next to 
 Homer in his keen sensibility to the charm of 
 nature. Shelley himself might have written 
 the choruses referred to. In dealing with the 
 Alexandrian poets Mr. Palgrave passes over 
 Apollonius Rhodius and Callimachus entirely, 
 and yet the fine picture of Delos given by Calli- 
 machus in the Hymn to Delos is one of the 
 gems of ancient description, and Apollonius 
 Rhodius abounds with the most graphic and 
 1 Naucki Trag. Graze. Frag., p. 473. 
 242
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 charming delineations of scenery and natural 
 objects. What a beautiful description of early 
 morning is this ! 
 
 ovpavodtv \apairr) {nro\d 
 (K irrpaTTjt aviovo-a, fiiayXavo-o-overi 8' arapiro/, 
 KOI 7t(8ia bpovotvTa (paetvfj Xd/iTTfrat myXfl. 
 
 Argon, i. 1280-1283. 
 
 " What time from heaven the bright glad morn coming up 
 from the East begins to shine, and path and road are all 
 agleam, and the dew-bespangled plains are flashing with the 
 radiant light." 
 
 How vivid too, and with the vividness of modern 
 poetry, are his descriptions of the cave of Hades 
 and its neighbourhood (ii. 729-750), and the 
 Great Syrtis (iv. 1230-1245) ! In his selections 
 from the Greek Anthology Mr. Palgrave is much 
 happier ; but here again he has many omissions, 
 and among them the most remarkable illustra- 
 tion of Greek nature-painting to be found in 
 that collection namely, Melcager's idyll giving 
 an elaborate description of a spring day, which 
 might have been written by Thomson (Pal. 
 Anthology, ix. 363). It may bo observed in 
 passing that ovpeatyotra Kplva (Pal. Anth., v. 144) 
 can hardly mean "lilies that wander over the 
 hills," but lilies " that haunt the hills," and that 
 %ovdal fj.f\io-<rai in Theocritus, vii. 142, probably 
 means " buzzing " bees, not " tawny." 
 
 In dealing with the Roman poets Mr. Palgrave 
 is, with one exception, most unsatisfactory. 
 From the poets preceding Lucretius, amply as 
 
 243
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 the fragments would serve his purpose, he gives 
 only one illustration. We should have expected 
 the vivid picture given by Accius in his (Enomaus 
 of the early morning : 
 
 " Forte ante Auroram, radiorum ardentum indicem, 
 Cum e somno in segetem agrestis cornutos cient, 
 Ut rorulentas terras ferro rufidas 
 Proscindant, glebasque arvo ex molli exsuscitent." 
 
 "Perchance before the dawn that heralds the burning rays, 
 what time rustics bring forth the oxen from their sleep into 
 the cornfields, to break up the red dew-spangled soil with the 
 ploughshare, and turn up the clods from the soft soil " ; 
 
 or the wonderfully graphic description of a 
 sudden storm at sea, in the fragments of the 
 Dulorestes of Pacuvius : 
 
 " Profectione Iseti piscium lasciviam 
 Intuentur, nee tuendi capere satietas potest. 
 Interea prope jam occidente sole inhorrescit mare, 
 Tenebrse conduplicantur, noctisque et nimbum occsecat nigror, 
 Flamma inter nubes coruscat, cselum tonitru contremit, 
 Grando mixta imbri largifico subita prsecipitans cadit, 
 Undique omnes venti erumpunt, ssevi existunt turbines, 
 Fervit aestu pelagus." 
 
 "Glad at heart when they set out they gaze at the sporting 
 fish, and are never weary of looking at them. Meanwhile, 
 hard upon sunset, the sea ruffles, darkness gathers thick, the 
 blackness of the storm-clouded night hides everything, flame 
 flashes between the clouds, heaven shakes with thunder, 
 hail, mingled with streaming rain, dashes suddenly down, 
 from every quarter all the winds tear forth, wild whirlwinds 
 rise, the sea boils with the seething waters." 
 
 With Lucretius, indeed, he deals fully, and this 
 
 244
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 portion of his work leaves little to be desired. 
 
 But a reference to the lines to Sirmio and one 
 
 illustration from the Peleus and Thetis exhaust 
 
 his examples from Catullus. We should have 
 
 expected the picture of the stream leaping from 
 
 the mossy rock into the valley beneath, in the 
 
 Epistle to Manlius, of the morning chasing 
 
 away the shadows in the Attis, and the lovely 
 
 flower pictures in the Epithalamia. In dealing 
 
 with Virgil most of Mr. Palgrave's citations 
 
 are practically irrelevant ; scarcely any of the 
 
 passages which best illustrate Virgil's power 
 
 of landscape painting being even referred to. 
 
 " The jEneid," says Mr. Palgrave, " may be 
 
 briefly 'dismissed. Natural description can 
 
 have but little place in an epic." And yet 
 
 what are the passages to which any one, who 
 
 wishes to illustrate the charm and power of 
 
 Virgil's pictures of scenery, would naturally 
 
 turn ? Surely to these : the description of the 
 
 rocky recess which sheltered ^Eneas's ships 
 
 (JEneid, i. 159-168), a picture worthy of Sal- 
 
 vator ; the picture of ^Etna (iii. 570-582), which 
 
 rivals the picture of it given by Pindar, a picture 
 
 praised so justly by Mr. Palgrave himself; the 
 
 description of a calm night (iv. 522-527); the 
 
 wave-buffeted, gull-haunted rock (v. 124-128) ; 
 
 and, above all, the scenery at the mouth of the 
 
 Tiber, bathed in the rays of the morning sun, 
 
 a picture unexcelled even by Tennyson. Nor 
 
 even in the Georgics is any reference made to 
 
 245
 
 L 
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 the superb description of a storm in harvest 
 time (i. 216-334), or to the magnificent winter 
 piece (iii. 349-370). 
 
 The remarks about the indifference of Pro- 
 pertius to natural scenery are most unjust. 
 What a charming picture is this ! 
 
 "Grata domus Nymphis humida Thyniasin, 
 Quam supra nullse pendebant debita curse 
 
 Eoscida desertis poma sub arboribus ; 
 Et circum irriguo surgebant lilia prato 
 Candida purpureis mixta papaveribus." 
 
 El., I. xx. 35-39. 
 
 It may be conceded that Ovid is conventional 
 and commonplace in his treatment of nature ; but 
 why is Valerius Flaccus, with his bold, vivid 
 touches, left unnoticed? Why does one citation 
 suffice for the many exquisite cameos which 
 ought to have been given from Statius ? Another 
 inexplicable omission in Mr. Palgrave's work is 
 the poem entitled Rosce, attributed to Auso- 
 nius a lovely poem, infinitely more beautiful 
 than the epigram quoted by Mr. Palgravo from 
 the Latin Anthology, and rivalling the fragment 
 given by him from Tiberianus. Most readers 
 would agree with him in his estimate of Claudian, 
 but he might have added the fine description of 
 Olympus in the De Consulatu Theodori, 200-210 : 
 
 "Ut altus Olympi 
 
 Vertex, qui spatio ventos hiemesque relinquit, 
 Perpetuum nulla temeratus nube serenum 
 Celsior exsurgit pluviis, auditque ruentes 
 Sub pedibua iiimbos, et rauca tonitrua calcat;' 
 240
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 which Goldsmith, by the way, has borrowed and 
 paraphrased in the Deserted Village, together with 
 its sublime application : 
 
 As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form 
 Swells from the vale and midway leaves the storm, 
 Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread, 
 Eternal sunshine settles round its head. 
 
 Space does not serve to follow Mr. Palgrave 
 through his chapters on Italian, Celtic, and Anglo- 
 Saxon poetry, in all of which his omissions are 
 as remarkable as his citations ; so we must con- 
 tent ourselves with making a few remarks on 
 his treatment of the English poets. It is pleasing 
 to see that, guided by Gray, he has done justice 
 to Lydgate, but he has not noticed the distin- 
 guishing peculiarity of this poet in his descrip- 
 tion, his extraordinary sensitive appreciation of 
 colour. 
 
 Among the Scotch poets of the fifteenth cen- 
 tury a prominent place should have been given 
 to Henryson who is not even mentioned. Mr. 
 Palgravo hurries over the Elizabethan poets 
 with too much expedition, and the poets of the 
 eighteenth century fare even worse. Great in- 
 justice is done to Thomson. Why did not Mr. 
 Palgrave, instead of citing what he calls Thom- 
 son's " cold " tropical landscape, for the purpose 
 of contrasting it unfavourably with Tennyson's 
 picture in Enoch Arden, give us instead the 
 Summer morning 
 
 247
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 "At first faint gleaming in the dappled East 
 . . . Young day pours in apace, 
 And opens all the lawny prospect wide, 
 The dripping rock, the mountain's misty tops 
 Swell on the sight, and brighten with the dawn, 
 Blue through the dusk the smoking currents shine," 
 
 or 
 
 " The clouds that pass, 
 For ever flushing round a summer sky " ; 
 
 or the rainbow in the Lines to the Memory oj 
 Sir Isaac Newton? Dyer may be somewhat 
 prosaic, but he is not a poet to be despatched in 
 a treatise on descriptive poetry, without citation, 
 in a few contemptuous lines : how vivid is his 
 picture of a calm in the tropics ! 
 
 " The dewy feather, on the cordage hung, 
 Moves not ; the flat sea shines, like yellow gold 
 Fused in the fire " ; 
 
 or his 
 
 " Rocks in ever-wild 
 Posture of falling " ; 
 
 or the charming landscape in' Grongar Hill with 
 such touches as these : 
 
 " The windy summit wild and high 
 Roughly rushing on the sky " ; 
 
 or 
 
 " Rushing from the woods the spires 
 Seem from hence ascending fires." 
 
 As Wordsworth said, "Dyer's beauties are in- 
 numerable and of a high order." It is very sur- 
 prising that nothing should have been said 
 
 248
 
 LANDSCAPE IN POETRY 
 
 about Shenstone and the Wartons, about Scott of 
 Amwell, Jago, Crowe and Bowles, all of whom are, 
 in various ways, remarkable as descriptive poets. 
 And certainly Mr. Palgrave does scant justice to 
 Cowper ; his touch may be prosaic, but he always 
 had his eye on the object, and his landscape 
 lives. Surely, by the way, Mr. Palgrave is mis- 
 taken in supposing that Shelley apparently 
 understood Alastor to mean a " wanderer " ; he 
 understood it, as the preface shows, to mean, 
 what it means so often in Greek, " one under the 
 spell of an avenging deity." 
 
 Here we must break off. Mr. Palgrave's is an 
 important work, and it is the duty, therefore, of 
 a critic to review it seriously, in the hope that, 
 should it reach a second edition, which may be 
 confidently anticipated, Mr. Palgrave may be 
 disposed to do a little more justice to his most 
 interesting subject. 
 
 Since this article was written Mr. Palgrave's lamented 
 death has unhappily rendered all hope of what was antici- 
 pated in the last paragraph, vain. But the review has been 
 reprinted, and with some additions, in the hope that it may 
 not be unacceptable as a contribution, however slight and 
 imperfect, to a subject of great interest to lovers of poetry. 
 
 249
 
 AN APPRECIATION OF PROFESSOR 
 PALGRAVE 
 
 A FAMILIAR figure in literary circles, a fine 
 critic, a graceful and scholarly minor 
 poet, and one whose name will long be held in 
 affectionate remembrance by lovers of English 
 poetry, has passed away in the person of Francis 
 Turner Palgrave. It would be absurd to place 
 him beside Matthew Arnold to whose genius, to 
 whose characteristic accomplishments, to whoso 
 authority and influence, he had no pretension. 
 And yet it may be questioned whether, after 
 Arnold, any other critic of our time contributed 
 so much to educate public taste where, in this 
 country, it most needs such education. If, as a 
 nurse of poets and in poetic achievement, England 
 stands second to no nation in Europe, in no 
 nation in the world has the standard of popular 
 taste been so low, has the insensibility to what 
 is excellent, and the perverse preference of what 
 is mediocre to what is of the first order, been so 
 signally, so deplorably, conspicuous. The gene- 
 ration which produced Wordsworth preferred 
 Moore, and no less a person than the author 
 of Vanity Fair wrote : " Old daddy Words- 
 
 250
 
 PROFESSOR PALGRAVE 
 
 worth may bless his stars if he ever gets high 
 enough in Heaven to black Tommy Moore's 
 boots." While the readers of Keats might have 
 been numbered on his fingers, Robert Mont- 
 gomery's Satan and Omnipresence of the Deity 
 were going through their twelfth editions. 
 During many years, for ten readers of Brown- 
 ing's poems there were a hundred thousand 
 for Martin Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, while 
 the popularity of Mrs. Browning was as a wan 
 shadow to the meridian splendour of Eliza 
 Cook. Whoever will turn to the criticism of 
 current reviews and magazines forty years ago 
 will have no difficulty in understanding the 
 diathesis described by Matthew Arnold as " on 
 the side of beauty and taste, vulgarity ; on the 
 side of morality and feeling, coarseness ; on the 
 side of mind and spirit, unintelligence." Who- 
 ever will turn to nine out of the ten Antho- 
 logies, most in vogue before 1861, will under- 
 stand, that the same instinct which in the Dark 
 Ages led man to prefer Sedulius and Avitus to 
 Catullus and Horace, Statius to Virgil, and 
 Hroswitha to Terence, led these editors to ana- 
 logous selections. 
 
 Making every allowance for the co-operation 
 of other causes, it would hardly be an exagge- 
 ration to say that the appearance of the Golden 
 Treasury of Songs and Lyrics in 1861 initiated 
 an era in popular taste. It remains now in- 
 comparably the best selection of its kind in 
 
 251
 
 AN APPRECIATION OF 
 
 existence. Its distinctive feature is the charac- 
 tistic which differentiates it from all the antho- 
 logies which preceded or have followed it. It was 
 to include nothing which was not first-rate ; 
 there was to be no compromise with the second- 
 rate ; if its gems varied, as gems do in value, 
 each was to be of the first water. With patient 
 and scrupulous diligence, the whole body of 
 English poetry, from Surrey to Wordsworth, was 
 explored and sifted. After due rejections, each 
 piece in the residue was considered, weighed, 
 tested. And here Mr. Palgrave had assistance, 
 more invaluable than any other anthologist in 
 the world has had that of the illustrious poet 
 to whom the volume was dedicated. It may be 
 safely said of Tennyson that nature and culture 
 had qualified him for being as great a critic as 
 he was a poet. His taste was probably infallible ; 
 his touchstones and standards were derived not 
 merely from the masters who had taught him 
 his own art, but from a wonderfully catholic and 
 sympathetic communion with all that was best 
 in every sphere of influential artistic activity. 
 The consequence is, that a book like the Golden 
 Treasury, especially when taken in conjunction 
 with the notes, which form an admirable com- 
 mentary on the text, may be said to lay some- 
 thing more than the foundation of a sound 
 critical education. What the Golden Treasury 
 is to readers of a maturer age the Children s 
 Treasury is to younger readers. It is a great 
 
 252
 
 PROFESSOR PALGRAVE 
 
 pity that such inferior works as many which we 
 could name are allowed, in our schools, to sup- 
 plant such a work as Palgrave's. The same ex- 
 quisite taste and nice discernment mark his other 
 anthologies, his selections from Herrick, and 
 Tennyson, and, though perhaps in a less degree, 
 his Treasury of English Sacred Poetry, and 
 his recently published supplement to the Golden 
 Treasury. It is probably impossible to over- 
 estimate the salutary influence which these 
 works have exercised. 
 
 There is no arguing on matters of taste, and 
 exception might easily be taken, sometimes, to his 
 dicta as a critic. But this at least must be con- 
 ceded by everybody, that in the best and most 
 comprehensive sense of the term he was a man 
 of classical temper, taste, and culture, and that 
 ho had all the insight and discernment, all the 
 instincts and sympathies, which are the result of 
 such qualifications. He had no taint of vulgarity, 
 of charlatanism, of insincerity. He never talked 
 or wrote the cant of the cliques or of the multi- 
 tude. He understood and clung to what was 
 excellent ; he had no toleration for what was 
 common and second rate ; he was not of the 
 crowd. He belonged to the same type of men 
 as Matthew Arnold and William Cory, a type 
 peculiar to our old Universities before things 
 took the turn which they are taking now. It 
 will be long before we shall have such critics 
 again, and their loss is incalculable. 
 
 253
 
 PROFESSOR PALGRAVE 
 
 As a scholar Palgrave was rather elegant 
 than profound or exact, and, to judge from a 
 series of lectures delivered by him as Professor 
 of Poetry at Oxford, on Landscape in Classical 
 Poetry, and afterwards published in a work 
 which is here reviewed, his acquaintance with 
 the Greek and Roman poets was, if scholarly 
 and sympathetic, somewhat superficial. But he 
 was getting old, and perhaps he had lost his 
 memory or his notes. As a poet he was the 
 author of four volumes, the earliest, published 
 in 1864, entitled Idylls and Songs, and the 
 latest, published in 1892, Amenophis ; and other 
 Poems. But his most ambitious effort appeared 
 in 1882, Visions of England, written with the 
 laudable purpose of stirring up in the young 
 the spirit of patriotism. His poetry may be 
 described, not inaptly, in the sentence in which 
 Dr. Johnson sums up the characteristics of 
 Addison's verses : " Polished and pure, the 
 production of a mind too judicious to commit 
 faults, but not sufficiently vigorous to attain 
 excellence." Perhaps they served their end in 
 procuring for him the honourable appointment 
 which he filled competently for ten years that 
 of the Professorship of Poetry at Oxford. It 
 may be said of him as was said of Southey, he 
 was a good man and not a bad poet, or of 
 Agricola, decentior quam sublimior fuit. But 
 as a critic of Belles Lettres he was excellent. 
 
 254
 
 ANCIENT GREEK AND MODERN 
 LIFE 1 
 
 THAT a second edition of Professor Butcher's 
 essays on Some Aspects of the Greek Genius 
 should have been called for so soon is assuredly 
 a very significant fact. And it is significant in 
 more ways than one. It not only goes far to 
 refute Lord Coleridge's theory that Greek has 
 lost its hold on modern life, but it furnishes one 
 of the many proofs, which we have recently had, 
 that people are beginning to understand what is 
 now to be expected from classical scholars, if 
 classical scholars are to hold their own in the 
 world of to-day, and that scholars are, in their 
 turn, aware that they no longer constitute an 
 esoteric guild for esoteric studies. The task of 
 the purely philological labourer has been accom- 
 plished. During more than four centuries, suc- 
 ceeding schools of literal critics have been toiling 
 to furnish mankind with the moans of unlocking 
 the treasures of classical Greece. Till within 
 
 1 Some Aspects of the Greek Genius. By S. II. Butcher, 
 Litt. D., LL.D. London. 
 
 255
 
 ANCIENT GREEK AND 
 
 comparatively recent times, the power of read- 
 ing the Greek classics with accuracy and ease 
 was an accomplishment beyond the reach of any 
 but specialists. Unless a student was prepared 
 to grapple with the difficulties of unsettled and 
 often unintelligible texts, to make his own gram- 
 mar nay, his own dictionary to choose be- 
 tween conflicting and contradictory interpreta- 
 tions, and, in a word, to possess all that now 
 would be required in a classical editor, it would 
 be impossible for him to read, with any comfort, 
 a chorus of j33schylus or Sophocles, an ode of 
 Pindar, or a speech in Thucydides. But now all 
 these difficulties have vanished. Excellent lexi- 
 cons, grammars, commentaries, and translations, 
 with settled texts, and editions of the principal 
 Greek classics so satisfactory that practically 
 they leave nothing to be desired, have rendered 
 what was once the monopoly of mere scholars 
 common property. The power of reading Greek 
 with accuracy and comfort is now, indeed, within 
 the reach of any person of average intelligence 
 and industry. 
 
 But prescription and tradition are tenacious of 
 their privileges. Greek has so long been re- 
 garded as the inheritance of philologists, that 
 they are not prepared to resign what was once 
 their exclusive possession, without a struggle. It 
 is useless to point out to them that, if Greek is 
 to maintain its place in modern education, it can 
 only maintain it by virtue of its connection 
 
 256
 
 MODERN LIFE 
 
 with the humanities, by virtue of its intrinsic 
 value as the expression of genius and art, 
 and of its historical value as the key to the 
 development and characteristics of the classics 
 of the modern world ; by virtue, in fine, of its 
 relation to life, and its relation to History and 
 Criticism. The revival, indeed, of the trivium 
 and quadrivium of the Middle Ages would not 
 be an absurder anachronism than it is to draw 
 no distinction between the functions and aims of 
 classical scholarship, when it was, necessarily, 
 confined to philologists and specialists, and its 
 functions and aims at the present day. It has 
 been the obstinate determination on the part of 
 academic bodies not to recognise this distinction, 
 but to preserve Greek as the monopoly of those 
 who approach it only on the side of philological 
 specialism, which has led to its complete dis- 
 sociation in our scholastic system from what 
 constitutes its chief, almost its sole title to pre- 
 servation. At Cambridge, for example, it has 
 been expressly excluded from the only School in 
 which the study of Literature has been organ- 
 ized, and an attempt to substitute Modern 
 Languages in its place for a degree in arts- 
 was only defeated by the intervention of non- 
 resident members of the University. At Oxford 
 a scheme for a " School of Literature," in which 
 Greek was to have no place, might, not long ago 
 have been carried, and the casting vote of the 
 proctor alone saved the University from this 
 E.c. 257 B
 
 ANCIENT GREEK AND 
 
 disgrace, and Greek from a crushing blow. 1 But, 
 fortunately for the cause of Greek, there is every 
 indication that a reaction, too strong for acade- 
 mic bodies to resist, is setting in. Scholars are 
 beginning to see that what Socrates did for Philo- 
 sophy must now be done for Greek, if Greek is 
 to hold its own. Thus, it has preserved, and no 
 doubt may preserve, its esoteric side ; but that 
 which constitutes its chief, its real importance 
 which justifies its retention in modern education 
 is not what appeals, and can only appeal, in 
 each generation, to a small circle of " specialists " 
 its philological interest, but what appeals to 
 liberal intelligence, to men as men, to the poet, 
 to the philosopher, to the orator, to the critic. 
 To this end, to what may be described as the 
 vitalization of Greek, all the labours of the 
 late Professor Jowett were directed ; and by 
 his means Plato, Thucydides, and Aristotle are 
 brought into influential relation with modern 
 life. What he effected for them Professor Jebb 
 has effected for Sophocles, and not only has this 
 unrivalled Greek scholar placed within the reach 
 of any person of average intelligence all that is 
 necessary for the elucidation of the language, 
 art, and philosophy of the Shakespeare of the 
 Athenian stage, but he has not disdained to fur- 
 nish a popular manual of Homeric study, and a 
 popular elementary guide-book to Greek litera- 
 
 1 This blow has, since these words were written, been 
 Inflicted. See supra pp. 45-75. 
 
 258
 
 MODERN LIFE 
 
 ture. Professor Lewis Campbell has laboured 
 in the same field and in the same cause. Great 
 also have been the services rendered to the 
 popularization of Greek by Mr. Andrew Lang, 
 Mr. Ernest Myers, Mr. Walter Leaf, and many 
 other distinguished scholars, all of whom have 
 shown, both by their published works and as 
 lecturers, that the masterpieces of ancient Greece 
 may become as intelligible and influential in the 
 world of to-day as they were more than two 
 thousand years ago. 
 
 We welcome with joy the advent of Professor 
 Butcher among these prophets. Few names 
 stand higher than his in the roll of modern 
 scholars, and assuredly few modern scholars 
 possess, in so large a measure, the power of 
 applying scholarship to the purposes of liberal 
 criticism and exegesis. He has written a delight- 
 ful book, in a pleasant style, full of learning, 
 suggestive, stimulating, a book which no student 
 of Greek literature can lay down without a 
 hearty feeling of gratitude to the author. Person 
 said of Bentley that more might be learned from 
 his work when he was in error than from the 
 work of a rival scholar when he was in the 
 right. We shall not presume to accuse Professor 
 Butcher of error, but we are bound to say that 
 there is much in his book which appears to us 
 very questionable, and much also from which we 
 entirely dissent. 
 
 Professor Butcher discusses, for example, at 
 259
 
 ANCIENT GREEK AND 
 
 great length, the leading characteristics of the 
 Greek temper, but, in drawing his conclusions, 
 he has not sufficiently distinguished between 
 what was more or less accidental and what 
 was essentially peculiar. The fact is that no- 
 thing is so easy as generalisations of this kind, 
 if the deduction of half truth be our aim ; and 
 nothing so difficult if whole truth, or truth which 
 may be accepted without reserve, is to be the 
 result. The most mobile, plastic, Protean people 
 who have ever lived, their activity, within the 
 strict limits of classical literature, extended over 
 about six centuries, and, if we protract it to 
 the point included in Professor Butcher's illus- 
 trations, to more than nine centuries. Of their 
 literature, though we appear to have the best 
 of it, not a third part has survived. By an adroit 
 use of illustration, it is, therefore, easy to pre- 
 dicate anything of them. Go to serious epic, to 
 serious as distinguished from passionate lyric, 
 to tragedy, to threnody, and they were, if you 
 please, the gravest people on earth's face ; go 
 to Aristophanes and to the poets of the Old 
 Comedy, and they were the merriest ; go to the 
 Ionic Elegists and to the fragments of the New 
 Comedy, and they were the saddest and most 
 cynical ; go to Thucydides, Plato, and Aristotle, 
 and they were, like Dante's sages, ni tristi 
 ni lieti. We do not quarrel with Professor 
 Butcher's general position in his Essay on the 
 melancholy of the Greeks, or question that 
 
 260
 
 MODERN LIFE 
 
 there existed in certain moods a profound 
 melancholy and dissatisfaction with life in the 
 Greek temper. But of what intelligent and 
 reflective people or individual who have ever 
 existed is this not equally true? Where we 
 do quarrel with Professor Butcher is on the 
 following point, the point on which he chiefly 
 rests in proving that the Greeks were pre- 
 eminently distinguished by pessimistic melan- 
 choly an assertion that we deny in toto. He 
 tells us that, with one notable exception, to which 
 he subsequently adds three others, the Greeks 
 regarded hope not as a solace and support in 
 life, but as a snare and a delusion, not as a 
 power to cling to, but as an influence fraught with 
 mischief. Nothing surely can be more erroneous. 
 The wisest people who have ever lived are not 
 likely to have confounded baseless and flighty 
 desires or aspirations with what is implied in 
 hope, though Professor Butcher has done so in 
 the illustrations advanced by him in support of 
 his theory. All through Greek literature, from 
 Hesiod to Theocritus not to go further the 
 importance and wisdom of cherishing hope, as 
 one of the chief supports of life, are emphatically 
 dwelt on. Professor Butcher has surely mis- 
 represented certainly .ZEschylus and the Greeks 
 generally did not interpret it in the sense in 
 which he has done the fable of Pandora's chest. 
 It was not " as part of the deadly gift of the 
 goddess " that hope was there ; it was as the one 
 
 261
 
 ANCIENT GREEK AND 
 
 blessing amid the crowd of ills. " As long as a 
 man lives," says Theognis, " let him wait on 
 hope. . . . Let him pray to the gods ; and to 
 Hope let him sacrifice first and last" (1143- 
 1146). Pindar, if he warns man against base- 
 less, wild, or extravagant expectation, is em- 
 phatic on the wisdom of cherishing hope. It is 
 "the sweet nurse of the heart in old age," " the 
 chief helmsman of man's versatile will." (Frag- 
 ment, 233.) " A man should cherish good hope." 
 (Isth., vii. 15.) " It is the wing on which soar- 
 ing manhood is supported." (Pythian, viii. 93.) 
 " The wise," says Euripides, " must cherish 
 hope." (Frag, of /no.) Again : " Prudent hope 
 must be your stay in misfortune." (Id.) Life, 
 he says in the Troades (628), is preferable to 
 death, in that it has hopes. A sentiment re- 
 peated by Euripides again in the Hercules 
 Furens (105-6) : " That man is the bravest who 
 trusts to hope under all circumstances ; to be 
 without hope is the part of a coward." So 
 Menander : " Hold before yourself the shield of 
 good hope." (Incert. Frag, xlvii.) The pas- 
 sages quoted by Professor Butcher from Thu- 
 cydides are not to the point. It would have 
 been much more to the point had he quoted 
 the passage in which Pericles eulogizes those 
 who " committed to hope the uncertainty of 
 success" (II. 42), or the passage (I. 70) in 
 which the superiority of the Athenians to the 
 Lacedaemonians in civil and military efficiency 
 
 262
 
 MODERN LIFE 
 
 is largely attributed to their reliance on hope. 
 Again, what, according to Cephalus, in the 
 Republic, is the chief solace of old age? 
 " The abiding presence of sweet hope." But it 
 would be easy to multiply indefinitely from the 
 Greek classics what Professor Butcher calls 
 " rare examples of hope in the happier aspect." 
 
 The most important chapters in Professor 
 Butcher's work indeed they occupy nearly one 
 half of it are those dealing with Aristotle's 
 theory of fine art and poetry. On no subject 
 in criticism have there been so many miscon- 
 ceptions current and influential even among 
 scholars, originating for the most part from mis- 
 translations and misunderstandings of the trea- 
 tise in which they find their chief embodiment 
 the Poetics. This has unfortunately come down 
 to us in a very imperfect and corrupt state, and, 
 what is more unfortunate still, it became a classic 
 in criticism long before it was properly under- 
 stood. Thus, in the clause in the famous definition 
 of tragedy, where Aristotle describes it as 81 
 Kal (froftov irepaivova'a rrjv TWV TOIOVTWV v 
 Kiidapfftv, " through pity and fear effecting the pur- 
 gation of these emotions," the French and English 
 critics of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
 turies, ignoring the words r&v roiovrtav, have 
 totally misinterpreted the passage, and given it 
 a meaning which was not only not intended by 
 Aristotle, but which has falsified his whole 
 theory of the scope and functions of tragedy. 
 
 263
 
 ANCIENT GREEK AND 
 
 An unsound text, the insertion of a\\d before 
 the clause, sent Lessing on a wrong track. From 
 the misinterpretation of another passage in the 
 treatise (V. 4) has been deduced the famous 
 doctrine of the Unities. The mistranslation of 
 o-TTouSato? in the definition of Tragedy, and of 
 the same word in the comparison between 
 Poetry and History, has led to misconceptions 
 on other points. The scholars who did most 
 in England to place the study of this treatise 
 on a sound footing were Twining and Tyrwhitt. 
 In the present century it has received exhaustive 
 illustration from Saint-Hilaire, Stahr, Susemihl, 
 Vahlen, Teichmiiller, Ueberweg, Reinkens, Jacob 
 Bernays, and others ; while such works as E. 
 Miiller's Geschichte der Theorie der Kunst bei den 
 Alien have thrown general light on the question 
 of Greek aesthetics. That Professor Butcher has 
 not been able to advance anything new in these 
 essays is very creditable to him, for the simple 
 reason that, as all that is worth saying has been 
 said, his sole resource, had he attempted to be 
 original, would have been paradox and sophistry. 
 With regard to the question of the Katharsis, 
 it will probably be, for all time, a case of " quot 
 homines tot sententiee " ; and we have certainly 
 no intention of accompanying Professor Butcher 
 into this labyrinth. We entirely agree with 
 him and Bernays that the passage in the Politics 
 (V. viii. 7) settles conclusively at least one part 
 of the meaning, but we differ from Bernays, 
 
 204
 
 MODERN LIFE 
 
 in contending that the " lustratio " is included, 
 and from Professor Butcher, in contending that 
 the " lustratio " is not effected merely by the re- 
 lief. Professor Butcher seems here indeed to be 
 a little confused, or at all events confusing. He 
 first explains "katharsis" as "a purging away of 
 the emotions of pity and fear," and then explains 
 it as "a purifying of them " ; but it is neither 
 easy to understand how " purging away " is 
 " purifying," nor why we should " purify " what 
 we " purge away." Surely it is better but we 
 speak with all submission to take the word 
 in two different meanings, the one signifying 
 the immediate effect of tragedy in its direct 
 appeal to the passions referred to, the other 
 not to its immediate, but to its ulterior and 
 total effect in educating the passions thus ex- 
 cited. 
 
 Professor Butcher, who appears to belong to 
 the Pater School, dwells with great complacency 
 on the fact that Aristotle "attempted to sepa- 
 rate the function of aesthetics from that of 
 morals," that "he made the end of art reside 
 in a pleasurable emotion," that he says "nothing 
 of any moral aim in poetry," and that though 
 he often takes exception to Euripides as an artist, 
 " he attaches no blame to him for the immoral 
 tendency in some of his dramas," so severely 
 censured by Aristophanes. If Professor Butcher 
 implies, as he seems to imply by this, that 
 Aristotle would lend any countenance to the 
 
 265
 
 ANCIENT GREEK AND 
 
 modern art -for -art's -sake doctrine, and pro- 
 ceeded on the assumption that there was no 
 necessary connection between aesthetics and 
 morals, he does Aristotle very great injustice, 
 and is refuted by the Poetics themselves. In 
 the fifth chapter Aristotle lays stress on the 
 fact that tragedy is, like epic, a representation 
 of " superior or morally good characters " 
 (fjii/jbrja-is crTrovSalwv) that the characters are to 
 be good (xpvjo-Ta). In the twenty-fifth chapter 
 he says that nothing can excuse the exhibition 
 of moral depravity (yMo%^/ota), unless it be one 
 of the things implicit in the plot ; and that 
 among the most serious objections which can be 
 brought against a drama is that it is likely to 
 do moral harm (ySXa/Se/aa). In the thirteenth 
 chapter he shows, and on moral grounds, why 
 the protagonist in a tragedy should not be a 
 perfectly good man or a perfectly bad man. 
 Indeed, the very definition of tragedy refutes 
 Professor Butcher's statement. It may be said, 
 no doubt, that Aristotle maintains that the end 
 of poetry is pleasure, but it must be " the proper 
 pleasure," and in the proper pleasure moral 
 satisfaction is implied. 1 It is only by a quibble 
 that Professor Butcher's theory can be supported, 
 and it is a pity to quibble on subjects which 
 
 1 So he says, Poet., xxvi., of epic and tragedy, that each 
 ought not to produce any chance pleasure, but the pleasure 
 proper to it (Set yhp ov rty rvxov<rav i]5ovr]v irotfiv aurdj dXXA TTJV 
 tiprju.{i>r)i>, i.e. otK(iav). 
 
 266
 
 MODERN LIFE 
 
 may be so mischievously misunderstood. Aris- 
 totle was, we suspect, very much nearer to 
 Ben Jonson and Milton than to Mr. Pater in his 
 conception of the functions and scope of poetry. 
 In the interesting essay on Sophocles there 
 are two statements which appear to us very 
 questionable. It is surely not true to say that 
 Sophocles was " the first of the Greeks who has 
 clearly realized that suffering is not always 
 penal." Who could have expressed this truth 
 more forcibly than ^schylus ? To say nothing 
 of the well-known passage in the Agamemnon, 
 167-171 :- 
 
 rbv (frpovt'iv ftporovs oftdxravra, rbv irddti fiddos 
 
 dtvra Kvpidis (X (iv - 
 
 ordfft 8' (v 6' VTTVUI npo KapSias 
 
 iruvos, KOI nap' aKovras %\d( 
 
 the doctrine of which is repeated in 241-2 of 
 the same play, and in other passages in his 
 dramas, notably in Choephoroe, 950-955, and in 
 Eumenides, 495, crv^epei crtatypovfiv VTTO arevei. 
 The fact that suffering and calamity have re- 
 sulted in blessing is emphasized as strongly in 
 the concluding drama of the Orestean Trilogy, 
 the Eumenides, as it is in the (Edipus Coloneus. 
 Again, when Professor Butcher says that "in 
 Sophocles the divine righteousness asserts itself 
 not in the award of happiness or misery to the 
 individual, but in the providential wisdom which 
 assigns to each individual his place and function 
 
 267
 
 ANCIENT GREEK AND 
 
 in a universal moral order," he says what it is 
 very difficult to understand. Surely in the case 
 of each one of the protagonists in Sophocles, 
 to employ the word in its non-technical sense, 
 their deserts are very exactly meted out. Anti- 
 gone deliberately courts her fate by setting the 
 law at defiance, though she knew what the 
 penalty was, and falls, but has her compensation 
 in the applause of her own conscience and " in 
 the faith that looks through death." Ajax 
 paid the penalty, as the poet emphasizes, for 
 brutality and impious insolence ; CEdipus suffers 
 for his impetuosity and intemperance, but, his 
 punishment exceeding the offence, the balance 
 is adjusted for him in final triumph over the 
 sons who had wronged him, in procuring 
 blessings for his protector, in the peace of the 
 soul, and in a glorious death. Clytemnestra 
 and uEgisthus well deserve their fate, as, in 
 addition to committing their crime, they con- 
 tinue ostentatiously to glory in it. In the 
 Trachinice Hercules is punished for a base 
 and cowardly murder, followed by an act of 
 cruel and indiscriminate vengeance, retribution 
 coming on him through the sister of the man 
 thus murdered, and the daughter of the prince 
 on whom this iniquitous vengeance had been 
 wreaked, as Deianeira, but for lole, would not 
 have sent the poisoned tunic. Sophocles has 
 even altered the legend to emphasize the guilt 
 of Hercules. The Philoctetes, indeed, is the only 
 
 268
 
 MODERN LIFE 
 
 play which lends any support to Professor But- 
 cher's statement. Here the gods undoubtedly 
 condemn a man to a life of torture that their 
 designs, irrespective of the individual, may be 
 fulfilled, and that Troy may not fall before the 
 appointed time ; but how fully, how nobly is he 
 compensated ! It seems to us that the award 
 of happiness and misery to the individual, in 
 accordance with desert, is as conspicuous in the 
 ethics of Sophocles as it is in the ethics of 
 Shakespeare. And it is the more conspicuous, 
 when we remember the hampering conditions 
 under which Sophocles had to work, the limita- 
 tions conventionally imposed on the treatment 
 of the legends. 
 
 We wish we had space to comment on Pro- 
 fessor Butcher's admirable, though somewhat 
 defective, chapter on the dawn of Romanticism 
 in Greek poetry, but we must forbear, and 
 repeat our thanks to him for a book full of 
 interest and instruction, not the least of its 
 charms being the lively and graceful style in 
 which it is written. 
 
 269
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 1 
 
 BISHOP WARBURTON said that there were 
 two things which every man thought him- 
 self competent to do, to manage a small farm 
 and to drive a whisky. Had Warburton lived 
 in our time, he would probably have added a 
 third to set up for a critic. What the author 
 of the best critical treatise in the Greek language 
 pronounced to be the final fruit of long experi- 
 ence, culture, and study, directed and illumined 
 by certain natural qualifications, has now come 
 to be represented by the idle and irresponsible 
 gossip of any one who can gossip agreeably. 
 Agreeable gossip and good criticism are, as 
 Sainte-Beuve and others have shown, far 
 from being incompatible, the misfortune is that 
 they should be confounded ; but confounded 
 they are, and the confusion is the curse of 
 current literature. We have recently observed, 
 with concern, that the rubbish which used 
 
 1 The Principles of Criticism. An Introduction to the 
 Study of Literature. By W. Basil Worsfold. London : 
 Allen. 
 
 270
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 formerly to be shot into novels and poems is 
 now being shot into criticism, and that there 
 appears to be a growing impression that the 
 accomplishments which qualify young men for 
 spinning cobwebs in fiction and manufacturing 
 versicles can, with a little management, serve 
 to set them up as critics. There is not much 
 more difficulty in forming an opinion about a 
 book than there is in reading it, and as criticism 
 in the hands of these fribbles becomes little 
 more than the dithyrambic expression of that 
 opinion, the profession of criticism is one in 
 which it is delightfully easy to graduate. It 
 requires neither learning nor knowledge, neither 
 culture nor discipline. It is neither science nor 
 art ; it is the gift of nature, a sort of " lyric 
 inspiration." With principles, with touchstones, 
 with standards, it has nothing whatever to do. 
 Its business is to declaim, to coin phrases, to 
 juggle with fancies and to say " good things." 
 A writer, therefore, who tries to recall criti- 
 cism to a sense of its responsibilities and true 
 functions deserves all sympathy and encourage- 
 ment. It is refreshing to turn from the sort of 
 thing to which we have referred to such a work 
 as Mr. Worsfold has given us. His design is 
 "to present an account of the main principles 
 of literary criticism," which he professes to trace 
 from Plato to Matthew Arnold. Mr. Worsf old's 
 thesis simply stated is that criticism and he 
 deals with criticism chiefly in its application to 
 
 271
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 poetry has passed successively through five 
 stages. With the Greeks it concerned itself 
 principally with form. " The first question it 
 asked with them was not, as with us, What is 
 the thought? but What is the form?" By Addi- 
 son for here Mr. Worsfold makes a prodigious 
 leap over some twenty centuries it was fur- 
 nished with a new test, and it asked, How does 
 a given poem affect the imagination ? By Less- 
 ing a return was made to the formal criticism 
 of the ancients, but he adopted also Addison's 
 criterion, and added definiteness to it. Victor 
 Cousin followed in 1818 with his lectures, en- 
 titled, Du Vrai, du Beau, et du Bien, and 
 enlarged the boundaries of the science by a 
 complete theory of beauty and art, developed 
 mainly out of Plato. Lastly came Matthew 
 Arnold, who extended the realm still further, by 
 the addition of certain other important touch- 
 stones of poetic excellence. At the present time 
 a gradual limitation of the scope of its rules, 
 and a gradual extension of the scope of its 
 principles, are the tendencies most discernible 
 in criticism. " An enlightened criticism no 
 longer aims at directing the artist by formu- 
 lating rules which, if they were valid, would 
 only tend to obliterate the distinction between 
 the fine and the technical arts. It allows him 
 to work by whatever methods he may choose, 
 and it is content to estimate his merit not by 
 reference to his method but by reference to his 
 
 272
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 achievement, as measured by principles of 
 universal validity." 
 
 All this is exceedingly ingenious, and has in it 
 a measure of truth, but, like most generalisations 
 on vast and complicated subjects, it is more 
 plausible than sound. The stages in the pro- 
 gress of criticism are not so sharply defined as 
 Mr. Worsfold would have us believe. If Greek 
 criticism were represented only by Plato and the 
 extant works of Aristotle, English by Addison 
 and Matthew Arnold, German by Lessing, and 
 French by Victor Cousin, what Mr. Worsfold 
 postulates might, after a manner, pass muster. 
 But by far the greater portion of Greek criticism 
 has perished ; it exists only in fragments, and to 
 the most important and remarkable work on 
 this subject which has come down to us from 
 antiquity, the Treatise on the Sublime, Mr. Wors- 
 fold does not even refer. If he had done so, and 
 had he considered what is scattered fragmen- 
 tarily through the Greek writers, or may be 
 gathered from the titles of treatises which are 
 lost, he would have seen that much which he 
 supposes to mark development in criticism has 
 long been old. Innumerable passages in the 
 minor Greek critics, in Plutarch and in the 
 Scholia, especially if we add what is to be found 
 in Roman writers, derived no doubt from Greek 
 sources, amply warrant doubt whether, after all, 
 it is not with criticism as it is, to use Goethe's 
 expression, with wit, " Alles Gescheidte ist schon 
 
 E.G. 273 s
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 gedacht worden, man muss nur versuchen, es 
 noch einmal zu denken." At all events, it is a 
 great mistake to suppose that Greek criticism, in 
 its application to poetry, is represented by Plato 
 and Aristotle. It would be almost as absurd to 
 go to Plato for typical Greek criticism on poetry 
 as it would be to go to Henry More or the 
 Puritan Divines for typical English criticism. 
 He approached it only as such a philosopher 
 would be likely to approach it. He regarded 
 art and letters generally simply as means of 
 educational discipline and culture, or as mere 
 playthings, of which the best to be expected 
 was harmless pleasure. He despised poetry not 
 only as an appeal, and a perturbing appeal, to 
 the senses and the passions, but as representing 
 the shadows of shadows. It may be pronounced 
 with confidence that, had he seriously applied 
 himself to literary and artistic criticism, he 
 would have been one of the subtlest and pro- 
 foundest critics who ever lived, and would prob- 
 ably have anticipated, so far as principles are 
 concerned, all that Mr. Worsfold attributes to 
 Addison, to Lessing, and to Victor Cousin ; but, 
 like our own Ruskin, he was wilful and fana- 
 tical. 
 
 Still less is Greek criticism represented by 
 Aristotle. It is in the highest degree mislead- 
 ing to generalize from such a work as the 
 Poetics. It is not merely a fragment, but a 
 fragment deformed by desperate corruption, 
 
 274
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 hopeless interstices and contemptible inter- 
 polations. If it confines itself, or in the main 
 confines itself, to formal criticism, it is simply 
 because it was designed to deal with that 
 particular department of criticism, not because 
 its author supposed that the chief question 
 which concerned criticism was form. Again, 
 if by form Mr. Worsfold understands, as he ap- 
 pears to do, expression and structure, he very 
 much misrepresents the Treatise. Aristotle's 
 criterion of poetry is not its formal expression, 
 for he distinctly declares that it is not metre 
 which makes a poem, and even seems to main- 
 tain that a poem may be composed without 
 metre. In Aristotle's definition and conception 
 of poetry as the concrete expression of the uni- 
 versal, in his definition of the scope and func- 
 tions of tragedy, and in innumerable occasional 
 remarks we have the germs of much, and of 
 very much, which Mr. Worsfold would attribute 
 to the later developments of criticism. 
 
 Aristotle, it is true, derived his canons from an 
 analysis of the masterpieces of Greek poetry, 
 but it is doing him great injustice to say, that he 
 would make all epics Homeric, and all plays So- 
 phoclean, arid most erroneous to assume that mo- 
 dern criticism commenced at this point. Aristotle 
 distinctly questions whether tragedy had as yet 
 perfected its proper types or not (Poet., IV. 11), 
 and in discussing the proper length of tragedy 
 he makes a remark which shows that such a plot 
 
 275
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 as the plot of Hamlet or the plot of Lear would 
 have been quite compatible with his canons. 1 
 The truth is that Mr. Worsfold has gone too 
 far ; he has confounded the various aspects of 
 criticism with stages in its development. Aris- 
 totle dealt mainly with form, because it was his 
 business to deal with form. Plato approached 
 poetry from a particular point of view, because 
 it was from that particular point of view that 
 it concerned him. 
 
 Had Mr. Worsfold taken his stand in his re- 
 view of ancient criticism on the treatise attri- 
 buted to Longinus, he would have seen that what 
 he so strangely attributes to Addison and later 
 writers had long been anticipated. This remark- 
 able work which, since its translation into French 
 by Boileau in 1674, has had more influence on 
 criticism both in England and on the Continent 
 than any other work that could be named, would 
 alone show how much we owe to the Greeks. It 
 has analyzed and defined, for all time, the essen- 
 tial virtues and the essential vices of diction and 
 style, and has traced them to their sources. It 
 has furnished us with infallible criteria in judg- 
 ing rhetoric and poetry. Take its analysis of the 
 "grand style," which is described comprehensively 
 
 1 6 8f *ar' ai>TT)V TTJV (pvcriv rot) jrpa.yp.aros opos, aft fiev 6 p,fta>v 
 /*XP l rov (rvv8ri\os tlvai KaXXiW m Kara TO fjLtytdos. wg 8t 
 &n\5)S 8iopt<rai>Tas flirtlv, ev o<ra> /Mtyedei Kara TO (Ixos fj TO 
 dvuyKaiov ((f>tf)S yiyvofjifvav o-v/i/SaiWi fls i>TV)(!av tK 8vo-Tv^ias, 
 T) e (VTvxiat ds 8vo~Tv^iav fj.{Taflu\\(ii>, tKavos opos f'a-Tiv TOV 
 
 ptytdovs. (Poet., vii. 7.) 
 
 276
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 as fj,ya\o<f>po(Tuvr)<i aTT^i^a, " the echo of a great 
 soul " ; it has, the Treatise tells us, five char- 
 acteristics richness and grandeur of conception 
 (TO wept r^9 voijffei? aSpe-mj/BoXov) ; vehement and 
 inspired passion (TO <r<j)o8pbv icai evOova-iacrriKov 
 Truflo?), the due formation of figures, which are 
 twofold first those of thought, and secondly 
 those of expression (n trola rwv ff^ij^drco 
 Siffffd 8e TTOV ravTa, TO, fj,ev voqcreey?, darepa 8e 
 noble diction (ff yevvaia, <f)pd<ri<;) ; dignified and 
 elevated composition (q ev n^Kafj-art Kal Bidpaet 
 avvdea-is}. Nothing could be more masterly than 
 its detailed analysis of each of these qualities, 
 and of the pseudo forms which they assume, as 
 the result of stimulated enthusiasm. How ad- 
 mirable, too, is its test of the sublime in the 
 seventh chapter ; its criticism of Sappho, general- 
 izing what constitutes the charm and power of 
 lyric, in the tenth chapter ; its analysis of the 
 eloquence of Demosthenes, again generalizing 
 the characteristics of oratory in perfection 
 (chap, xvii.) ; its demonstration of the in- 
 feriority of correct mediocrity to the faulty 
 irregularities of inspired genius ; its admirable 
 remarks about the relation of Art to Nature. 
 Like the Poetics, it has come down to us in a 
 very mutilated form, and has evidently been 
 interpolated by some inferior hand, which no 
 doubt accounts for the exasperating triviality of 
 some of the sections. Here, as elsewhere, we 
 have references to the many losses which Greek 
 
 277 '
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 criticism has sustained, the author referring to 
 treatises written by him on Xenophon, on 
 Composition, and on the Passions. 
 
 It is impossible to give an adequate account of 
 the evolution of criticism without a very careful 
 survey of the chief contributors to criticism in 
 each generation, and such a survey Mr. Worsf old 
 has not attempted. To Latin criticism he never 
 even refers. And yet it has had great influence 
 on critical literature. The Romans, it is true, 
 contributed scarcely anything new to criticism, 
 except that which pertains to oratory. We 
 know enough of Varro, with whom Roman criti- 
 cism may be said to begin, to feel confident that 
 he could have had no pretension to the finer 
 qualities of the critic. Of the five treatises com- 
 posed by him, only one, the irepl %apaKTi]pa)v, 
 appears to have been purely critical, and it 
 almost certainly drew largely on Greek sources. 
 Horace derived the material of the Ars Poetica 
 from a Greek writer, Neoptolemus of Parium. 
 Much of Quiiictilian's criticism is demonstrably 
 a compilation from Greek writers. The best 
 critic of poetry among the Romans is un- 
 doubtedly to be found in Petronius, occasional 
 and scanty though his remarks are. But of prose 
 literature Rome produced two really great critics 
 the one was Cicero, the other was Tacitus. 
 The Brutus and the Dialogus de Oratoribus are 
 masterpieces, equal to anything which has come 
 down to us from the Greeks. One of the most 
 
 278
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 important critical principles ever enunciated we 
 owe to Cicero. He was the first to demonstrate 
 that the test of excellence in oratory lay, in its ap- 
 pealing equally to the multitude and to the most 
 fastidious of connoisseurs. The most consum- 
 mate rhetorician which the world has ever seen, 
 he was at the same time a consummate critic of 
 his art. This department of criticism has, in- 
 deed, for nearly two thousand years, been practi- 
 cally his monopoly; it may be questioned whether 
 anything can be added, so far as the technique 
 of rhetoric is concerned, to what may be traced 
 to his writings. The interest of the Dialogus de 
 Oratoribus is largely historical, but never have 
 the causes which inspire and nourish, or depress 
 and starve, eloquence been more eloquently and 
 brilliantly explained. Nor must it be forgotten 
 that it was through the medium of the Latin 
 critics that Greek criticism became influential on 
 modern literature. 
 
 Mr. Worsfold has very properly drawn attention 
 to the fine passage about poetry in the second 
 book of Bacon's Advancement of Learning, but 
 he says not a word about Sidney's remarkable 
 treatise, one of the most charming contributions 
 to the criticism of poetry which has ever been 
 made, or about the admirable remarks in Ben 
 Jonsoii's Discoveries. The interest of Elizabethan 
 criticism, as represented by these works and 
 they are the only works on this subject of any 
 value produced during the Elizabethan period 
 
 279
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 lies partly in its return to Aristotelian canons, 
 and partly in the importance which, in accordance 
 with the ancients, it attaches to the didactic 
 element in poetry. This is expressed very elo- 
 quently in Ben Jonson's dedication of the Fox : 
 
 " If men will impartially and not asquint look toward 
 the offices and function of a poet, they will easily conclude 
 to themselves the impossibility of a man's being the good 
 poet without being first the good man, he that is able to in- 
 form young men to all good discipline, inflame young men 
 to all good virtues, keep old men in their best and supreme 
 state, or, as they decline to childhood, recover them to their 
 first state, that comes forth the interpreter and arbiter of 
 nature, a teacher of things divine no less than human." 
 
 This was precisely Spenser's conception of 
 one of the chief functions of poetry. Thus the 
 Elizabethan critics, who were followed after- 
 wards by Milton, if they did not formally discuss 
 the relation of aesthetic to ethic, insisted on 
 their essential connection in the higher forms of 
 poetry. Even in the succeeding age, when poetry 
 lost all its high seriousness and much of its 
 moral dignity, criticism, if it did not always in- 
 sist on the application of this test, still retained 
 it. Dryden could write, " 1 am satisfied if verse 
 cause delight, for delight is the chief, if not the 
 only end, of poesy " ; but in adding " instruction 
 can be admitted but in the second place, for 
 poesy only instructs as it delights," he half cor- 
 rected his former statement, and, indeed, simply 
 reverted to what Aristophanes, Ben Jonson, and 
 Milton would have been the first to admit. 
 
 280
 
 THE PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 
 
 But to return to Mr. Worsfold. A very serious 
 defect in his work is his omission of all notice 
 of Boileau and Dryden, and of the critics con- 
 temporary with them in France and England. 
 The consequence is, that much is attributed to 
 Addison which belongs to them, and Addison's 
 importance as a critic is much overrated. Again, 
 of the many memorable contributions to this 
 branch of literature in England, in France, in 
 Italy, and in Germany, which were made between 
 the appearance of the Abbe* Dubos's R6fleorions 
 critiques sur la poteie et la peinture in 1719, and 
 the lectures of Coleridge and Schlegel about 1812, 
 all that is said is represented by what is said of 
 Lessing. Though a long chapter is given to 
 Matthew Arnold, Matthew Arnold's master, 
 Sainte-Beuve, is, if we remember rightly, not 
 so much as named. 
 
 Dr. Johnson divided critics into three classes 
 those who know the rules and judge by them, 
 those who know no rules but judge entirely by 
 natural taste, those who know the rules but are 
 above them. This has been true in all ages, and 
 sufficiently disposes of Mr. Worsfold's hypothesis 
 about the stages through which criticism has 
 passed. All that can be said is, that at certain 
 tunes there has been a tendency, determined of 
 course by the character of the particular age, to- 
 wards the predominance of a particular critical 
 method and of particular points of view. Fur- 
 ther than this it would be perilous to go. It has 
 
 281
 
 been the task of the present age to develop each 
 of these methods to the full, and the most 
 authoritative critics of the last twenty years 
 might easily be ranged under one of those 
 classes. 
 
 The soundest and most valuable part of Mr. 
 Worsfold's book is the part dealing with the 
 criticism of the last few years. His chapter on 
 Matthew Arnold, in particular, is admirable, 
 and his remarks on the functions of criticism 
 at the present time, deduced as they have been 
 from Wordsworth, Arnold and Ruskin, are in 
 a high degree instructive and interesting. In 
 pointing out that criticism should not confine 
 itself merely to the investigation of technical 
 excellence, and to all that is implied in the 
 doctrine of Art for Art's sake, but should recog- 
 nise that there are limits beyond which the 
 artist should not exercise his technical skill, he 
 recalls us to principles which it is well that 
 criticism should not forget. We quite agree with 
 him that there is now an increasing tendency to 
 recognise these limits, and to lay most stress on 
 the interpretation of the ideal element in litera- 
 ture and art. That is certainly the modern note. 
 We have expressed our reasons for dissenting 
 from Mr. Worsfold's historical view of the 
 evolution of criticism, but his book is full of 
 interest, and will amply repay the attention of 
 serious readers. It is a book which does not 
 deserve to be lost in the crowd. 
 
 282
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 1 
 
 THE editor of this book cannot be con- 
 gratulated either on his competence or on 
 his discretion. To hurry into the world a work 
 which is not merely a fragment, but which cries 
 for revision, suppression, and correction in almost 
 every page, is a literary crime of the first mag- 
 nitude, and deserves the severest castigation. 
 Of the author of the work, who appears to have 
 been a young man of some attainments and of 
 much promise, we desire to speak with all 
 gentleness ; we wholly absolve him from blame, 
 for we have no right to assume that he would 
 himself have given to the world what his editor 
 admits was intra penetralia Vestce, and what we 
 hope and believe he would himself have com- 
 mitted emendaturis ignibus, had he arrived at 
 years of discretion. But the dissemination of 
 error is no light thing, especially in relation to 
 subjects which are of great interest, and, from 
 an historical and literary point of view, of great 
 
 1 Antimachus of Colophon and the Position of Women in 
 Greek Poetry. By E. F. M. Benecke. 
 
 283
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 importance. When we think of the many ami- 
 able and industrious tutors at Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge who, unless they are put on their guard, 
 will unsuspiciously fill their note-books with 
 the nonsense of this volume, and impart it, by 
 degrees, to the listening credulity of youth, we 
 feel we have no alternative but to perform a 
 plain, if painful, duty. We repeat, we absolve 
 the author from all blame ; the sole culprit is 
 the editor. 
 
 That Solomon was the author of the Iliad, 
 Poggio the author of the Annals of Tacitus, 
 and Bacon the author of Shakespeare's plays, 
 are hypotheses scarcely less monstrously absurd 
 than the thesis propounded in this volume. Mr. 
 Benecke's main contentions are "that a pure 
 love between man and woman seemed to the 
 early Greeks" (that is, to those who lived 
 before the latter end of the Peloponnesian War) 
 a sheer impossibility ; that " in extant Greek 
 poetry there is no trace of romantic love poetry 
 addressed to women prior to the time of Ascle- 
 piades and Philetas " ; that " in the works of 
 these writers this element suddenly appears 
 not in the nature of an experiment but as a 
 leading motive " ; that the appearance of this 
 element was due to the influence of Anti- 
 machus, " who was the first man who had 
 the courage to say that a woman was worth 
 loving, and who may thus be regarded as the 
 originator of the romantic element in litera- 
 
 284
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 ture." As we have not space to refute this 
 nonsense in detail, we will give some examples 
 of the way in which it is supported. First come 
 misrepresentations and blunders. To emphasize 
 the degradation of women, passages in transla- 
 tion are twisted and perverted almost beyond 
 recognition. 
 
 Thus the couplet of Catullus 
 
 "Tune te dilexi, non tantum ut vulgus amicam, 
 Sed pater ut natos diligit et generos " 
 
 is actually paraphrased "I loved you, not as 
 a man loves a woman, but as a man loves a 
 youth." The couplet in which Antigone says, 
 " If my husband died, I could get another, and 
 were I deprived of him too, I could be a mother 
 by another man" 
 
 ir6(ris fi(V av p.oi t Kardavovro?, a\\os r\v 
 KOI jratj car aXXou </>O>TOS, et rouS' 
 
 is translated " If my husband had died, I could 
 have married another, if he had failed to get me 
 children, I could have committed adultery." The 
 " main motive of the Iliad," we are informed, 
 (p. 76), "is the love of Achilles for Patroclus." 
 The interest of the Ajax " is meant to centre 
 on Teucer, the ajnasius of the dead Ajax." That 
 the Alcestis may not be pressed into the service 
 of those who would maintain that the Greeks 
 knew how to respect women, the key to it is to 
 be found " in the relation existing between Ad- 
 metus and Apollo " (!) The revolting coarseness 
 
 285
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 and flippant vulgarity which mark the book, and, 
 which do very little credit to Oxford training, are 
 illustrated by the remarks employed to disparage 
 these types of womanhood which the writer well 
 knows would refute his theory. Thus of Nau- 
 sicaa, " she is always regarded as a charming 
 type of woman ; but, after all, how one naturally 
 thinks of her is (sic) as a charming type of 
 washerwoman"; of Penelope, "she longs for 
 the return of her husband, no doubt ; but what 
 really grieves her about the suitors is not their 
 suggestions as to his death, but the quantity of 
 pork they eat." On a par with this sort of thing 
 is the remark about a play of Sophocles, which, 
 by the way, is not extant, that " it merely drew 
 the usual picture of the gods playing shove-half- 
 penny with human souls " (p. 47) ; or flippant 
 vulgarity like the following Admetus ex- 
 presses "his deep regret that he cannot ac- 
 company Alcestis, as Charon does not issue 
 return tickets." If this is the humour of young 
 Oxford, the progress of which we hear so much 
 has been purchased at a heavy price. 
 
 But to continue. On page 27 we are con- 
 fronted with the astounding statement that " it 
 is in Anacreon that we find for the first time 
 love-poetry addressed to a woman." Why, Her- 
 mesianax (15, 16) distinctly states that Musseus 
 wrote love-poetry to his wife or mistress, 
 Antiope, and that Hesiod wrote many poems 
 in honour of his love, Eoia (Id. 22-24). 
 
 286
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 Alcseus notoriously wrote love-poems to Sappho, 
 as we need go no further than the first book 
 of Aristotle's Rhetoric to know ; both Alcman, 
 the lover of Egido and Megalostrate, and, prob- 
 ably Ibycus also wrote love-poetry to women. 
 It is mere special pleading to contend that Mim- 
 nermus did not write poetry to the mistress of 
 his affections, to whom, according to Strabo, his 
 erotic poetry was addressed. Hermesianax dis- 
 tinctly states that Mimnermus was passionately 
 in love with Nanno, and certainly implies that 
 his love-poetry was addressed to her (35-38). 
 It is true that two of the fragments of Archi- 
 lochus are ambiguous, but one is not ; and, if we 
 may judge by a single line (Fr. 71), his love for 
 Neobule expressed itself in a manner indis- 
 tinguishable from Petrarch's vein " Would 
 that I might touch Neobule's hand " : et yap o>9 
 e'/ioi yevoiro xeipa NeoftovXij*; Otyeiv. It is clear 
 that women had a prominent place in the 
 poetry of Stesichorus, and in his poem entitled 
 Calyce we seem to have had an anticipation of 
 the modern love romance. And yet, in spite of 
 all this, we are informed that the Greeks had no 
 love-poetry addressed to, or concerning women, 
 before Anacreon. 
 
 The methods adopted for minimizing or dis- 
 guising the importance of women in the Iliad 
 and Odyssey are very amusing. "The Trojan 
 war was the work of a woman ; but how very 
 little that woman appears in the Iliad." She 
 
 287
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 appears quite as frequently and imposingly as 
 the action admits, and she and Andromache are 
 painted as elaborately as any of the dramatis 
 personos in the poem. Indeed, it would not be 
 too much to say that, with the exception of 
 Achilles and Agamemnon, they leave the deepest 
 impression on us. "A woman has been managing 
 the affairs of Odysseus for twenty years in an 
 exemplary fashion ; but the hero of the Odyssey 
 on his return prefers to associate with the swine- 
 herd." Comment is superfluous. Nothing could 
 be more striking than the prominence which is 
 given to women both in the Iliad and in the 
 Odyssey. To cite such writers as Simonides of 
 Amorgus, Phocylides and Theognis, as authorities 
 on the position of women, is as absurd, in Sancho 
 Panza's phrase, as to look for pears on an elm. 
 
 The Greek Tragedies are treated after the 
 same fashion as ;the Iliad and the Odyssey. We 
 are told that the remarkable prominence given 
 in Sophocles's plays to the affection between 
 brother and sister affords conclusive proof that 
 the nature of modern love between man and 
 woman was unknown to him ; and we are also 
 informed, that the relations between Electra and 
 Orestes, and Antigone and Polynices " are abso- 
 lutely those of modern lovers." It would be 
 difficult to say which is more absurd, the deduc- 
 tion or the statement. What love could be 
 more loyal and more passionate than Haemon's 
 love for Antigone? The prominence given by 
 
 288
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 Sophocles to the love between brother and sister 
 has its origin from the same cause as the very 
 small part played by lovers in the Greek tra- 
 gedies generally. In the first place, a poet who 
 took his plot from the fortunes of the houses 
 of Pelops or Laius could only work within the 
 limits of tradition ; in the second place, love 
 romances, unless involving deep tragical issues 
 as in the Trachinice, the Medea, and the Hippo- 
 lytus, were totally incompatible with the Greek 
 idea of tragedy. But we must hurry to the grand 
 discovery made by the author of this volume. 
 
 Somewhere about 405 B.C. flourished Anti- 
 machus, of Colophon, the author of a volu- 
 minous epic, and of several other poems. He 
 had the misfortune to lose his wife Lyde, and, to 
 beguile his sorrow, he composed a long elegy in 
 her honour. Of the far-reaching consequences 
 of this act let our author speak. " When Anti- 
 machus first sat down in his empty house at 
 Colophon to write an elegy to his dead wife, 
 consciously or unconsciously he was initiating 
 the greatest artistic revolution that the world 
 has ever seen." Asclepiades and Philetas fol- 
 lowed him as imitators, and the thing was done. 
 Woman was at last "connected with 'romance.'" 
 Our author admits the difficulty of supposing 
 that " any one man could invent and popularize 
 an entirely new emotion " ; but suggests that if 
 we regard it as "simply due to the readjust- 
 ment of an already existing emotion," that is 
 
 E.O. 289 T
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 , such a supposition is "no longer 
 absurd." It is not only absurd but monstrous. 
 
 The truth almost certainly is, that the love 
 between man and woman in ancient Greece dif- 
 fered very little from the love between man and 
 woman as it exists now. Marriage was, it is 
 true, purely a matter of business ; most wives 
 aspired to nothing more than the management 
 of the nursery and the household, and most 
 women being without education, and living in 
 seclusion, could scarcely associate, intellectually 
 at least, on equal terms with their husbands or 
 lovers. But this proves nothing more than 
 mariages de convenance, and love based on the 
 fascination exercised by sensuous attraction 
 prove now. Then, as in our own time, there 
 were marriages and marriages, liaisons and liai- 
 sons. The story which Plutarch tells of Callias 
 (Cimon. iv.) shows that marriage was often based 
 on love. The pictures given of Hector and An- 
 dromache in the Iliad, of Alcinous and Arete, of 
 Ulysses and Penelope, of Menelaus and Helen in 
 the Odyssey, the charming account of Ischo- 
 machus and his young wife in the (Economics 
 of Xenophon, the noble and pathetic story of 
 Pantheia and Abradatas in the Cyropcedeia, 
 the story which, in his life of Agis, 1 Plutarch 
 tells of Chilonis, and, in the Morals, of Gamma, 8 
 and innumerable other legends, traditions, and 
 anecdotes, prove that women could inspire and 
 
 1 Agis, xvii., xviii. * De Mulierum Virtutibus. 
 
 290
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 return as pure and as chivalrous a love as any 
 of the heroines of chivalry. The poet who could 
 write about marriage as Homer does in the 
 Sixth Odyssey would have had little to learn 
 from modern refinement. 1 The love which 
 Critobulus describes himself as having for 
 Amandra, in the Symposium of Xenophon, and 
 the remarks made by Socrates in that dialogue 
 embody the most exalted conceptions of the 
 passion of love between the sexes. The sen- 
 timents of Plutarch on this subject are indistin- 
 guishable from the most refined notions of the 
 modern world, as is abundantly illustrated in 
 the Amatorius, the Conjugalia Prcecepta, and in 
 the remarks on marriage in the eighth chapter 
 of the Essay on Moral Virtue. If Ajax and 
 Hercules became brutes, Tecmessa and Deianeira 
 were not the only women who have discovered 
 that men are, too often, May when they woo, and 
 December when they wed. It is ridiculous to 
 suppose that a people whose popular poetry 
 could present such types of womanhood as Arete, 
 Antigone, Alcestis, Deianeira, Electra, Macaria, 
 Iphigenia, Evadne, and Polyxena, who could 
 boast such poetesses as Sappho, Erinna, Corinna, 
 Myrtis, and Damophila, and whose society was 
 graced by such women as Aspasia, Diotima, 
 Gnathsena, Herpyllis, Metaneira, and Leontium, 
 should have given expression to passion, senti- 
 ment, and romance only in iraiSiKoi 
 1 See particularly lines 180-186. 
 291
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 What the author of this book, and what others 
 who are fond of generalizing about the Greeks, 
 forget, is, that of a once vast and voluminous 
 literature we have only fragments. That portion 
 of their poetry which would have thrown light 
 on the subject here discussed has perished. 
 It is certain, for example, that of their lyric 
 poetry a very large portion was erotic, of that 
 portion exactly one poem has survived in its 
 entirety, while a few hundred scattered lines, 
 torn from their context, represent the rest that 
 has come down to us. We know, again, that in 
 some hundreds of their dramas, in the Middle 
 and New Comedy that is to say, the plots turned 
 on love of these dramas not a single one is 
 preserved. But the reflection of some twenty 
 of them in Terence and Plautus, and several 
 scattered fragments, clearly indicate, that the 
 passion between the sexes involved as much 
 sentiment and romance as it does in our Eliza- 
 bethan dramatists. In what respect do Charinus 
 and Pamphilus in the Andria and Antipho in 
 the Phormio mere replicas, of course, of Greek 
 originals differ from modern lovers? What 
 could be more romantic than the love story 
 which formed the plot of the Phasma of Men- 
 ander ? It is fair to our author to say that he 
 fully admits this, in the only tolerably satisfac- 
 tory part of his book, the chapter on Women in 
 Greek Comedy. The great blot on Greek life, 
 to which Mr. Benecke gives so much prominence, 
 
 292
 
 WOMEN IN GREEK POETRY 
 
 has probably had far too much importance at- 
 tached to it, partly, perhaps, owing to its accen- 
 tuation in the writings of Plato, and partly 
 owing to that rage for scandalous tittle-tattle, 
 so unhappily characteristic of ancient anecdote- 
 mongers from Ion to Athenseus 
 
 293
 
 MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS' POEMS 1 
 
 THE accent here is unmistakable, it is the 
 accent of a new and a true poet. Mr. 
 Phillips gives us no mere variations on familiar 
 melodies, no clever copies of classical archetypes, 
 and what is more, he has not employed any 
 illegitimate means of attracting attention and 
 giving distinction to his work. An audacious 
 choice of subjects, the adoption of the stones 
 which the builders have rejected, and, it may be 
 added, disdained, has, when coupled with elabo- 
 rate affectations and eccentricities of treatment 
 and style, often enabled mediocrity to pass, tem- 
 porarily at least, for genius, and the specious 
 counterfeit of originality for the thing itself. 
 But these poems are marked by simplicity, sin- 
 cerity, spontaneity. If a discordant note is 
 sometimes struck, here in an over-strained con- 
 ceit, and there in an incongruous touch of pre- 
 ciosity or false sentiment, this is but an accident ; 
 in essentials all is genuine. Nature and passion 
 affect to be speaking, and nature and passion 
 really speak. A poet, of whom this may be said 
 with truth, has passed the line which divides 
 
 1 Poems. By Stephen Phillips. London and New York 
 John Lane. 
 
 294
 
 MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS' POEMS 
 
 talent from genius, the true singer from the 
 accomplished artist or imitator. He has taken 
 his place, wherever that place may be, among 
 authentic poets. To that high honour the pre- 
 sent volume undoubtedly entitles Mr. Phillips. 
 It would now, perhaps, be premature to say more 
 than " Ingens omen habet magni clarique tri- 
 umphi," but we may predict with confidence that, 
 if fate is kind and his muse is true to him, he 
 has a distinguished future before him. It may 
 be safely said that no poet has made his d4but 
 with a volume which is at once of such extra- 
 ordinary merit and so rich in promise. 
 
 Mr. Phillips is not a poet who has " one plain 
 passage of few notes." He strikes many chords, 
 and strikes them often with thrilling power. The 
 awful story narrated in The Wife is conceived and 
 embodied with really Dantesque intensity and 
 vividness ; it has the master's suggestive reser- 
 vation, smiting phrase, and clairvoyant picture 
 wording, as " in the red shawl sacredly she 
 burned," " smiled at him with her lips, not with 
 her eyes " ; while " Mother and child that food 
 together ate" is, in pregnancy of tragic sugges- 
 tiveness, almost worthy to stand with the "poscia, 
 piii che il dolor, pote* il digiuno." Equally dis- 
 tinguished, though on another plane of interest, 
 is The woman with the dead Soul, the soul which 
 could once " wonder, laugh, and weep," but over 
 which the days began to fall " dismally, as rain 
 on ocean blear," till 
 
 205
 
 MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS' POEMS 
 
 " Existence lean, in sky dead grey 
 Withholding steadily, starved it away." 
 
 If the pathos in these poems is almost " too deep 
 for tears," it is gentler in the second and third 
 of the lyrics, which are as exquisite as they 
 are affecting. The idea in the lines To Milton 
 Blind, is worthy of Milton's own sublime conceit, 
 that the darkness which had fallen on his eyes 
 was but the shadow of God's protecting wings. 
 The whole poem, indeed, is a beautiful para- 
 phrase of the noble passage in the Second Defence 
 of the People of England : " For the Divine law " 
 we give it in the English translation " not 
 only shields me from injury, but almost renders 
 me too sacred to attack, not indeed so much from 
 the privation of my sight as from the over- 
 shadowing of those heavenly wings which seem 
 to have occasioned this obscurity ; and which, 
 when occasioned, he is wont to illuminate with 
 an interior light more precious and more pure." 
 
 In The Lily, which is a little obscure a fault 
 against which Mr. Phillips would do well to 
 guard, for he frequently offends in this respect 
 we have the note of Petrarch, but Petrarch 
 would not have ended the poem so flatly. 
 Tennyson is recalled, too nearly perhaps, in " By 
 the Sea," but it is a poem of great charm and 
 beauty. The New De Profundis is, unhappily, 
 the key to Mr. Phillips' characteristic mood ; it 
 reminds us of the curse imposed on the worldling 
 in Browning's Easter Day, before he has learned 
 the use of life and doubt. 
 
 206
 
 MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS' POEMS 
 
 Mr. Phillips' two most ambitious poems are 
 Christ in Hades and Marpessa. In Christ in 
 Hades he fails, as Mrs. Browning failed in The 
 Drama of Exile. He attempts a theme a stu- 
 pendous theme to which his genius is not equal, 
 and which could only have been adequately 
 treated by such poets as Dante and Milton, in the 
 maturity of their powers. It has neither basis 
 nor superstructure. It is what the Greeks would 
 call "meteoric" as distinguished from "sublime." 
 It is a weird, wild, and chaotic dream ; and yet 
 for all this its appeal to the heart and the ima- 
 gination is piercing and direct. Like Tennyson, 
 Mr. Phillips has the art of unfolding the full 
 significance of a few suggestive words in a great 
 classic ; and nothing could be more effective than 
 the use to which he has applied the famous lines 
 which Homer places in the mouth of Achilles. 
 Poetry has few things more pathetic than 
 Homer's picture of Hades and the dead, and that 
 pathos Mr. Phillips has given us in quintessence, 
 as few would question after reading the lines 
 which describe Persephone yearning for her 
 return to the spring-illumined world, the speech 
 of the Athenian ghost, and the woman's address 
 to Christ. If the world depicted has something 
 of Horace's artistic monster, or, to change the 
 image, something of the anarchy of dreams in 
 its composition, the vividness and picturosqueness 
 with which particular figures and scenes are 
 flashed into light and definition is extraordinarily 
 
 297
 
 MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS' POEMS 
 
 impressive. It is so with the central figure, 
 Christ ; it is so with Prometheus ; and the con- 
 trast between these martyrs for man has both 
 pathos and grandeur. 
 
 There is more originality, more power in 
 Christ in Hades than in Marpessa, but Mar- 
 pessa has more balance, more sanity, more 
 of the stuff out of which good and abiding 
 poetry is made, than its predecessor. The one 
 savours of the spasmodic school, the productions 
 of which have rarely been found to have the 
 principle of life, however rich they may have 
 been in promise ; the other is a return to a 
 school in which most of those who have gained 
 permanent fame have studied. And we are 
 glad to find a young poet there. 
 
 But it would be doing Mr. Phillips great in- 
 justice not to note that, though he has had many 
 predecessors in the semi-classical, semi-romantic 
 re-treatment of the Greek myths, notably Keats 
 in Hyperion, Wordsworth in Dion and Laodamia, 
 Landor in his Hellenics, and Tennyson in ^Enone 
 and Tithonus, he has treated his theme with 
 a distinction which is all his own, and has 
 impressed on it an intense individuality. In 
 comparison with these masters he may be 
 pauper, but he is pauper in suo cere. 
 
 It would be easy to point to faults in Mr. 
 Phillips' work. His sense of rhythm, even allow- 
 ing for what are plainly deliberate experiments 
 in discord, seems often curiously defective. How 
 
 298
 
 MR STEPHEN PHILLIPS' POEMS 
 
 stiff and limping, for example, is the following: 
 
 " pity us, 
 
 For I would ask of thee only to look 
 Upon the wonderful sunlight and to smell 
 Earth in the rain. Is not the labourer 
 Returning heavy through the August sheaves 
 Against the setting sun, who gladly smells 
 His supper from the opening door is he 
 Not happier than these melancholy kings ? 
 How good it is to live, even at the worst ! 
 God was so lavish to us once, but here 
 He hath repented, jealous of His beams." 
 
 Lines, again, like " Pierced her, and odour full of 
 arrows was," " Realizes all the uncoloured dawn," 
 ' Yet followed a riddled memorable flag," are, 
 no doubt, extreme instances, but they are typical 
 of many bad lines. Occasionally he falls flat on 
 some harsh prosaic phrase, like " beautiful indo- 
 lence was on our brains" Nor is he always 
 happy in his attempts at novelty in phraseology, 
 as in his employment of the words " liable," 
 " inaccurate," " pungent " ; and these faults in 
 rhythm and diction are the more remarkable, as 
 the really subtle mastery over rhythmic expres- 
 sion which he exhibits at times, and his singu- 
 larly felicitous epithets, turns, and phrases are 
 among his most striking gifts. Take a few out 
 of very many: "A bleak magnificence of endless 
 hope," " That common trivial face, of endless 
 needs," " The mystic river, floating wan," " And 
 the moist evening fallow, richly dark," " That 
 palest rose sweet on the night of life." How noble 
 is the rhythm and imagery of the following : 
 
 299
 
 y 
 
 MR. STEPHEN PHILLIPS' POEMS 
 
 " All the dead 
 
 The melancholy attraction of Jesus felt : 
 And millions, like a sea, wave upon wave, 
 Heaved dreaming to that moonlight face, or ran 
 In wonderful long ripples, sorrow-charmed. 
 Toward him, in faded purple, pacing came 
 Dead emperors, and sad, unflattered kings ; 
 Unlucky captains, listless armies led: 
 Poets with music frozen on their lips 
 Toward the pale brilliance sighed." 
 
 And it would be easy to multiply illustrations 
 from Marpessa and By the Sea. Occasionally 
 there is a certain incongruity between the form 
 and the matter. A poem so essentially, so 
 intensely realistic as The Wife should not have 
 such quaintnesses as "paled in her thought." 
 Nor should we have 
 
 " The constable, with lifted hand, 
 Conducting the orchestral Strand " ; 
 
 nor should a railway station be described as a 
 " mooned terminus." Nothing is so disenchant- 
 ing as affectation. 
 
 One cannot but add that these poems, welcome 
 as they are, would have been more welcome still, 
 had they been less profoundly melancholy. 
 Their monotonous sadness, the persistency with 
 which they dwell on all those grim and melan- 
 choly realities which poetry should help us to 
 forget, or cheer us in enduring, is not merely 
 their leading, but their pervading characteristic. 
 This note will, we hope, change. Leopardi is 
 immortal, and could not be spared ; but one 
 Leopardi is enough for a single century. 
 
 300
 
 THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE 1 
 
 SOME nineteen hundred years ago Horace 
 observed that there was one thing which 
 neither gods, nor men, nor bookstalls would tol- 
 erate in a poet and that was mediocrity. The 
 verdict of gods, men, and the bookstalls is prob- 
 ably still what it was then ; but to such tribunals 
 the rhymesters of our time can afford to be 
 quite indifferent. Paper and printing are cheap ; 
 small poets and small critics are now so numer- 
 ous that they form a world, and a populous 
 world, in themselves ; and, well understanding 
 the truth of the old proverb, " Concordia parvae 
 res crescunt," they mutually manufacture the 
 wreaths with which they crown each other's 
 modest vanity. There are hundreds of " poets " 
 and " critics " of whom the great world knows 
 nothing, who are thus enabled, in their little day, 
 to taste all the sweets of fame, and " walk with 
 inward glory crown'd." To wage serious war 
 
 1 West Country Poets : Their Lives and Works, etc 
 Illustrated with Portraits. By W. H. Kearley Wright, 
 F.B.H.S. London : Elliot Stock. 1896. 
 
 301
 
 THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE 
 
 against such a tribe as this would be as absurd 
 as to break butterflies upon a wheel ; but 
 we really think it high time that some protest 
 should be made against the indefinite multipli- 
 cation of the rubbish for which these people and 
 their patrons are responsible, and still more 
 against its importation into what purports to be 
 a contribution to serious literature. As long as 
 these geniuses confine themselves to their proper 
 sphere, the poets' corners of provincial news- 
 papers, we have nothing to say. But it becomes 
 quite another matter when the skill of an inge- 
 nious projector enables we are really sorry to 
 have to speak so harshly a rabble of poetasters 
 to figure side by side with poets of classical 
 fame, and to appear in all the dignity of con- 
 tributors to a national anthology. Yet such is 
 the design of this volume, which was, it seems, 
 published by subscription, the subscribers being 
 for the most part the various candidates for 
 poetical fame, who have obligingly sent their 
 portraits and their biographies for insertion in 
 Mr. Kearley Wright's " monumental work." As 
 Mr. Kearley Wright's collection begins with the 
 fifteenth century, and includes the really emi- 
 nent poets who happen to have been born in the 
 West of England, many of his worthies are 
 naturally apud plures, but the majority, in whose 
 honour the anthology appears to have been com- 
 piled, adorn the living. And very gratifying it 
 must be for these gentlemen, and for Mr. 
 
 302
 
 THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE 
 
 Kearley Wright himself for he also has a 
 niche to find themselves side by side with Sir 
 Walter Raleigh, Herrick, Gay, and Coleridge. 
 
 Mr. Kearley Wright's "company of makers" 
 is certainly a motley one. First comes among 
 his living bards an inspired porter at the Teign- 
 mouth railway station, who asks in rapture, 
 
 " Along the glitt'ring streets of gold, 
 
 Amid the brilliant glare, 
 Shall we God's banner there unfold, 
 His righteous helmet wear ? " 
 
 At no great distance follows, with a portrait 
 looking intensely intellectual, " the manager of 
 the Bristol and South Wales Railway Waggon 
 Company, Limited," whose poems are described 
 as " lacking here and there logical sequence and 
 literary method," but "evincing undoubtedly 
 a great poetical disposition and philosophical 
 drift." The two poems which illustrate this 
 poet's genius afford very little proof either of 
 " a great poetical disposition " or of " a philoso- 
 phical drift," but painfully conclusive proof that 
 much more is lacking than "logical sequence and 
 literary method," the lack of which may certainly 
 be conceded as well. Next comes Mr. Jonas 
 Coaker, "the landlord of the Warren House Inn," 
 whose verses " disclose a poetic spirit, and, had 
 he possessed the advantages of education, would 
 doubtless have attracted some attention." Mr. 
 Coaker is in the main autobiographical. 
 
 303
 
 THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE 
 
 "I drew my breath first on the moor, 
 
 There my forefathers dwelled ; 
 Its hills and dales I've traversed o'er, 
 Its desert parts beheld. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 It's oft envelop'd in a fog, 
 Because it's up so high." 
 
 And Mr. Coaker continues in the same strain 
 further than we care to transcribe. Then we 
 have Mr. John Goodwin, "formerly a coach- 
 guard, who sung of the days when there was 
 such a thing, if we may so phrase it, as the 
 poetry of locomotion." In his poetry, we are 
 told, " there is a genuine ring," as here, for 
 example : 
 
 " I mind the time, when I was guard, 
 
 The lord, the duke, or squire 
 Would travel by the old stage-coach, 
 Or post-chaise they would hire." 
 
 Mr. Charles Chorley, who is, we are informed, 
 submanager of the Truro Savings Bank, in verses 
 which are presumably a parody of Sir William 
 Jones' Imitation of Alcceus, inquires, not without 
 a certain propriety, " What constitutes a mine ? " 
 On a par with all these are the verses of the 
 bard who " in summer hawked gooseberries and 
 in winter shoelaces," and those of the "unedu- 
 cated journeyman woolcomber." 
 
 Now, we need hardly say that the humble 
 vocations of these poets are neither derogatory 
 to them nor in any way detrimental to merit 
 
 304
 
 THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE 
 
 where merit exists ; but there is no merit what- 
 ever in the poems assigned to them in this 
 volume ; they are simply such poems as hawkers, 
 woolcombers, railway porters, and submanagers 
 of provincial banks " who pen a stanza when 
 they should engross " might be expected to 
 write. The same may be said of almost every 
 copy of verses, produced by amateurs, to be found 
 in this collection. We have scarcely noticed a 
 single poem which rises above mediocrity ; a 
 very large proportion are below even a mediocre 
 standard they are simply rubbish. In one poet 
 only, among those whose names were not before 
 known to us, do we discern genius, and that is 
 in Mr. John Dryden Hosken, whose poem, en- 
 titled My Masters, is really excellent. 
 
 The editor of this anthology is plainly incom- 
 petent, both in point of taste and critical discern- 
 ment, and in point of knowledge, for the task 
 which he has undertaken. The first is proved by 
 the extracts which he has selected from the works 
 of well-known poets. Coleridge, for example, 
 is represented by two comparatively inferior 
 poems, The Devils Thoughts and Fancy in Nubi- 
 bus ; Thomas Carew, by two short poems, one 
 of which is probably the worst he ever wrote ; 
 Herrick, by two of his very worst ; Praed, by two 
 of the feeblest and least characteristic of his 
 poems ; Walcot, by mere trash. It is quite pos- 
 sible that their less illustrious brethren may 
 have suffered from the deplorable inability of 
 E.G. 305 U
 
 THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE 
 
 this editor to discern between what is good and 
 what is bad. Certainly Capern, who was a poet 
 wiph a touch of genius, suffers, for the lyric 
 given is very far indeed from representing or 
 illustrating his best or even his characteristic 
 work. In giving an account of Alexander Bar- 
 clay, who, by the way, is called Andrew in the 
 Preface, Mr. Wright says nothing about his 
 most important poems his Eclogues. If Eus- 
 tace Budgell is included among the poets, why 
 are not his poems specified and represented ? 
 Of Aaron Hill it is observed that " neither his 
 reputation as a poet nor his connexion with the 
 county of Devon is sufficient to warrant more 
 than a mere notice of his name." Aaron Hill 
 was the author of more than one poem of con- 
 spicuous merit. The verses attributed on page 
 488 to Sir William Yonge were written by Lady 
 Mary Wortley Montagu. But these are trifles. 
 What we wish to protest against is the foisting 
 of such volumes as these on our libraries ; and 
 it is appalling to learn that it is the intention of 
 Mr. Kearley Wright, if he is sufficiently encour- 
 aged by subscribers, to follow this with another 
 similar collection. If poets like these wish to 
 gratify their vanity, let them not gratify it to 
 the detriment of serious literatur^ for, if the 
 few can discriminate, the many cannot, and the 
 multiplication of works like these must infallibly 
 tend to lower the standard of current literature, 
 by furthering the disastrous "cult of the average 
 
 306
 
 THE ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE 
 
 man." In our opinion criticism can have no 
 more imperative duty than to discountenance 
 and discourage hi every way such projectors as 
 Mr. Kearley Wright and such poets as those for 
 whose merits he and critics like him stand spon- 
 sors. 
 
 307
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 1 
 
 SIR GEORGE OSBORNE MORGAN has 
 served his generation in much more im- 
 portant capacities than those of a scholar and a 
 translator of Virgil, and had this little work, 
 therefore, been less meritorious than it is, no 
 critic with a sense of the becoming would deal 
 harshly with it. But it challenges and deserves 
 serious consideration, not only as an attempt to 
 solve a problem of singular interest to students 
 of classical poetry, but as a somewhat ambitious 
 contribution to the literature of translation. 
 Sir Osborne Morgan is, however, mistaken in 
 supposing that in translating Virgil into his 
 own metre he " has undertaken a task which 
 has never been attempted before." In 1583 
 Richard Stanihurst published a translation of 
 the first four books of the dEneid in English 
 hexameters ; and, if Sir Osborne will turn to 
 Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie, published 
 as early as 1586, ho will find versions in English 
 
 1 The Eclogues of Virgil. Translated into English 
 Hexameter Verse by the Right Hon. Sir George Osborne 
 Morgan, Bart., Q.C., M.P. London. 
 
 308
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 
 
 hexameters of the First and Second Eclogues, 
 while Abraham Fraunce, in a curious volume, 
 entitled The Countess of Pembroke's Ivy Church, 
 which appeared in 1591, has, among the other 
 hexameters in the collection, given a version of 
 the Second Eclogue in this measure. But Sir 
 Osborne Morgan has been more immediately 
 anticipated in his experiment. In 1838 Dr. 
 James Blundell published anonymously, under 
 the title of Hexametrical Eocperiments, versions 
 in hexameters of the First, Fourth, Sixth, and 
 Tenth Eclogues, and to this translation he pre- 
 fixed an elaborate preface, vindicating the em- 
 ployment of the hexameter in English, and ex- 
 plaining its mechanism to the unlearned. Indeed, 
 Blundell arrived at the same conclusion as Sir 
 Osborne Morgan, that the proper medium for an 
 English translation of hexametrical poems in 
 Greek and Latin is the English hexameter. We 
 may, however, hasten to add that Sir Osborne 
 has little to fear from a comparison with his 
 predecessors, who have, indeed, done their best 
 to refute by example their own theory. It may 
 be observed, in passing, that the translations of 
 Virgil into rhymed decasyllabic verse are far 
 more numerous than Sir Osborne Morgan seems 
 to suppose. Ho is, he says, acquainted only 
 with two the version by Dryden and Joseph 
 Warton not seeming to bo aware that Warton 
 translated only the Georgics and Eclogues, 
 printing Pitt's version of the JEneid. 
 
 309
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 
 
 whole of Virgil was translated into this 
 measure by John Ogilvie between 1649-50, and 
 by the Earl of Lauderdale about 1716, while 
 versions of the ^Eneid, the Georgics, and the 
 Eclogues, in the same metre, have abounded in 
 every era of our literature, from Gawain 
 Douglas's translation of the jEneid printed in 
 1553, to Archdeacon Wrangham's version of the 
 Eclogues in 1830. 
 
 It is no reproach to Sir Osborne Morgan that, 
 in the occupations of a busy political life, his 
 scholarship should have become a little rusty, 
 but it is a pity that he should so often have 
 allowed himself to be caught tripping, when a 
 little timely counsel in the correction of his 
 proof sheets might have prevented this. In 
 the First Eclogue the line 
 
 " Non insueta graves temptabunt pabula fetas " 
 is translated 
 
 "Here no unwonted herb shall tempt the travailing 
 cattle." 
 
 What it really means is, no change of fodder, 
 no fodder which is strange to them, shall 
 "infect" or "try" the pregnant cattle, 
 " insueta " being used in exactly the same sense 
 as in Eclogue V. 56, " insuetum miratur limen 
 Olympi," and " temptare " as it is used in Georg. 
 III. 441, and commonly in classical Latin. It is, 
 to say the least, questionable whether in the 
 couplet 
 
 310
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 
 
 "Pauperis et tuguri congestum csespite culmen, 
 Post aliquot, mea regna videns, mirabor aristas?" 
 
 the last line can mean 
 
 "Gaze on the straggling corn, the remains of what once 
 was my kingdom." 
 
 "Aristas" is much more likely to be a meto- 
 nymy for " messes," i.e. " annos," like aporov in 
 Sophocles' Trachinice, 69, rov /xev irape\86vr 
 aporov, a confirmative illustration which seems 
 to have escaped the commentators ; but it is 
 difficult to say, and Sir Osborne has, it must be 
 owned, excellent authority for his interpreta- 
 tion. In Eclogue III. the somewhat difficult 
 
 passage 
 
 " pocula ponam 
 Fagina . . . 
 
 Lenta quibus torno facili superaddita vitis 
 Diffuses hedera vestit pallente corymbos " 
 
 i.e. "where the limber vine wreathed round 
 them by the deft graving tool is twined with 
 pale ivy's spreading clusters," is translated : 
 
 " Over whose side the vine by a touch of the graving 
 
 tool added 
 
 Mantles its clustering grapes in the paler leaves of the 
 ivy." 
 
 This is quite wrong. " Corymbos " cannot pos- 
 sibly mean clusters of grapes, but clusters of ivy 
 berries, " hederfi, pallente " being substituted, 
 after Virgil's manner, for " hederse pallentis." 
 In Eclogue IV. 24 there is no reason for 
 supposing that the " fallax herba veneni " is 
 
 311
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 
 
 hemlock ; it is much more likely to be aconite. 
 In line 45 " sandyx " should be translated not 
 " purple " but " crimson," vague as the colour 
 indicated by " purple " is. In Eclogue V. 
 
 "Si quos aut Phyllidis ignes, 
 Aut Alconis habes laudes, aut jurgia Codri " 
 
 is not 
 
 " Phyllis's fiery loves you would sing or the quarrels of 
 Codrus," 
 
 but "your passion for Phyllis, your invectives 
 against Codrus," " ignes " being used far more 
 becomingly for a man's love than for a woman's. 
 So, again, " pro purpureo narcisso " cannot 
 mean what nature never saw, " purple daffodil," 
 but the white narcissus. In Eclogue VIII. 
 " Sophocleo tua carmina digna cothurno " is 
 turned by what is obviously a lapsus calami, 
 " worthy of Sophocles' sock." A scholar like 
 Sir Osborne Morgan does not need reminding 
 that the " sock " is a metonymy for Comedy, as 
 Milton anglicizes it in L? Allegro, "if Jonson's 
 learned sock be on." In the exquisite passage 
 in Eclogue VIII. 41 
 
 " Jam fragiles poteram ab terra contingere ramos " 
 
 to translate " fragiles " as " frail " is to miss the 
 whole point of the epithet. What Virgil means 
 is, " I could just reach the branches from the 
 ground and break them off " ; if it is to be trans- 
 lated by one epithet, it must bo "brittle." 
 Again in the Ninth Eclogue the words 
 
 312
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 
 
 "qua se subducere colles 
 Incipiunt, mollique jugum demittere clivo," 
 
 do not mean " where the hills with gentle 
 depression steal away into the plain," but the 
 very opposite : i.e. " Where the hills begin to 
 draw themselves up from the plain," the ascent 
 being contemplated from below. In Eclogue 
 IX., in turning the couplet 
 
 " Nam neque adhuc Vario videor, nee dicere Cinna 
 Digna, sed argutos inter strepere anser olores," 
 
 the translator has no authority for turning the 
 last verse into " a cackling goose in a chorus of 
 cygnets," for there is no tradition that cygnets 
 sang, and goose should have been printed with a 
 capital letter to preserve the pun, the allusion 
 being to a poetaster named Anser. Unfortu- 
 nately for the English translator, our literature 
 can boast no counterpart to "Anser" totidem 
 literis, but Goose printed with a capital is near 
 enough to preserve, or suggest the sarcasm. 
 There is another slip in Eclogue X. : " Ferulas " 
 is not " wands of willow " but " fennel." 
 
 Occasionally a touch is introduced which is 
 neither authorized by the original, nor true to 
 nature. There is nothing, for instance to 
 warrant, hi Eclogue I. 56, the epithet " odorous" 
 as applied to the willow, nor does " salictum " 
 mean a " willow " but a " willow-bed or plan- 
 tation." To translate " ubi tempus erit " by 
 " when the hour shall have struck " reminds 
 us of Shakespeare's famous anachronism in 
 
 313
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 
 
 Julius Ccesar and is as surprising in the work 
 of a scholar as the lengthening of the penul- 
 timate in arbutus, " Sweet is the shower to the 
 blade, To the newly weaned kid the arbutus." 
 As a rule, the translator turns difficult pas- 
 sages very skilfully, but this is not the case with 
 the couplet which concludes the " Pollio " : 
 
 " Incipe, parve puer : cui non risere parentes 
 Nee deus hunc mensa, dea nee dignata cubili est " ; 
 
 that is, the " babe on whom the parent nevei 
 smiled, no god ever deemed worthy of his board, 
 no goddess of her bed " in other words, he can 
 never enjoy the rewards of a hero like Her- 
 cules; but there is neither sense nor skill, and 
 something very like a serious grammatical 
 error, in 
 
 " Who knows not the smile of a parent, 
 Neither the board of a god nor the bed of a goddess is 
 worthy." 
 
 But to turn from comparative trifles. No 
 one who reads this version of the Eclogues can 
 doubt that Sir Osborne Morgan has proved his 
 point, that the English hexameter, when skil- 
 fully used, is the measure best adapted for 
 reproducing Virgil's music in English. The 
 following passage (Ec. VII. 45-48) is happily 
 turned ; let us place the original beside the 
 translation : 
 
 "Muscosi fontes et somno mollior herba, 
 Et quse vos rara viridis tegit arbutus umbra, 
 Solstitium pecori defendite : jam venit aestas 
 Torrida, jam laeto turgent in palmite gemmse." 
 314
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 
 
 "Moss-grown fountains and sward more soft than the 
 
 softest of slumbers, 
 
 Arbutus tree that flings over both its flickering shadows, 
 Shelter my flock from the sun. Already the summer is 
 
 on us, 
 Summer that scorches up all ! See the bud on the glad 
 
 vine is swelling." 
 
 Again (Ec. X. 41-48) :- 
 
 " Serta mihi Phyllis legeret, cantaret Amyntas : 
 Hie gelidi fontes, hie mollia prata, Lycori, 
 Hie nemus: hie ipso tecum consumerer sevo. 
 Nunc insanus amor duri me Mart is in armis 
 Tela inter media atque adversos detinet hostes : 
 Tu procul a patria nee sit mihi credere tautum ! 
 Alpinas, ah dura, nives et frigora Rheni 
 Me sine sola vides." 
 
 " Pli3 r llis would gather me flowers and Amyntas a melody 
 
 chant me ; 
 Cool is the fountain's wave and soft is the meadow, 
 
 Lycoris ; 
 Shady the grove ! Here with thee I would die of old 
 
 age in the greenwood. 
 Mad is the lust of war, that now in the heart of the 
 
 battle 
 Chains me where darts fall fast, and the charge of the 
 
 foemen is fiercest, 
 Far, far away from your home Oh, would that I might 
 
 not believe it 
 
 Lost amid Alpine snows or the frozen desolate Rhine- 
 land, 
 Lonely without me you wander." 
 
 Many other felicitous passages might be 
 quoted ; indeed, there is no Eclogue without 
 them ; but the translator is not sure-footed, 
 and, if he occasionally illustrates the hexameter 
 in its excellence, he illustrates, unhappily too 
 
 315
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 
 
 often, some of its worst defects. Two qualities 
 are indispensable to the success of this measure 
 in English. Our language, unlike the classical 
 languages, being accentual and not quantitative, 
 if the long syllable is not represented where the 
 stress naturally falls, and the short syllables 
 where it does not fall, the effect is sometimes 
 grotesque, sometimes distressing, and always 
 unsatisfactory. Nothing, for example, could 
 be worse in their various ways than the 
 following : 
 
 "Wept when you saw they were given the lad, and had 
 
 you not managed." 
 " Let not the frozen air harm you." 
 " Scatter the sand with his hind hoofs." 
 " The pliant growth of the osier." 
 " Worthy of Sophocles' sock, trumpet-tongued through the 
 
 Universe echo. " 
 " Own'd it himself, and yet he would not deliver it to me." 
 
 A very nice ear, too, is required to adjust the 
 collocation of words in which either vowels or 
 consonants predominate, and the relative posi- 
 tion of monosyllabic and polysyllabic words, 
 the predominance of the former in our 
 language increasing enormously the difficulty. 
 No measure, moreover, so easily runs into 
 intolerable monotony a monotony which 
 Clough sought to avoid by overweighting his 
 verses with spondees, and which Longfellow 
 illustrates by the cloying predominance of the 
 dactylic movement. Sir Osborne Morgan tells 
 us that he took Kingsley as his model. 
 
 316
 
 VIRGIL IN ENGLISH HEXAMETERS 
 
 Kingsley's hexameters are respectable, but they 
 have no distinction, and he had certainly not a 
 good ear. Longfellow's are far better, and are 
 sometimes exquisitely felicitous, as in a couplet 
 like the following, which, with the exception of 
 one word, is flawless : 
 
 "Men whose lives glided on like the rivers that water 
 
 the woodlands, 
 
 Darken'd by shadows of earth, but reflecting an image 
 of Heaven." 
 
 Probably the best hexameters which have been 
 composed in English are those in William 
 Watson's Hymn to the Sea and those in which 
 Hawtry translated Iliad III. 234-244, and the 
 parting of Hector and Andromache in the 
 Sixth Iliad, models these versions not merely 
 of translation, but of hexametrical structure. 
 There are, however, certain magical effects, 
 particularly in the Virgilian hexameter, pro- 
 duced by an exquisite but audacious tact in 
 the employment of licences, which can never 
 be reproduced in English. 
 Such would be 
 
 " Nam neque Parnassi vobis juga, nam neque Pindi 
 Ulla moram fecere, neque Aonie Aganippe. 
 Ilium etiam lauri, etiam flevere myricse ; 
 Pinifer ilium etiam sol.1 sub rupe jacentem 
 Msenalus et gelidi fleverunt saxa Lycsei." 
 
 Milton, and Milton alone among Englishmen, 
 had the secret of this music, but he elicited 
 it from another instrument. 
 
 317
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON l 
 
 JACOB THOMSON, ein vergessener Dichter 
 des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts " a for- 
 gotten poet of the eighteenth century such is 
 the title of a recent monograph on the author 
 of The Seasons by Dr. G. Schmeding. Dr. G. 
 Schmeding is, however, so obliging as to pro- 
 nounce that, in his opinion, this ought not to be 
 Thomson's fate ; that there remains in his work, 
 especially in The Seasons merit enough to 
 entitle him to be " enrolled among poets," and 
 to find appreciation, at all events in schools and 
 reading societies. Dr. Schmeding may rest 
 assured that Thomson's fame is quite safe. It 
 has no doubt suffered, as that of all the poets 
 of the eighteenth century has suffered, by the 
 great revolution which has, in the course of the 
 last ninety years, passed over literary tastes and 
 fashions. But during the present century there 
 have been no less than twenty editions of his 
 
 1 The Poetical Works of James Thomson. A New 
 Edition, with Memoir and Critical Appendices, by the Kev. 
 D. C. Tovey. 2 vols. London. 
 
 318
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 poems, to say nothing of separate editions of The 
 Seasons ; while his works, or portions of them, 
 have been translated in to German, Italian, modern 
 Greek, and Russian. Only two years agoM. Leon 
 Morel, in his J. Thomson, sa vie et ses muvres, pub- 
 lished an elaborate and admirable monograph 
 on this " forgotten poet." And now Mr. Tovey, 
 who, we are glad to see, has been appointed 
 Clarke Lecturer at Cambridge, has given us a 
 new biography of him and a new edition of his 
 works, making, if we are not mistaken, the thirty- 
 second memoir of him and the twenty-first 
 edition of his works which have appeared since 
 the beginning of the century. This is pretty 
 well for a forgotten poet ! 
 
 Mr. Tovey 's name is a sufficient guarantee for 
 accurate and scholarly work. But it might 
 naturally be asked, what is there to justify an- 
 other edition of this poet, when so many editions 
 are already in the field and so easily accessible ? 
 We have little difficulty in answering this ques- 
 tion. The special features of Mr. Tovey's edition 
 are as important as they are interesting. In the 
 first place, he has given us a much fuller bio- 
 graphy than has hitherto appeared in English ; 
 in the second place, he has thrown much inter- 
 esting light on the political bearing of Thomson's 
 dramas ; and, in the third place, he has given, 
 what no other editor of Thomson has given, a 
 full collation of Thomson's own MS. corrections, 
 preserved in Mitford's copy, now deposited in the 
 
 319
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 British Museum. The critical notes have cost 
 him, he says, and we can quite believe it, much 
 time and labour, and in his preface he half apolo- 
 gizes for what may seem " a ridiculous travesty 
 of more important labours." There was no 
 necessity for such an apology : he observes justly 
 that he has " not spent more pains on Thomson's 
 text than so many of our scholars bestow upon 
 some Greek and Latin poets whose intrinsic 
 merit is no greater than Thomson's." 
 
 To serious readers these critical notes will 
 constitute the most valuable part of Mr. Tovey's 
 labours ; they are, in truth, the speciality of this 
 particular edition, and will make it indispens- 
 able to all students of this most interesting 
 poet. And now Mr. Tovey will, we trust, for- 
 give us if, with due deference, we point out 
 what seem to us to be defects in his work. 
 The first thing that might have been expected 
 from so learned and careful an editor of 
 Thomson was an adequate discussion of the 
 great problem of the authorship of Rule Bri- 
 tannia, and the second an exposure of one of 
 the most extraordinary " mare's-nests " to be 
 found in English literature. But nothing, we 
 regret to say, can be more perfunctory and 
 inadequate than the two notes in which the 
 first question is hurried over with references 
 to Notes and Queries, and nothing more irri- 
 tating than the confusion worse confounded 
 in which Mr. Tovey leaves the second. We 
 
 320
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 shall therefore make no apology for entering 
 somewhat at length into both these questions, 
 
 And first for the authorship of Rule Britannia. 
 The facts are these. In 1740 Thomson and 
 Mallet wrote, in conjunction, a masque entitled 
 Alfred, which, on 1st August in that year, was 
 represented before the Prince and Princess of 
 Wales at Clifden. It was in two acts, and 
 it contained six lyrics, the last being Rule 
 Britannia, which is entitled an " Ode," the 
 music being by Dr. Arne. In 1745 Arne turned 
 the piece into an opera, and also into " a 
 musical drama." By this time the lyric had 
 become very popular, but there is no evidence 
 to show that it had been definitely attributed to 
 either of the coadjutors. In 1748 Thomson died. 
 In 1751 Mallet re-issued Alfred, but in another 
 form. It was entirely remodelled, and almost 
 entirely re-written, and, in an advertisement pre- 
 fixed to the work, he says : " According to the 
 present arrangement of the fable I was obliged 
 to reject a great deal of what I had written in 
 the other : neither could I retain, of my friend's 
 part, more than three or four speeches, and a part 
 of one song." Now, of the parts retained from 
 the former work, there were the first three 
 stanzas of Rule Britannia, the three others being 
 excised, and their place supplied by three stanzas 
 written by Lord Bolingbroke. If Mallet is to be 
 believed, then, "part of one song" must refer, 
 either to a song in the thi^d scene of the second 
 
 E.G. 321 x
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OP THOMSON 
 
 act, beginning "From those eternal regions 
 bright," or to Rule Britannia, for these are the 
 only lyrics in which portions of the lyrics in the 
 former edition are retained. Rule Britannia is, 
 it is true, entitled "An Ode" in the former edition, 
 and the other lyric "A Song," so that Mallet 
 would certainly seem to imply that what he 
 had retained of his friend's work was the portion 
 of the song referred to, and not Rule Britannia. 
 But, as Mallet was notoriously a man who could 
 not be believed on oath, and was an adept in 
 all those bad arts by which little men filch hon- 
 ours which do not belong to them, if he is to be 
 allowed to have any title to the honour of com- 
 posing this lyric, it ought to rest on something 
 better than the ambiguity between the word 
 " Ode " and the word " Song." 
 
 There is no evidence that, while both were 
 alive, either Thomson or Mallet claimed the 
 authorship ; but this is certain, it was printed at 
 Edinburgh, during Mallet's lifetime, in the second 
 edition of a well-known song book, entitled The 
 Charmer, with Thomson's initials appended to 
 it. It is certain that Mallet had friends in 
 Edinburgh, and it is equally certain that neither 
 he nor any of his friends raised any objection to 
 its ascription to Thomson. In 1743, in 1759, and 
 in 1762 Mallet published collections of poems, 
 but In none of these collections does he lay claim 
 to Rule Britannia, and, though it was printed in 
 song-books in 1749, 1750, and 1761, it is in 
 
 322
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 no case assigned to Mallet. None of his con- 
 temporaries, so far as we know, attributed it to 
 him, and it is remarkable that, in a brief obituary 
 notice of him which appeared in the Scots 
 Magazine in 1765, he is spoken of as the author 
 of the famous ballad William and Margaret, but 
 not a word is said about Rule Britannia. A 
 further presumption in Thomson's favour is this : 
 in all probability Dr. Arne, who set it to music, 
 knew the authorship, and he survived both 
 Thomson and Mallet, dying in 1778. The song 
 had become very popular and celebrated, so that 
 if Mallet had desired to have the credit of 
 its composition, it is strange that he should 
 not have laid claim to it, had his claim been 
 a good one. But if his claim was not good, 
 he could hardly have ventured to claim the 
 authorship, as Dr. Arne would have been in his 
 way. It is quite possible that the ambiguity in 
 the advertisement to the recension of 1751 was 
 designed ; it certainly left the question open, 
 and we cannot but think there is something 
 very suspicious in what follows the sentence in 
 Mallet's advertisement, where he speaks of his 
 having used so little of his friend's work. " I 
 mention this expressly," ho adds, "that, whatever 
 faults are found in the present performance, 
 they may be charged, as they ought to be, 
 entirely to my account." A vainer and more 
 unscrupulous man than Mallet never existed ; 
 and, while it is simply incredible that ho should 
 
 323
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 not have claimed what would have constituted 
 his chief title to popularity as a poet, had he 
 been able to do so, it is in exact accordance with 
 his established character that he should, as he 
 did in the advertisement of 1751, have left him- 
 self an opportunity of asserting that claim, should 
 those who were privy to the secret have pre- 
 deceased him, and thus enabled him to do so 
 with impunity. 
 
 The internal evidence and on this alone the 
 question must now be argued seems to us con- 
 clusive in Thomson's favour. The Ode is simply 
 a translation into lyrics of what finds embodi- 
 ment in Thomson's Britannia, in the fourth 
 and fifth parts of Liberty, and in his Verses to 
 the Prince of Wales. Coming to details, there 
 can be no doubt that the third stanza 
 
 "Still more majestic shalt thou rise, 
 
 More dreadful from each foreign stroke ; 
 As the loud blast that tears the skies 
 Serves but to root thy native oak " 
 
 was suggested by Horace's 
 
 "Duris ut ilex tonsa bipennibus 
 Nigrse feraci frondis in Algido, 
 Per damna, per csedes, ab ipso 
 Ducit opes animumque ferro." 
 
 Now, not only was Horace, as innumerable 
 imitations and reminiscences prove, one of 
 Thomson's favourite poets, but Thomson has, in 
 the third part of Liberty translated this very 
 passage : 
 
 324
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 "Like an oak, 
 
 Nurs'd on feracious Algidum, whose boughs 
 Still stronger shoot beneath the rigid axe 
 By loss, by slaughter, from the steel itself 
 E'en force and spirit drew." 
 
 He has, elsewhere, two other reminiscences of 
 the same passage, once in the third part of 
 Liberty 
 
 "Every tempest sung 
 Innoxious by, or bade it firmer stand"- 
 
 and once in Sophonisba (Act V. sc. ii.) : 
 
 " Thy rooted worth 
 Has stood these wintry blasts, grown stronger by them." 
 
 The epithet " azure " employed in the first 
 stanza is, with " cerulean " and " aerial," one of 
 the three commonest epithets in Thomson, the 
 three occurring at least twenty times in his 
 poetry. A somewhat cursory examination of 
 his works has enabled us to find that " azure " or 
 "azured" alone occurs ten times. "Generous," 
 too, in the Latin sense of the term, is another 
 of his favourite words, it being used no less 
 than sixteen times in Britannia and Liberty 
 alone. Another of his favourite allusions is to 
 England's "native oaks." Thus in Britannia 
 he speaks of 
 
 " Your oaks, peculiar harden'd, shoot 
 Strong into sturdy growth ; " 
 
 in the last part of Liberty we find " Let her own 
 naval oak be basely torn," and in the same part 
 
 325
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 of the poem he speaks of the " venerable oaks " 
 and "kindred floods." The epithet "manly" and 
 the phrase " the fair " " manly hearts to guard 
 the fair " are also peculiarly Thomsonian, being 
 repeatedly employed by him, the phrase " the 
 fair " occurring in his poetry at least six times, 
 if not oftener. " Flame," too, is another of his 
 favourite words. 
 
 " All their attempts to bend thee down 
 Will but arouse," etc., 
 
 is exactly the sentiment in Britannia. 
 
 "Your hearts 
 
 Swell with a sudden courage, growing still 
 As danger grows." 
 
 The stanza beginning " To thee belongs," etc., is 
 simply a lyrical paraphrase of the passage in 
 Britannia commencing " Oh first of human 
 blessings," and of a couplet in the last part of 
 Liberty : 
 
 " The winds and seas are Britain's wide domain. 
 And not a sail but by permission spreads." 
 
 The couplet 
 
 " All thine shall be the subject main, 
 And every shore it circles thine " 
 
 is simply the echo of a couplet in the fifth part 
 of Liberty 
 
 " All ocean is her own, and every land 
 To whom her ruling thunder ocean bears." 
 
 The phrase " blessed isle," as applied to England, 
 
 326
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 he employs three times in Liberty. Again, 
 the stanza in which Rule Britannia is written 
 is the stanza in which the majority of Thomson's 
 minor lyrics are written, and the rhythm and 
 cadence, not less than the tone, colour and 
 sentiment, are exactly his. 
 
 Mallet was undoubtedly an accomplished man 
 and a respectable poet, as his ballad William 
 and Margaret, his Edwin and Emma, and his 
 Birks of Invermay sufficiently prove, but he has 
 written nothing tolerable in the vein of Rule 
 Britannia. Neatness, and tenderness bordering 
 on effeminacy, mark his characteristic lyrics, and, 
 if we except a few lines in his Tyburn and 
 the eight concluding lines in a poem entitled 
 A Fragment, there is no virility in his poetry 
 at all. Of the patriotism and ardent love of 
 liberty which pervade Thomson's poems, and 
 which glow so intensely in Rule Britannia, he 
 has absolutely nothing. Nor are there any 
 analogues or parallels in his poems to this lyric 
 either in form for if we are not mistaken, he 
 has never employed the stanza in which it is 
 written or in imagery, or phraseology. Like 
 Thomson, whom, in his narrative blank- verse 
 poems, he servilely imitates, he is fond of the 
 words " azure " and " aerial " ; and the word 
 " azure " is the only verbal coincidence Unking 
 the phraseology of his acknowledged poems 
 with the lyric in question. It may bo added, 
 too, that a man who was capable of the jingling 
 
 327
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 rubbish of such a masque as Britannia, and 
 who had the execrable taste to substitute Boling- 
 broke's stanzas for the stanzas which they super- 
 sede, could hardly have been equal to the pro- 
 duction of this lyric. We believe, then, that there 
 can be no reasonable doubt that the honour of 
 composing Rule Britannia belongs to Thomson 
 the bard, and not to Mallet the fribble. 
 
 But to return to Mr. Tovey and the " mare's- 
 nest " to which we have referred. This mare's- 
 nest is the assumption that Pope assisted 
 Thomson in revising The Seasons. Since Robert 
 Bell's edition this has come to be received as an 
 established fact, but we propose to show that 
 it rests on a hypothesis demonstrably baseless. 
 
 There is, in the British Museum, an interleaved 
 copy of the first volume of the London edition 
 of Thomson's works, dated 1738, and the part of 
 the volume which contains The Seasons is 
 full of manuscript deletions, corrections, and 
 additions. These are in two handwritings, the one 
 being unmistakably the handwriting of Thom- 
 son, the other beyond all question the hand- 
 writing of some one else. Almost all these cor- 
 rections were inserted in the edition prepared for 
 the press in 1744, and now, consequently, form 
 part of the present text. The corrections in the 
 hand which is not the hand of Thomson are, in 
 many cases, of extraordinary merit, showing a 
 fineness of ear and delicacy of touch quite above 
 the reach of Thomson himself. We will give 
 
 328
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 two or three samples. Thomson had written 
 in Autumn 290 seqq. : 
 
 "With harvest shining all these fields are thine, 
 And if my rustics may presume so far, 
 Their master, too, who then indeed were blest 
 To make the daughter of Acasto so." 
 
 The unknown corrector substitutes the present 
 reading : 
 
 " The fields, the master, all, my fair, are thine ; 
 If to the various blessings which thy house 
 Has lavished on me thou wilt add that bliss, 
 That dearest bliss, the power of blessing thee ! " 
 
 The other is famous. Thomson had written : 
 
 "Thoughtless of beauty, she was beauty's self, 
 Recluse among the woods, if City-dames 
 Will deign their faith. And thus she went compell'd 
 By strong necessity, with as serene 
 And pleased a look as patience can put on, 
 To glean Palemon's fields." 
 
 For these vapid and dissonant verses is sub- 
 stituted by the corrector, who very properly 
 retains the first verse, what is now the text : 
 
 " Recluse amid the close embow'ring woods, 
 As in the hollow breast of Apennine, 
 Beneath the shelter of encircling hills, 
 A myrtle rises, far from human eyes, 
 And breathes its balmy fragrance o'er the wild. 
 So flourished blooming, and unseen by all, 
 The sweet Lavinia," etc. 
 
 The transformation of a single line is often most 
 felicitous : thus in Winter the flat line 
 
 329
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 "Through the lone night that bids the waves arise" 
 is grandly altered into 
 
 " Through the hlack night that sits immense around." 
 Thus, in Spring, Thomson had merely written 
 
 "Whose aged oaks and venerable gloom 
 Invite the noisy rooks ; " 
 
 but his corrector alters and extends the pas- 
 sage into 
 
 " Whose aged elms and venerable oaks 
 Invite the rooks, who high amid the boughs 
 In early spring their airy city build, 
 And caw with ceaseless clamour." 
 
 Indeed, throughout The Seasons Thomson's 
 indebtedness to his corrector is incalculable ; 
 many of the most felicitous touches are due to 
 him. Now, who was this corrector? Let Mr. 
 Tovey answer. " It has long been accepted as a 
 fact among scholars that Pope assisted Thomson 
 in the composition of The Seasons. Our original 
 authority is, we suppose, Warton." The truth is 
 that our original authority for this statement is 
 neither Warton nor any other writer of the 
 eighteenth century, but simply the conjecture of 
 Mitford in other words, Mitford's mere assump- 
 tion that the handwriting of the corrector is the 
 handwriting of Pope ; and, if we are not mistaken, 
 for Mitford may have given earlier currency to 
 it in some other place the conjecture appeared 
 for the first time in Mitford's edition of Gray, 
 published in 1814. In his copy of the volume, 
 
 330
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 containing the MS. notes, he bolsters up his state- 
 ment by two assertions and references : " That 
 Pope saw some pieces of Thomson's in manuscript 
 is clear from a letter in Bowles's Supplement, 
 page 194" (an obvious misprint for 294). But 
 on turning to the references all that we find is 
 it is in a letter dated February 173| " I have 
 yet seen but three acts of Mr. Thomson's, but I 
 am told, and believe by what I have seen that 
 it excels in the pathetic " ; the reference is 
 plainly to Thomson's tragedy, Edward and Eleo- 
 nora. Again, Mitford writes : " On Thomson's 
 submitting his poems to Pope " (see Warton's 
 edition, vol. viii., page 340), and again we get 
 no proof. All that Pope says is, "I am just 
 taken up" he is writing to Aaron Hill under 
 date November 1732 " by Mr. Thomson in the 
 perusal of a new poem he has brought me ; " 
 this new poem being almost certainly laberty, 
 in the composition of which Thomson was then 
 engaged. So far from the tradition having 
 any countenance from Warton, it is as certain 
 as anything can be, that Warton knew nothing 
 about it. In his Essay on Pope he gives an 
 elaborate account of The Seasons, and he has 
 more than once referred to Pope and Thomson 
 together ; but he says not a word, either in 
 this Essay or in his edition of Pope's Works, 
 about Pope having corrected Thomson's poetry. 
 If Pope assisted Thomson, to the extent in- 
 dicated in these corrections, such an incident, 
 
 331
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 considering the fame of Thomson and the 
 fame of Pope, must have been known to 
 some at least of the innumerable editors, bio- 
 graphers, and anecdotists between 1742 and 
 1814. It could hardly have escaped being re- 
 corded by Murdoch, Mallet, or Warburton, by 
 Ruffhead, by Savage or Spence, by Theophilus 
 Gibber or Johnson. It is incredible that such 
 an interesting secret should have been kept 
 either by Thomson himself or by Pope. Again, 
 whoever the corrector was, he had a fine ear for 
 blank verse, and must indeed have been a master 
 of it. There is no proof that Pope ever wrote 
 in blank verse ; indeed, we have the express 
 testimony of Lady Wortley Montagu that he 
 never attempted it, and his Shakespeare con- 
 clusively proves that he had anything but a nice 
 ear for its rhythm. With all this collateral 
 evidence against the probability of the corrector 
 being Pope, we come to the evidence which 
 should settle the question, the evidence of hand- 
 writing. There is no lack of material for form- 
 ing an opinion on this point. Pope's autograph 
 MSS. are abundant, illustrating his hand at every 
 period in his life. It is amazing to find Mitford 
 asserting that his friends Ellis and Combe, at the 
 British Museum, had no doubt about the hand 
 of the corrector being the hand of Pope. Mr. 
 Tovey candidly admits that, "if the best authori- 
 ties at the Museum many years ago were positive 
 that the handwriting was Pope's, their successors 
 
 332
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 at the present time are equally positive that it 
 is not." Such is the very decided opinion of Mr. 
 Warner ; such, also, as Mr. Tovey acknowledges, 
 is the opinion of Professor Courthope, and such, 
 we venture to think, will be the opinion of every 
 one who will take the trouble to compare the 
 hands. Mr. Tovey himself is plainly very 
 uneasy, and indeed goes so far as to say that " it 
 has all along been perplexing to me how the 
 opinion that this was Pope's handwriting could 
 ever have been confidently " (the italics are his) 
 " entertained " ; and yet in his notes he follows 
 Bell, and inserts these corrections with Pope's 
 initials. 
 
 We search in vain among those who are 
 known to have been on friendly terms with 
 Thomson for a probable claimant. It could not, 
 as his other stupid revisions of Thomson's verses 
 sufficiently show, have been Lyttleton. Mallet's 
 blank verse is conclusive against his having had 
 any hand in the corrections. Collins and Ham- 
 mond are out of the question. It is just pos- 
 sible, though hardly likely, that the corrector 
 was Armstrong. He was on very intimate 
 terms with Thomson. His own poem proves 
 that he could sometimes write excellent blank 
 verse, but the touch and rhythm of the correc- 
 tions are, it must be admitted, not the touch 
 and rhythm of Armstrong. 
 
 What has long, therefore, been represented 
 and circulated as an undisputed fact namely, 
 
 333
 
 THE LATEST EDITION OF THOMSON 
 
 that Pope assisted Thomson in the revision of 
 The Seasons rests not, as all Thomson's 
 modern editors have supposed, on the traditions 
 of the eighteenth century, and on the testimony 
 of authenticated handwriting, but on a mere 
 assumption of Mitford. That the volume in 
 question really belonged to Thomson, and that 
 the corrections are originals, hardly admits of 
 doubt, though Mitford gives neither the pedigree 
 nor the history of this most interesting literary 
 relic. It is, of course, possible that the corrections 
 are Thomson's own, and that the differences in 
 the handwriting are attributable to the fact that 
 in some cases he was his own scribe, that in 
 others he employed an amanuensis ; but the 
 intrinsic unlikeness of the corrections, made in 
 the strange hand, to his characteristic style 
 renders this improbable. In any case there 
 is nothing to warrant the assumption that the 
 corrector was Pope. 
 
 334
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA. 1 
 
 PERHAPS the best thing in this world is 
 youth, and the poetry of Catullus is its 
 very incarnation. The " young Catullus " he was 
 to his contemporaries, and the young Catullus he 
 will be to the end of time. To turn over his 
 pages is to recall the days when all within and 
 all without conspire to make existence a per- 
 petual feast, when life's lord is pleasure, its end 
 enjoyment, its law impulse, before experience 
 and satiety have disillusioned and disgusted, and 
 we are still in Dante's phrase, " trattando 1'ombre 
 come cosa salda." And the poet of youth had 
 the good fortune not to survive youth ; of the 
 dregs and lees of the life he chose he had no 
 taste. While the cup which " but sparkles near 
 the brim" was still sparkling for him, death 
 dashed it from his lips. At thirty his tale was 
 told, and a radiant figure, a sunny memory and 
 a golden volume were immortal. 
 
 1 The Lesbia of Catullus. Arranged and translated by 
 J. H. A. Treinenheere. London. 
 
 335
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 Revelling alike in the world of nature, and in 
 the world of man, at once simple and intense, at 
 once playful and pathetic, his poetry has a fresh- 
 ness as of the morning, an abandon as of a child 
 at play. He has not, indeed, escaped the taint of 
 Alexandrinism any more than Burns escaped 
 the taint of the pseudo-classicism of the conven- 
 tional school of his day, but this is the only note 
 of falsetto discernible in what he has left us. It 
 is when we compare him with Horace, Propertius, 
 and Martial that his incomparable charm is most 
 felt. As a lyric poet, except when patriotic, 
 and when dealing with moral ideas, Horace is 
 as commonplace as he is insincere ; he had no 
 passion ; he had little pathos ; he had not much 
 sentiment ; he had no real feeling for nature, 
 he was little more than a consummate crafts- 
 man, to adopt an expression from Scaliger " ex 
 alienis ingeniis poeta, ex suo tantum versificator." 
 In his Greek models he found not merely his form, 
 but his inspiration. Most of his love odes have 
 all the appearance of being mere studies in fancy. 
 When he attempts threnody he is as frigid as Cow- 
 ley. Whose heart was ever touched by the verses 
 to Virgil on the death of Quintilian, or by the 
 verses to Valgius on the death of his son ? The 
 real Horace is the Horace of the Satires and 
 Epistles, and the real Horace had as little of 
 the temperament of a poet as La Fontaine and 
 Prior. Propertius had passion, and he had cer- 
 tainly some feeling for nature, but he was an in- 
 
 336
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 curable pedant both in temper and in habit. 
 Martial applied the epigram, in elegiacs and in 
 hendecasyllabics, to the same purposes to which 
 it was applied by Catullus, with more brilliance 
 and finish, but he had not the power of inform- 
 ing trifles with emotion and soul. What became 
 with Catullus the spontaneous expression of the 
 dominant mood, became in the hands of Martial 
 the mere tour de force of the ingenious wit. 
 Catullus is the most Greek of all the Roman 
 poets ; Greek in the simplicity, chastity and pro- 
 priety of his style, in his exquisite responsiveness 
 to all that appeals to the senses and the emotions, 
 in his ardent and abounding vitality. But, in his 
 enthusiasm for nature, in the intensity of his 
 domestic affections, and in his occasional touches 
 of moral earnestness and we have seldom to go 
 far for them he was Roman. His sketches from 
 nature are delightful. What could be more 
 perfect than the following? Has even Tenny- 
 son equalled it ? 
 
 Hie, quails flatu placidum mare matutino 
 Horrificans Zephyrus proclivas incitat undas, 
 Aurora exoriente, vagi sub lumina soils ; 
 Quse tarde primum clement! flamine pulses 
 Procedunt, leviterque sonant plangore cachinni : 
 Post, vento crescente, magis magis increbescunt, 
 Purpureaque procul nantes a luce refulgent. 
 
 "As in early morning when Zephyr's breath, ruffling the 
 stilly sea, stirs it into slanting waves up against the glow of 
 the travelling sun; and at first, while the impelling breeze is 
 gentle, they move in slow procession, and the plash of their 
 
 B.C. 337 Y
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 ripples is not loud ; but then, as the breeze freshens, they 
 crowd faster and faster on, and far out at sea, as they float, 
 flash back the splendour of the crimsoning day in their front." 
 
 Or, again, in the epistle to Manlius 
 
 Qualis in aerii pellucens vertice mentis 
 Eivus muscoso prosilit e lapide. 
 
 How vivid is the picture of the rising sun 
 and of early morning in the Attis, 39-41. 
 
 Ubi oris aurei sol radiantibus oculis 
 Lustravit sethera album, sola dura, mare ferum, 
 Pepulitque noctis umbras vegetis sonipedibus. 
 
 In his "Asian Myrtle, in all the beauty of 
 its blossom-laden branches, which the Wood- 
 Nymphs feed with honey dew to be their 
 toy:" 
 
 Floridis velut enitens 
 Myrtus Asia ramulis, 
 Quos Hamadryades Dese 
 Ludicrum sibi roscido 
 Nutriunt humore. 
 
 who does not recognise Matthew Arnold's 
 " natural magic " ? 
 
 Flowers he loved, as Shakespeare loved them. 
 What tenderness there is in the image of the love 
 that perished 
 
 Prati 
 
 Ultimi flos, prsetereunte postquam 
 Tactus aratro est, 
 
 (xi. 19-21.) 
 
 in the beautiful simile, so often imitated in 
 
 338
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 every language in Europe, where the unmarried 
 maiden is compared to the uncropped flower, Ixii., 
 39-45 ; or where in the 
 
 Alba parthenice, 
 Luteumve papaver, 
 
 (Ixi. 194-6.) 
 
 he sees the symbol of maidenhood ; or where 
 Ariadne is compared to the myrtles on the banks 
 of the Eurotas, and to the " flowers of diverse 
 hues which the spring breezes evoke " ; and, 
 again, the exquisite simile picturing the hus- 
 band's love binding fast the bride's thoughts, 
 as a tree is entwined in the clinging clasp of 
 the gadding ivy 
 
 Mentem amore revinciena, 
 Ut tenax hedera hue et hue 
 
 Arborem implicat errans. 
 
 Then we have the garland of Priapus with its 
 felicitous epithets (xix., xx.). 
 
 It may be said of Catullus as Shelley said of 
 his Alastor 
 
 Every sight 
 
 And sound from the vast earth and ambient air 
 Sent to his heart their choicest impulses. 
 
 What rapture inspires and informs the lines to 
 his yacht, and to Sirmio, as well as the Jam ver 
 egelidos refert tepores I 
 
 As the author of the Attis Catullus stands 
 alone among poets. There was, so far as we 
 know, nothing like it before, and there has been 
 
 339
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 nothing like it since. If it be a study from the 
 Greek, as it is generally supposed to be, it is very 
 difficult to conjecture at what period its original 
 could have been produced. There is nothing at 
 all resembling it which has come down from the 
 lyric period ; its theme is not one which would 
 have been likely to attract the Attic poets. If 
 its model was the work of some Alexandrian, we 
 can only say that such a poem must have been 
 an even greater anomaly in that literature than 
 Smart's Song to David is to our own literature, in 
 the eighteenth century. It may, of course, be 
 urged that it is equally anomalous in Latin 
 poetry, and that, if resolved into its elements, it 
 has much more affinity with what may be traced 
 to Greek than to Roman sources. In its com- 
 pound epithets, and more particularly in the 
 singular use of " f oro," so plainly substituted for 
 the Greek wyopd and its associations, it certainly 
 reads like a translation from the Greek ; and 
 yet, in the total impression made by it, the 
 poem has not the air of a translation, but of an 
 original, and of an original struck out, in in- 
 spiration, at white heat. 
 
 Only by an extraordinary effort of imaginative 
 sympathy are we now able to realize to ourselves 
 the tragedy of the Attis, while its rushing galli- 
 ambics whirl us through the panorama of its swift- 
 succeeding pictures. But home to every heart 
 must come the poems which Catullus dedicates 
 to the memoiy of his brother, and the poem in 
 
 340
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 which he tries to soothe Calvus for the death of 
 Quintilia. 
 
 Multas per gentes, et mtilta per aequora vectus 
 
 Advenio has miseras, f rater, ad inferias, 
 Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis, 
 
 Et mutum nequidquam alloquerer cinerem : 
 Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum : 
 
 Heu miser indigne f rater adempte mihi ! 
 Nunc tamen interea prisco quse more parentum 
 
 Tradita aunt tristi munere ad inferias, 
 Accipe, fraterno multum manantia fletu : 
 
 Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale. 
 
 "Many are the peoples, many the seas I have passed 
 through to be here, dear brother, at this, thine untimely 
 grave, that I might pay thee death's last tribute, and 
 greet, how vainly, the dust that has no response. For 
 well I know Fortune hath bereft me of thy living self 
 Ah ! hapless brother, cruelly torn from mo ! Yet here, see, be 
 the offerings which, from of old, the custom of our fathers 
 hath handed down as a sad oblation to the grave take them 
 they are streaming with a brother's tears. And now for 
 evermore brother, hail and farewell!" 
 
 Could pathos go further? How exquisite, too, 
 is the following : 
 
 Si quidquam mutis gratum acceptumque sepulcris 
 Accidere a nostro, Calve, dolore potest, 
 
 Quum desiderio veteres renovamus amores,, 
 Atque olim amissas flemus amicitias : 
 
 Certe non tanto mors immatura dolori est 
 Quintilise, quantum gaudet amore tuo. * 
 
 1 " If the silent dead can feol any pleasure, or solace 
 from our sorrow, Calvus, when, in wistful regret, we 
 recall past loves, and weep for the friendships severed long 
 ago, then be sure that Quintilia's grief for her early death is 
 not so great aa the joy she feels in knowing your love for 
 her." 
 
 341
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 Shakespeare merely unfolded what was included 
 here, when he wrote those haunting lines : 
 
 When to the sessions of sweet silent thought 
 
 I summon up remembrance of things past, 
 
 I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought, 
 
 And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste 
 
 Then can I drown an eye, unus'd to flow, 
 
 For precious friends hid in death's dateless night, 
 
 And weep afresh love's long-since cancell'd woe, 
 
 And moan the expense of many a vanish'd sight. 
 
 Never, too, has any poet given such pathetic 
 expression to a sorrow, which to the young is 
 even harder to bear than the loss inflicted by 
 death, the perfidy and treachery of friends. The 
 verses to Alphenus (xxx.), to the anonymous 
 friend in lxviii.,and the epigram to Rufus(lxxvii.), 
 are indescribably touching. What infinite sad- 
 ness there is in : 
 
 Si tu ohlitus es, at Dii meminerunt, meminit Fides, 
 Quae te ut pseniteat postmodo facti faciet tui. 
 
 What passion of grief in : 
 
 Heu, heu, nostree crudele venenum 
 Vitae, heu, heu, nostrse pestis amicitiae! 
 
 But nothing that Catullus has left us equals in 
 fascinating interest, or exceeds in charm, the 
 poems inspired by the woman who was at once 
 the bliss and the curse of his life 
 
 Leshia nostra, Lesbia ilia, 
 Ilia Lesbia, quam Catullus unam 
 Plusquam se, atque auos amavit omnes. 
 342
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 Whether she is to be identified with the sister 
 of P. Clodius Pulcher, and the wife of Metellus 
 Celer, seems to us, in spite of the arguments of 
 Schwaber, Munro, Ellis, and Sellar, extremely 
 doubtful. It is a point which need not be dis- 
 cussed here, and is, indeed, of little importance. 
 That she was a woman of superb and command- 
 ing beauty, a false wife, a false mistress, and of 
 immeasurable profligacy, Catullus has himself told 
 us. There could only be one end to a passion of 
 which such a siren was the object ; and, exquisite 
 as the poems are which precede the breaking of the 
 spell, it is in the poems recording the gradual pro- 
 cess of disenchantment, and the struggle between 
 the old love and the new loathing, that Catullus 
 touches us most. How piercing is the pathos of 
 such a poem as the Si qua recordanti (Ixxvi.), or 
 the epigram in which he says that he loves and 
 loathes, but knows not why, only knows that it is 
 so, and that he is on the rack : 
 
 Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris. 
 Nescio : sed fieri sentio et excrucior. 
 
 Or where he says that, pest as she is, he cannot 
 curse a love who is dearer to him than both his 
 eyes : 
 
 Credis me potuisse mese maledicere vitse, 
 Ambobus mihi quse carior est oculis ? 
 Non potui, nee, si possem, tarn perdite amarem. 
 
 And he suffered the more, as he had lavished 
 on her the purest affections of his heart. His 
 
 343
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 love for her such was his own expression was 
 not simply that which men ordinarily feel for 
 their mistresses, but such as the father feels for 
 his sons and his sons-in-law : 
 
 Dilexi turn te, rum tantum ut vulgus amicam, 
 Sed pater ut gnatos diligit et generos. 
 
 But shameless as she is, and it is an impossibility 
 for her to be otherwise, he cannot abandon her. 
 Do what she will he is her slave. His mind, he 
 says, was so straitened by her frailty, so beg- 
 gared by its own devotion, that, even if she 
 became virtuous, he could not love her with 
 absolute goodwill, and if she stuck at nothing 
 drained vice to its very dregs he could not give 
 her up : 
 
 Hue est mens deducta tua, mea Lesbia, culpa 
 
 Atque ita se officio perdidit ipsa suo, 
 Ut jam nee bene velle queam tibi, si optima fias, 
 
 Nee desistere amare, omuia si facias. 
 
 He compares himself to a man labouring under 
 a cruel and incurable disease, a disease which 
 is paralysing his energy, and draining life of its 
 
 joy : 
 
 Me miserum adspicite, et si vitam puriter egi, 
 Eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi, 
 
 Quse mihi subrepens imos, ut torpor, in artua 
 Expulit ex omni pectore Isetitias. 
 
 Nearly sixteen hundred years had to pass before 
 the world was to have any parallel to these 
 poems. And the parallel is certainly a remark- 
 
 344
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 able one. In the "Dark Lady" of Shakespeare's 
 Sonnets, Lesbia lives again ; in the lover of the 
 dark lady, Lesbia's victim. Once more a false 
 wife and a false mistress, not indeed beautiful, 
 but with powers of fascination so irresistible 
 that deformity itself becomes a charm, makes 
 havoc of a poet's peace. Once more a passion, 
 as degraded as it is degrading, sows feuds 
 among friends, and " infects with jealousy the 
 sweetness of affiance." Once more rises the 
 bitter cry of a soul, conscious of the unspeakable 
 degradation of a thraldom which it is agony to 
 endure, and from which it would be agony to be 
 emancipated. Compare for instance : 
 
 My love is as a fever, longing still 
 For that which longer nurseth the disease, 
 Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill, 
 The uncertain sickly appetite to please. 
 
 Past cure I am, now reason is past care, 
 And frantic mad with evermore unrest, 
 My thoughts and my discourse as madman's are, 
 
 (Sonnet cxlvii.) 
 
 with Catullus, Ixxvi. 
 Arid :- 
 
 Whence hast thou this becoming of things ill, 
 That in the very refuse of thy deeds 
 There is such strength and warrantise of skill, 
 That in my mind thy worst all best exceeds. 
 Who taught thee how to make me love thee more, 
 The more I hear and see just cause of hate? 
 
 (Sonnet cl.) 
 
 with Catullus, Ixxii., Ixxiii., Ixxv. ; while Sonnet 
 
 345
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 cxxxvii. presents a ghastly parallel with Catullus, 
 Iviii. Again, how exactly analogous is the ad 
 juration to Quintius in Epigram Ixxxii., with 
 what finds expression in Sonnets xl.-xlii., and 
 Sonnet cxx. But it would be tedious as well as 
 superfluous to cite particular parallels where 
 the whole position which may be summed up 
 in the two words of Catullus, "Odi et amo," 
 is identical. 
 
 Not the least remarkable thing about Catullus 
 is his range and his versatility. It is truly extra- 
 ordinary that the same pen should have given us 
 such finished social portraits as " Suffenus iste " 
 (xxii.), " Ad Furium " (xxiii.), " In Egnatium " 
 (xxxix.) ; the perfection of such serious fooling as 
 we find in the " Lugete, O Veneres" (iii.) and, if 
 we may apply such an expression to the most 
 delicious love poem ever written, the "Acme and 
 Septimius " (xlv.) ; of such humorous fooling 
 as we find in the " Varus me meus ad suos 
 amores " (x.), the " O Colonia quse cupis " (xvii.), 
 the "Adeste, hendecasyllabi," the "Oramus, si 
 forte non molestum " (Iv.) ; such epic as we 
 have in the " Peleus and Thetis " ; such triumphs 
 of richness, splendour, and grace as we have in 
 the three marriage poems ; such a superb ex- 
 pression of the highest imaginative power, pene- 
 trated with passion and enthusiasm, as we have 
 in the A His ; such concentrated invective and 
 satire as mark some of the lampoons ; such 
 mock heroic as we have in the Coma Berenices ; 
 
 346
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 such piercing pathos as penetrates the autobio- 
 graphical poems, and the poems dedicated to 
 Lesbia. 
 
 Catullus has been compared to Keats, but 
 the comparison is not a happy one. His 
 nearest analogy among modern poets is Burns. 
 Both were, in Tennyson's phrase, " dowered 
 with the love of love, the scorn of scorn," 
 and, in the poems of both, those passions find 
 the intensest expression. Both had an ex- 
 quisite sympathy with all that appeals, either 
 in nature or in humanity, to the senses and 
 the affections. Both were sensualists and 
 libertines without being effeminate, or without 
 being either depraved or hardened. In both, 
 indeed, an infinite tenderness is perhaps the 
 predominating feature. Both had humour, that 
 of Catullus being the more caustic, that of 
 Burns the more genial. Both were distinguished 
 by sincerity and simplicity ; both waged war 
 with charlatanry and baseness. Burns had the 
 richer nature and was the greater as a man ; 
 Catullus was the more accomplished artist. 
 
 But it is time to turn to the book which has 
 recalled Catullus and Lesbia. Mr. Tremenheere 
 has, with great ingenuity, succeeded in concoct- 
 ing by a process of elaborate dovetailing a very 
 pretty romance which he divides into nine 
 chapters, the first being " The Birth of Love," 
 the second, third and fourth, "Possession," 
 "Quarrels" and "Reconciliation," the fifth, sixth, 
 
 347
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 and seventh, " Doubt," " A Brother's Death " and 
 " Unfaithfulness," the last two, " Avoidance " and 
 "The Death of Love." The chief objection to 
 this is that it is for the most part fanciful, and 
 is absolutely without warrant, either from tradi- 
 tion or from probability. Many of the poems 
 pressed into the service of his narrative by Mr. 
 Tremenheere have nothing whatever to do with 
 Lesbia. Such would be xiii., " The invitation to 
 Fabullus," xiv., "The Acme and Septimius." 
 
 The translations are very unequal. Of many 
 of them it may be said in Dogberry's phrase that 
 they " are tolerable and not to be endured," or to 
 borrow an expression from Byron " so middling 
 bad were better." Thus the powerful poem to 
 Gellius (xci.) is attenuated into : 
 
 'Twas not that I esteem'd you were 
 
 As constant or incapable 
 
 Of vulgar baseness, but that she 
 
 For whom great love was wasting me, 
 
 The spice of incest lacked for you; 
 
 And though we were old friends, 'tis true, 
 
 That seem'd poor cause to my poor mind, 
 
 Not so to yours. 
 
 Sometimes the versions are detestable. Nothing 
 could be worse than to turn : 
 
 Nulli ilium pueri nullae optavere puellee 
 
 No more is she glad to the eyes of a lad, 
 To the lasses a pride, 
 
 or 
 
 Dulcis pueri ebrios ocellos 
 348
 
 as 
 
 Her minion's passion-sodden eyes, 
 
 which might do very well for a coarse phrase like 
 " In Venerem putres," but not for " Ebrios." But 
 sometimes the renderings are very felicitous. As 
 here : 
 
 Quid vis? qualubet esse notus optas 
 Eris : quandoquidem meos amores 
 Cum longa voluisti amare poena. 
 
 Cost what it may, you'll win renown ! 
 You shall, such longing you exhibit 
 Both for my mistress and a gibbet! 
 
 And the following is happy : 
 
 Nullum amans vere, sed identidem omnium 
 
 Ilia rumpens. 
 
 Nee meum respectet, ut ante, amorem 
 Qui illius culpfi, cecidit ; velut prati 
 Ultimi flos, preetereunte postquam 
 
 Tactus aratro est. 
 
 Ah, shameless, loveless lust, sweet, seek no more 
 To win love back, by thine own fault it fell, 
 In the far corner of the field though hid, 
 Touch'd by the plough at last, the flower is dead. 
 
 The following also is neat and skilful, but how 
 inferior to the almost terrible impressiveness of 
 the original : 
 
 O Di si vostrum est misereri, aut si quibus unquam 
 Extrema jam ipsa in morte tulistis opem. 
 
 Me miserum adspicite, et si vitam puriter egi, 
 Eripite hanc pestem perniciemque mihi, 
 
 Qufe mihi subrepens imos, ut torpor, in artus 
 Expulit ex omni pectore Isetitias. 
 
 349
 
 CATULLUS AND LESBIA 
 
 Oh God! if Thine be pity, and if Thou 
 E'en in the jaws of death ere now, 
 Hast wrought salvation look on me; 
 And if my life seem fair to Thee 
 O tear this plague, this curse away, 
 Which gaining on me day by day, 
 A creeping slow paralysis, 
 Hath driven away all happiness. 
 
 Six love stories stand out conspicuous in the 
 records of poetry those which find expression 
 in the Elegies of Propertius, in the Sonnets and 
 Canzoni of Dante and Petrarch, in the Sonnets 
 of Camoens, in the Astrophel and Stella of Sid- 
 ney, in the Sonnets of Shakespeare. But never 
 has passion, never has pathos, thrilled in intenser 
 or more piercing utterance than in the poems 
 which that fatal " Clytemnestra quadrantaria " 
 to employ the phrase which may actually have 
 been applied to her inspired, and in which the 
 rapture and loathing and despair of Catullus 
 found a voice. 
 
 350
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 1 
 
 THIS book, which is partly a compilation 
 from the uncollected writings of the late 
 Richard Simpson and partly the composition of 
 Father Bowden himself, is an attempt to show 
 that Shakespeare was a Roman Catholic. It 
 contains much interesting information ; it is 
 well written, and we have read it with pleasure. 
 With much which we find in it we entirely 
 concur and are in full sympathy. We take 
 Shakespeare quite as seriously as Father Bow- 
 den does. We believe that the greatest of 
 dramatic poets is also one of the greatest of 
 moral teachers, that his theology and ethics 
 deserve the most careful study, and that they 
 have, too frequently, been either neglected or 
 misinterpreted. We agree with Father Bowden 
 that nothing could be sounder and more persis- 
 tently emphasised than the ethical element in 
 this poet's dramas ; that his ethics are, in the 
 
 1 The Religion of Shakespeare. Chiefly from the writings 
 of the late Mr. Eichard Simpson. By Henry Sebastian 
 Bowden. London. 
 
 351
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 main, the ethics of Christianity, and that so far 
 from Shakespeare being simply an agnostic and 
 having no religion at all, as Birch and others 
 have contended, he is, if not formally, at least in 
 essence, as religious as jEschylus and Sophocles. 
 
 And now Father Bowden must forgive us if 
 we are unable to go further with him. We 
 have no prejudice against Roman Catholicism, 
 or against any of the creeds in which religious 
 faith and reverence have found expression, 
 " Tros Rutulusve fuat nullo discrimine agetur." 
 Our sole wish is, if possible, to get at the truth. 
 It is of comparatively little consequence now 
 to what form of religion Shakespeare belonged, 
 but it would be at least interesting, if it could 
 be shown that any particular sect could legiti- 
 mately claim him. 
 
 In discussing this question we must bear 
 in mind that in Shakespeare's time, as in 
 the time of the ancients, religion had two 
 aspects, its private and its public. In its public 
 aspect it was a part of the machinery of the 
 state, an essential portion of the political fabric. 
 Till the Reformation there had been practically 
 no schism and no difficulty. After the Reforma- 
 tion a most perplexing problem presented it- 
 self. Roman Catholicism and Protestantism, in 
 a long and terrible conflict, struggled for the 
 mastery. At the accession of Elizabeth the 
 victory had been won, so far as England was 
 concerned, by Protestantism, and Protestantism 
 
 352
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 was the accepted religion of the nation. As 
 such, it was the duty of every loyal citizen to 
 uphold it ; it became with the throne one of the 
 two pillars on which the fabric of the state 
 rested. Roman Catholicism became identified 
 with the political rivals and enemies of England. 
 Protestantism became identified with her lovers 
 and upholders. Thus the Church and the 
 Throne became indissoluble, at once the sym- 
 bols, centres, and securities of political harmony 
 and union. This accounts for the attitude of 
 Hooker, Spenser, Shakespeare and Bacon 
 towards Episcopalian Protestantism on the one 
 hand, and towards Puritanism on the other. 
 About Shakespeare's political opinions there 
 can be no doubt at all, for, if we except the 
 Comedies, he preaches them emphatically in 
 almost every drama which he has left us. 
 They were those of an uncompromising and 
 intolerant Royalist, in whose eyes the only 
 security for all that is dear to the patriot lay 
 in implicit obedience to the will of the sovereign, 
 and in upholding a system to which that will 
 was law. That he should, therefore, have had 
 any sympathy with the Roman Catholics is, on 
 a priori grounds, exceedingly improbable. We 
 turn to his Dramas, and what do we find ? It 
 would be no exaggeration to say, that there is 
 not a line in them which indicates that he 
 regarded the Roman Catholics with favour. 
 On the contrary, they abound in points directed 
 E.o. 353 z
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 against them. Thus he twice goes out of his 
 way, once in Henry V. 1 and once in AWs Well 
 that Ends Well, to observe that " miracles have 
 ceased." There is a bitter sneer at them in 
 the reference to the sanctimonious pirate and 
 the commandments, in Measure for Measure. * 
 There can be little doubt that the words in 
 the porter's speech in Macbeth, " here's an equi- 
 vocator that could swear in both the scales 
 against either scale, who committed treason 
 enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate 
 to Heaven," have sarcastic reference to the 
 doctrine of equivocation avowed by Garnett and 
 popularly associated with the Jesuits ; while 
 the remark about the fitness of "the nun's lip 
 to the friar's mouth" 3 in All's Well that Ends 
 Well is another concession to Protestant pre- 
 judice. 
 
 In King John such a speech as the following 
 may be dramatic, but who can doubt that it 
 expressed the poet's own sentiments ? 
 
 Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of England 
 
 Add thus much more, that no Italian priest 
 
 Shall tithe or toll in our dominions ; 
 
 But, as we under Heaven are supreme head, 
 
 So, under Him, that great supremacy, 
 
 1 Act I. Sc. i. This is a very pointed reference, but in the 
 second instance, in All's Well thai Ends Well, Act II. Sc. i., 
 " They say miracles are past," he gives a turn to the ex- 
 pression which converts it into a rebuke of Rationalism. 
 
 1 Act I. Sc. ii. Act II. Sc. ii. 
 
 354
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Where we do reign, we will alone uphold, 
 Without the assistance of a mortal hand: 
 So tell the Pope; all reverence set apart 
 To him, and his usurp'd authority. 
 
 King John is, indeed, simply the manifesto of 
 Protestantism against papal aggression. What 
 could be more contemptible than the character 
 of Pandulph and the part which he plays ? Is it 
 credible that Shakespeare could have had any 
 sympathy with a religion whose minister is one 
 whom he represents as saying : 
 
 Meritorious shall that hand be called, 
 Canonized, and worshipped as a saint, 
 That takes away by any secret course 
 Thy hateful life. 
 
 In Henry VIII., again, we have an elaborate 
 eulogy of the Reformation, Cranmer being pre- 
 sented in the most favourable light, Gardiner 
 in the most unfavourable, while Wolsey is 
 almost as detestable as Pandulph. 
 
 It is really pitiable to see the shifts to which 
 the authors of this book are reduced to make 
 out their theory. They have even pressed into 
 its service Jordan's palpable and long-exploded 
 forgery of John Shakespeare's Will, and the 
 fact that John Shakespeare's name is found on 
 a list of Recusants, when it is, in that very list, 
 expressly stated that he had absented himself 
 from church, simply from fear of process for 
 debt. Passages in the dramas are similarly 
 perverted. Shakespeare's hostility to the Pro- 
 
 355
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 testants induced him, we are told, to pour 
 contempt on Oldcastle by depicting him as Fal- 
 staff. His delineation of Malvolio, and his 
 frequent sneers at the Puritans, are attributed 
 to the same motive. The famous lines in 
 Hamlet, placed in the mouth of the Ghost, are 
 cited to prove his belief in purgatory ; the 
 comical penances imposed on Biron and his 
 friends in Love's Labour Lost to prove his 
 belief in penance. When in Lear it is said of 
 Cordelia that : 
 
 She shook 
 The holy water from her heavenly eyes. 
 
 we are to see another indication of Shakespeare's 
 religion as " they have a Catholic ring about 
 them." Sentiments which are common to all 
 sects of Christians are regarded as peculiar to 
 Roman Catholicism ; mere dramatic utterances 
 are forced into illustrations of supposed personal 
 convictions. What is habitually and systemati- 
 cally ignored is, that Shakespeare, being a 
 dramatic poet, must necessarily make his 
 characters express themselves dramatically, and 
 that, as he was depicting times preceding the 
 Reformation, his sentiments and expressions 
 very naturally took the colour of the world in 
 which his characters moved. The wonder is not 
 that this should have occurred, but that Shake- 
 speare should, in spite of the gross anachronism 
 of such a process, have so Protestantized pre- 
 Reformation times. We are quite willing to 
 
 356
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 concede to Father Bowden that there is enough 
 to warrant us in assuming that Shakespeare did 
 not regard the Puritans with favour. But his 
 dislike to them arose not from the fact that 
 they were Protestants, but that they were not 
 orthodox Protestants. He was opposed to 
 them for the same reasons that Elizabeth and 
 James, Hooker and Bacon were opposed to 
 them. Their hostility to his profession, their 
 sanctimonious cant, and the surly asceticism of 
 their lives, no doubt contributed to his preju- 
 dice against them. 
 
 Nor are we in any way justified in concluding 
 that Shakespeare accepted the teaching of the 
 Church of Rome in spiritual matters. Nothing 
 could be more unwarranted than what is 
 assumed by Father Bowden in the following 
 passage. He is speaking of Shakespeare's atti- 
 tude in relation to death. " ' Ripeness is all ' ; 
 and he shows us in all his penitents how that 
 ripeness is secured, sin forgiven, and heaven 
 won on the lines of Catholic dogma and by the 
 Sacraments of the Church." 
 
 What are the facts ? Shakespeare's reticence 
 about a future state, and what may await man, 
 in the form of reward and punishment hereafter, 
 is one of his most striking characteristics. 
 Neither Cordelia nor Desdemona, neither Con- 
 stance nor Imogen in their darkest hours 
 expresses any confidence in the final mercy and 
 justice of Heaven. Othello, fulling by a fate as 
 
 357
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 terrible as it was undeserved, dies without a 
 syllable of hope. " The rest is silence " are the 
 ominous words with which Hamlet takes leave 
 of life. When Gloucester believes himself to be 
 standing on the brink of death, in the farewell 
 which he takes of the world he has no anticipa- 
 tion of any other ; all he contemplates is "to 
 shake patiently his great affliction off." So die 
 Lear, Hotspur, Romeo, Antony, Eros, Enobar- 
 bus, Macbeth, Beaufort, Mercutio, Laertes. So 
 die Brutus, Coriolanus, King John. In the 
 Duke's speech in Measure for Measure, where 
 he is preparing Claudio to meet death, death is 
 merely contemplated as an escape from the 
 pains and discomforts of life. Macbeth would 
 * jump ' the world to come if he could escape 
 punishment in this. Prospero suggests no hope 
 of any waking from the " rounding sleep." 
 Even Isabella, dedicated as she was to religion, 
 in fortifying Claudio against his fate draws no 
 weapon from the armoury of faith. It is just 
 the same in the dirge in Cymbeline, in the 
 soliloquy of Posthumus, in the consolations 
 addressed by the gaoler to Posthumus. 1 
 
 1 In opposition to these may, it is true, be cited Othello's 
 words to Desdemona Othello, V. 2 : the Duke's remark about 
 putting the unrepentant Barnard ine to death Measure for 
 Measure, IV. 8: the dying speeches of Buckingham and 
 Catharine in Henry VIII., II. 1 ; IV. 2 : Laertes on Ophelia, 
 Hamlet, V. 1. But these passages, and others like them, 
 cannot be cited as evidence to the contrary; they are merely 
 dramatic utterances. 
 
 358
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 The last passage is perhaps more remarkable 
 than any, because it shows the utter ambiguity 
 of the directest expression which the poet has 
 left on the subject. 
 
 Gaol. Look you, sir, you know not which way you go. 
 
 Post. Yes, indeed do I, fellow. 
 
 Gaol. Your death has eyes in 'a head then ; I have not 
 seen him so pictured : you must either he directed 
 by some that take upon them to know, or take 
 upon yourself, that which I am sure you do not 
 know ; or jump the after inquiry on your own 
 peril ; and how you shall speed in your journey's 
 end, I think you'll never return to tell one. 
 
 Post, I tell thee, fellow, there are none want eyes to 
 direct them the way 1 am going, but such as 
 wink, and will not use them. 
 
 Cymbeline, V. 4. 
 
 Shakespeare, in truth, never attempts to lift 
 the veil which for living man can be raised 
 only by Revelation. The silence of his philo- 
 sophy, for we must not confound occasional 
 sentiments and mere dramatic utterances with 
 what justifies us in deducing that philosophy, 
 in relation to a life after this, is unbroken. 
 It is, indeed, remarkable that he represents such 
 speculations, the dwelling on such problems, 
 as more likely to disturb, perplex, and hamper 
 us, than to give us any comfort. As Hamlet 
 puts it in the well-known lines : 
 
 The native hue of resolution 
 Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, 
 And enterprises of great pith and moment, 
 With this regard, their currents turn awry, 
 And lose the name of action. 
 359
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Did he believe in the immortality of the soul 
 and in a future state ? Who can say ? What 
 we can say is, that if we require affirmative 
 evidence of such a faith, we shall seek for it in 
 vain. In the Sonnets, where he seems to speak 
 from himself, the only immortality to which he 
 refers is the permanence of the impression which 
 his genius as a poet will leave immortality in 
 the sense in which Cicero and Tacitus have so 
 eloquently interpreted the term. But on the 
 other hand, if there is nothing to warrant a 
 conclusion in the affirmative, there is nothing 
 to warrant one in the negative. His attitude is 
 precisely that of Aristotle in the Ethics; a life 
 beyond this is neither affirmed nor denied, but 
 the scale of probability inclines towards the 
 negative, and his moral philosophy proceeds 
 on the assumption that life is the end of life. 1 
 
 Goethe has said that man was not born to 
 solve the problems of the universe, but to at- 
 tempt to solve them, that he might keep within 
 the limits of the knowable. And it is within 
 the limits of the knowable that Shakespeare's 
 theology confines itself. Starting simply, as 
 Gervinus says, from the point, that man is born 
 with powers and faculties which he is to use, 
 and with powers of self-regulation and self- 
 determination which are to direct aright the 
 powers of action, the " Whence we are," and 
 
 Cf. Ethics, I. x. 11, and III. vi. 6. 
 360
 
 THE RELIGION OP SHAKESPEARE 
 
 the " Whither we are going," are problems for 
 which he has no solution. 1 
 
 Men must endure 
 
 Their going hence e'en as their coming hither : 
 Ripeness is all. 
 
 And for ripeness or unripeness, man's will is re- 
 sponsible. He would probably have agreed with 
 the saying of Heraclitus, rjBos avdpanrqt Sai/jLtov. 
 Throughout his Dramas all is explicable, with 
 the single exception of Macbeth, without refer- 
 ence to supernaturalism. Perfectly intelligible 
 effects follow perfectly intelligible causes ; the 
 moral law solves all. But especially conspicu- 
 ous is the absence of the theological element 
 where we should especially have looked for it. 
 " Men and women," says Brewer, " are made to 
 drain the cup of misery to the dregs ; but, as from 
 the depths into which they have fallen, by their 
 own weakness, or by the weakness of others, the 
 poet never raises them, in violation of the inexor- 
 able laws of nature, so neither does he put a new 
 song in their mouths, or any expression of confi- 
 dence in God's righteous dealing. With as hard 
 and precise a hand as Bacon does he sunder the 
 celestial from the terrestrial kingdom, the things 
 of earth from the things of heaven." * 
 
 His theology, indeed, in its application to life, 
 seems to resolve itself into the recognition of 
 
 1 Shakespeare Commentaries, Vol. II. 620-1. 
 s Article on Shakespeare, Quarterly Review for July, 1871, 
 p. 46. 
 
 361
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 universal law, divinely appointed, immutable, 
 inexorable, ubiquitous, controlling the physical 
 world, controlling the moral world, vindicating 
 itself in the smallest facts of life, and in the 
 most stupendous convulsions of nature and 
 society. In morals it is maintained by the ob- 
 servance of the mean on the one hand, and the 
 due fulfilment of duty and obligation on the 
 other. In politics it is maintained by the sub- 
 ordination of the individual to the state, and of 
 the state to the higher law. Hooker says of 
 Law, that as her voice is the harmony of the 
 world, so her seat is the bosom of God. The 
 Law Shakespeare recognises ; of the Law-giver 
 he is silent. As he is dumb before the mystery 
 of death, so is he equally reticent in the face of 
 that other mystery. He has nothing of the 
 anthropomorphism of the Old Testament, of 
 the Homeric poems, and of Milton. Nor has he 
 ever expressed himself as Goethe has done in 
 the famous passage in Faust, beginning : " Wer 
 darf ihn nennen." In two important respects he 
 seems to differ from the Christian conception. 
 He represents no miraculous interpositions of 
 Providence, no suspension of natural laws in 
 favour of the righteous, and to the detriment of 
 the wicked. He is too reverend to say with 
 Goethe, that man, so far as direction in action 
 goes, is practically his own divinity. But he 
 does say and represent and that repeatedly 
 what is expressed in such passages as these : 
 
 362
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie 
 Which we ascribe to Heaven : the fated sky 
 Gives us full scope. 
 
 AWs Well that Ends Well. 
 
 Men at some time are masters of their fate. 
 
 Julius Casar. 
 
 Omission to do what is necessary 
 
 Seals a commission to a blank of danger. 
 
 Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 And we have no right to expect that Provi- 
 dence will cancel it. If deeds do not go with 
 prayer, prayer is not likely to be of much avail. 
 So the Bishop of Carlisle in Richard II. : 
 
 The means that Heaven yields must be embrac'd 
 And not neglected ; else if Heaven would 
 And we will not, Heav'n's offer we refuse : 
 
 while the words which he puts into the mouth 
 of Leonine in Pericles are, we feel, significant: 
 
 Pray : but be not tedious, 
 
 For the Gods are quick of ear, and I am sworn 
 To do my work with haste. 
 
 He has no sympathy with pious recluses. He 
 has depicted no saint or religious enthusiast, or 
 written a line to indicate that he had any 
 respect for their ideals. With him, 
 
 Spirits are not finely touched 
 But to fine issues. 
 
 They say best men are moulded out of faults, 
 And, for the most, become much more the better 
 For being a little bad. 
 
 Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds 
 363
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 are typical axioms in his philosophy of life. And 
 the nearest approaches he has given us to the 
 saintly type of character are the sentimental 
 pietists, Henry VI. and Richard II., both of whom 
 are failures, and border closely on moral im- 
 becility. On the spiritual and moral efficacy of 
 faith, he has nowhere laid stress. In his innumer- 
 able reflections on life and man, in his maxims 
 and precepts, there is, as a rule, scarcely any 
 flavour of Christian theology. They are just 
 such as might be expected from a pure rationalist. 
 Such is the philosophy of Hamlet, of Jacques, of 
 the Duke in Measure for Measure, and of Prospero. 
 Even Friar Laurence, though an ecclesiastic, 
 reasons and advises just as a Stoic philosopher 
 might have done. The friars in Much Ado about 
 Nothing, and in Measure for Measure, the Bishop 
 of Carlisle in Richard II. , and the Archbishops 
 of Canterbury and York in Henry IV. and Henry 
 V., and Cardinal Beaufort in Henry VI., act and 
 speak like mere men of the world. A bulky 
 volume would scarcely sum up the ethical and 
 political reflections scattered up and down his 
 plays ; a few pages would comprise all that could 
 be put down as exclusively theological. This 
 complete subordination of the theological ele- 
 ment to the ethical is the more conspicuous 
 when we compare his dramas with the Homeric 
 Epics, and with the tragedies of -SSschylus and 
 Sophocles. 
 
 And yet if a thoughtful person, after going 
 364
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 attentively through the thirty-six plays, were 
 asked what the prevailing impression made on 
 him was, he would probably reply the profound 
 reverence which Shakespeare shows universally 
 for religion his deep sense of the mysterious 
 relation which exists between God and man. 
 We feel that his silence on transcendental sub- 
 jects springs not from indifference, but from 
 awe. The remarkable words which he places 
 in the mouth of Lafeu, in AWs Well that Ends 
 Well (Act II. 3), merely sum up what we hear 
 sotto voce in various forms of expression through- 
 out his dramas ; " we have our philosophical 
 persons, to make modern and familiar, things 
 supernatural and causeless. Hence it is that 
 we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves 
 into seeming knowledge, when we should submit 
 ourselves to an unknown fear." And the same 
 reverence and humility find a voice in the verses 
 in which, in all probability, he took leave of the 
 world of active life. 
 
 Now my charms are all o'erthrown, 
 And what strength I have's mine own, 
 Which is most faint. 
 
 Now I want 
 
 Spirits to enforce, art to enchant, 
 And my ending is despair 
 Unless I be relieved by prayer, 
 Which pierces so that it assaults 
 Mercy itself, and frees all faults. 
 
 No poet has dwelt more on the duty and moral 
 efficacy of prayer, on the omnipresence of God, 
 
 365
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 and on the fact that in conscience we have a 
 Divine monitor. 
 
 Of the respect which Shakespeare entertained 
 for Christianity as a creed, of his conviction of 
 its competency to fulfil and satisfy all the ends 
 of religion in men of the highest type of intelli- 
 gence and ability, we require no further proof 
 than his Henry V. Henry V. is undoubtedly his 
 ideal man, as Theseus in the (Edipus Coloneus 
 is the ideal man of Sophocles. And Henry V. 
 is pre-eminently a Christian. Wherever Shake- 
 speare refers to the person and to the teachings 
 of Christ, it is always with peculiar tenderness 
 and solemnity. His ethics are in one respect 
 essentially Christian, and that is in their em- 
 phatic insistence on the virtues of mercy and 
 forgiveness of injuries. In Measure for Measure, 
 he stretched the first as far as the Master Him- 
 self stretched it, at the eleventh hour, to the 
 penitent thief. And in the Tempest, that play 
 which seems to embody in allegory Shake- 
 speare's mature and final philosophy of life, 
 who does not recognise the symbol of Him 
 who rules, not merely in justice and righteous- 
 ness, but in benevolence and mercy, when 
 Prospero, with sinners and traitors and foes 
 in his power, proclaims 
 
 The rarer action is 
 
 In virtue than in vengeance : they being penitent, 
 The sole drift of my purpose doth extend 
 Not a frown further. 
 
 366
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 He struck this note in one of the earliest of 
 his plays : 
 
 Who by repentance is not satisfied, 
 
 Is nor of heaven, nor earth : for these are pleas'd. 
 
 By penitence th' Eternal's wrath's appeas'd. 1 
 
 and the note vibrates through his works. It is 
 the crowning moral of Measure for Measure ; it 
 is one of the dominant notes in Cymbeline. He 
 also reflects Christianity in the beautiful optim- 
 ism which discerns in evil the agent of good, and 
 in calamity and sorrow the benevolence and 
 mercy of God. This is the philosophy which 
 penetrates what were probably his last three 
 dramas, The Winters Tale, Cymbeline, and The 
 Tempest. 
 
 In these respects, then, it may fairly be main- 
 tained that Shakespeare is Christian. For the 
 rest his dramas might, so far as their philo- 
 sophy is concerned, have come down to us from 
 classical antiquity. Nothing can be more Greek 
 than the main basis on which his ethics rest 
 the observance of the mean, and the recogni- 
 tion of the relation of virtue to the becoming. 
 When Claudio says : 
 
 As surfeit is the father of much fast, 
 So every scope by the immoderate use 
 Turns to restraint; 
 
 1 Two Gentlemen of Verona : V. 4. 
 367
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 when Norfolk says : 
 
 The fire that mounts the liquor till 't o'erflow 
 In seeming to augment it wastes it; 
 
 when Friar Laurence tells us that : 
 
 Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied, 
 And vice sometime 's by action dignified ; 
 
 and Portia that 
 
 There is no good without respect, 
 
 we have not only the keys to his ethics but 
 the texts for sermons which find living illus- 
 trations in the fall of Angelo, of Coriolanus, of 
 Timon, and of many others of his protagonists. 
 Thus do his ethics temper and readjust for the 
 sphere of working life, those of the Divine 
 Enthusiast who legislated, in some respects, too 
 exclusively perhaps, for a kingdom which is 
 not of this world. 
 
 And so, his ' religion ' being, to borrow an 
 expression of his own, " as broad and general 
 as the casing air," it has come to pass, that 
 Shakespeare has been claimed as an orthodox 
 Protestant by Knight, Bishop Wordsworth, and 
 Trench ; as an orthodox Roman Catholic by 
 M. Rio, Mr. Simpson, and Father Bowden ; and 
 as a simple agnostic by Gervinus, Kreysig, and 
 Professor Caird. 
 
 " He hath," says Sir Thomas Browne speaking 
 of himself, " one common and authentic philo- 
 sophy which he learnt in the schools, whereby he 
 
 368
 
 THE RELIGION OF SHAKESPEARE 
 
 reasons and satisfies the reason of other men : 
 another more reserved and drawn from experi- 
 ence whereby he satisfies his own." It may be, 
 it may quite well be, for he has left nothing to 
 justify conclusion to the contrary, that the 
 words of Shakespeare's Will mere formula 
 though they be are the expression of what he 
 "reserved" to satisfy himself, and that he 
 accepted the Christian Revelation. It may be, 
 that what we are certainly warranted hi con- 
 cluding about him, represents all that can be 
 concluded, namely, that : 
 
 He at least believed in soul, was very sure of God. 
 
 E.C. 369 A A
 
 INDEX 
 
 Accius quoted, 244 
 ADDISON, IB : 272 : 281 
 2ESCHYLU8, 59 ; quoted, 62 ; 
 
 his descriptions of Nature, 
 
 241; his theology, 267: 
 
 261 : 864 
 ALGOUS, 287 
 ALCMAN quoted, 240 
 ALAMANNI, 123 
 ANACREON, 286 
 ANTHOLOGY, Greek, 116 : 
 
 117 : 243 
 ANTIMACHUB of Colophon, 
 
 his Poems, 289 
 ANTIPATER of Sidon, 116 
 APOLLONIUS RHODIUS, 78; 
 
 beauty of his descriptions, 
 
 242-3 
 
 ARCHILOCHUS quoted, 287 
 ARIOSTO quoted, 79 ; his 
 
 Orlando, 113 
 ARISTOPHANES, 242 : 260 : 
 
 280 ; his censure of Euri- 
 pides, 265 
 ARISTOTLE, 63 : 67 ; influence 
 
 on Spenser, 120-1 ; stylo, 
 
 122; his doctrine of the 
 Kadapa-it, 264-5 ; his 
 ^Esthetics, 265-6; Poetics, 
 274-6 ; his Rhetoric, 287 
 
 ARMSTRONG, Dr. John, his 
 connection with Thomson, 
 333 
 
 ARNOLD, Matthew, 63 ; 
 quoted, 21 : 105 : 106 : 194 : 
 272-3 
 
 ATHEN^JUS, 293 
 
 AUSONIUS, his Bosce, 246 
 
 AVITUS, 251 
 
 BACON, Lord, his SylvaSylva- 
 rum, 114 ; his Latin style, 
 122; quoted, 182; on poetry, 
 279 
 
 BARCLAY, his Argenis, 129 
 
 BARNUM, the late Mr., on 
 Advertisement, 158 
 
 BEACONSFIELD, Lord, quoted, 
 219 
 
 BENECKE, Mr. E. F. M., his 
 Antimachus of Colophon 
 
 371
 
 INDEX 
 
 and Position of Women in 
 Greek Poetry reviewed, 
 255-93 
 
 BENTLEY, Richard, 156 
 
 BERNAYS, Prof., on the 
 Kadapcns of Aristotle, 265 
 
 BOILEAU, 125 
 
 BOLINGBROKE, Lord, 119 : 
 321 
 
 BOSWELL, James, 134 
 
 BOWDEN, Rev. H. Sebastian, 
 his Religion of Shake- 
 speare reviewed, 351-69 
 
 BREWER, Rev. Prof., quoted, 
 361 
 
 BROWN, Mr. J. T. T., his 
 Authorship of the King is 
 Quair reviewed, 172-82 
 
 BROWNE, Sir Thomas, his 
 Hydriotaphia, 102 ; quoted, 
 368 
 
 BROWNING, Robert, on the 
 Comparative Study of 
 Ancient and Modern Clas- 
 sical Literature, 64 
 
 BROWNING, Mrs., 297 
 
 BURKE, Edmund, 71 : 100-1 : 
 125 : 126 
 
 BURNS, Robert, 145; Com- 
 parison with Catullus, 347 
 
 BUTCHER, Prof. S. H., his 
 Some Aspects of the Greek 
 Genius reviewed, 255-69 
 
 BUTLER, Bishop, quoted, 214 
 
 BUTLER, Mr. Samuel, on 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets, 
 222-4 
 
 C^EDMON quoted, 95 
 
 CAINE, Mr. Hall, 28 
 
 CALLIMACHUS, 242 
 
 CAMOENS, 350 
 
 CAMPBELL, Prof. Lewis, 269 
 
 CAREW, Thomas, 305 
 
 CATULLUS, his descriptions 
 of Nature, 245 : 336-9; 
 quoted, 285 ; characteristics 
 of his genius, 335; his 
 Attis, 339-40; his pathos, 
 337-8 ; his connection with 
 Lesbia, 342-5 ; parallel 
 between Poems to Lesbia 
 and Shakespeare's Sonnets, 
 345-6 ; his versatility, 
 346 ; comparison with 
 Burns, 347; Mr. Tremen- 
 heere's version of the Love 
 Poems, 347-9 
 
 CAWTHORN, John, 60 
 
 CHAUCER, 53 : 8 : 122-3 
 
 CHURCHILL, Charles, quoted, 
 159 
 
 CICERO, influence on English 
 prose, 61 ; as a critic of 
 rhetoric, 278-9 ; on im- 
 mortality, 360 
 
 CLARENDON, 123 
 
 CLASSICS, influence of the 
 Greek and Roman Classics 
 on English Literature, 
 58-63 ; exclusion of from 
 Schools of Literature by 
 the English Universities, 
 45-64 ; effects of this illus- 
 trated, 76-83 
 
 372
 
 INDEX 
 
 CLAUDIAN quoted, 246 
 
 COLVIN, Mr. Sidney, his 
 edition of Stevenson's 
 Letters reviewed, 165-71 
 
 COLERIDGE, S. T., 127 : 130 : 
 281 
 
 COLERIDGE, the late Lord, 
 on Greek, 255 
 
 CORY, William, 253 
 
 COUSIN, Victor, his theory of 
 beauty and art, 272 
 
 CRITICISM, reasons of pre- 
 sent degraded state of, 
 13-26 ; characteristics of 
 current criticism described, 
 26-30: 270-1; effects on 
 literature generally, 31-4; 
 refusal of the Universities 
 to train critics and men of 
 letters, 38-44 ; lethargy 
 and indifference of scholars, 
 progressive degradation 
 of literature the certain 
 result, 43-44 
 
 CRITICS, characteristics of 
 popular, 27-31 : 93-109 : 
 110-32 : 151-7 
 
 CROWE, William, 249 
 
 CYNEWULP, 95 
 
 DANTE, 49 ; quoted, 335 ; his 
 Sonnets and Canzoni, 350 
 
 DB QUINCEY, Thomas, char- 
 acteristics of, 203-4 ; his 
 comparative failure, B05; 
 Mr. Hogg's recollections 
 of, 203-10 
 
 DOUGLAS, Gavin, his trans- 
 lation of Virgil, 96-7 
 
 DRAYTON, Michael, 60 
 
 DRYDEN, his Discourse on 
 Epic Poetry, 65; quoted, 
 153; on the functions of 
 poetry, 280 ; his transla- 
 tions, 148 
 
 DUBOS, the Abbe, 281 
 
 DUNBAR, AVilliam, 176; Mr. 
 Smeaton's Life of, re- 
 viewed, 183-92; character- 
 istics of his poetry, 190-1 
 
 DYER, John, his descriptive 
 poetry, 248 
 
 EARLE, Prof., on relation of 
 Classics to English Litera- 
 ture, 59 (note) 
 
 EARLE, John, his Microcos- 
 mographie, 129 
 
 EDITORS, their relation to 
 current literature, 22; in 
 no way responsible for the 
 present condition of cur- 
 rent literature, 23-24 
 
 ENNIUS, 59 
 
 EURIPIDES, 82; his fine 
 pictures of Nature, 242 ; 
 quoted, 262 ; his Alcestis 
 quoted, 286 
 
 FELTHAM, Owen, his Re- 
 solves, 129 
 
 FLACCUS, Valerius, 246 
 FLETCHER, Phineas, 101 
 FOOTE, Samuel, quoted, 205 
 
 373
 
 INDEX 
 
 Fox, John, his Book of Mar- 
 tyrs, 113 
 
 FRAUNCB, Abraham, his 
 Countess of Pembroke's 
 Ivy Church, 309 
 
 FROUDB, James Anthony, on 
 the effect of discouraging 
 the study of the Classics, 
 65 
 
 GARNETT, Father, 354 
 GEOFFREY of Monmouth, 
 
 102 
 
 GERVINUS, Prof., quoted, 360 
 GLANVILLE, Joseph, 104 
 GIBBON, Edward, 125 : 150 : 
 
 198 
 GOETHE, 49: 86 ; quoted, 273 : 
 
 360 : 362 
 
 GOLDSMITH quoted, 247 
 GOSSE, Edmund, his Short 
 History of Modern Eng- 
 lish Literature reviewed 
 110-32 
 
 GOSSING, analysis of the 
 accomplishment, 115 ; com- 
 pared with Euphuism, id. 
 GOWER, John, 124 ; Confessio 
 
 Amantis, 196 
 GRAY, Thomas, on Lydgate, 
 
 98 
 GREENE, Robert, 14 
 
 HALL, William, Mr. Sidney 
 
 Lee on, 216 
 HAMPOLE, Richard of, his 
 
 Pricke of Conscience, 179 
 
 HARRISON, Mr. Fiederic, 86 
 HAWES, Stephen, his Pas- 
 time of Pleasure, 200 
 HERACLITUS quoted, 361 
 HERMESIANAX quoted, 287 
 HILL, Aaron, 331 
 HOCCLEVE, Thomas, 198 
 Hogg, Mr. James, his Recol- 
 lections of De Quincey 
 reviewed, 203-10 
 HOMER quoted, his fine 
 descriptions of Nature, 
 237-9 ; his women, 286 : 
 288; his description of 
 Hades, 297 
 HOOKER quoted, 362 
 HORACE, influence of his 
 Epistles and Satires on 
 English poetry, 60 ; quoted, 
 151 : 297 : 301 ; deficient in 
 poetic sensibility, 336 
 HROSWITHA, 251 
 HUXLEY, Prof., on Merton 
 Chair at Oxford, 38 
 
 IBYCUS, 240 
 
 JAGO, Richard, 249 
 
 JAMES I. of Scotland, his 
 
 Kingis Quair, 172 ; its 
 
 genuineness vindicated, 
 
 174-82 
 JAPP, Dr. Alexander, Life of 
 
 De Quincey, 209 
 JKBB, Prof., his services to 
 
 Greek Literature, 258 
 JOHNSON, Dr., quoted, 152 
 
 374
 
 INDEX 
 
 JONSON, Ben, on Poetry, 280 
 JOWETT, Prof., quoted, 64 
 JUSSBKAND, M., his Literary 
 History of the English 
 People reviewed, 193-202 
 
 KEATS, John, 127 : 298 : 347 
 
 LANDOR, W. S., 298 
 LANO, Mr. Andrew, 259 
 LAUDERDALE, 310 
 LEAP, Mr. Walter, 2B9 
 LEE, Mr. Sidney, his Life 
 
 of Shakespeare reviewed, 
 
 211-8 ; on Shakespeare's 
 
 Sonnets, 229-30 
 LE GALLIENNB, Mr. Eichard, 
 
 his Retrospective Reviews 
 
 reviewed, 161-7 
 LEOPARDI quoted, 20 : 300 
 LESBIA and CATULLUS, 335- 
 
 50 
 LESSINO, on Philologists, 86; 
 
 his Laocoon, 41 ; his Ham- 
 
 burgishe Dramaturgic, 67 
 LOG-ROLLING, its pernicious 
 
 effects, 133-44 
 LONGINUS, the Treatise 
 
 attributed to, discussed, 
 
 276-8 ; quoted, 270 
 LYDGATE, his style and 
 
 versification, 98; id., 115; 
 
 characteristics of his 
 
 poetry, 198-9 
 
 MAOAULAY, Lord, 145 : 161 
 MALLET, David, claim to 
 
 authorship of Rule Britan- 
 nia discussed, 321-4 
 MALORY, Thomas, 201 
 MANNYNG, his Handlying 
 
 of Synne, 195 
 MARLOWE, Christopher, 14 
 MARTIAL, his epigrams, 337 
 MAX MULLER, Prof., 52 
 MELEAGER, his Anthology, 
 
 116-7 ; quoted, 243 
 MENANDER quoted, 262 
 MIMNERMUS, his love poetry 
 
 to Nanno, 287 
 
 MILTON quoted, 41 (note) : 
 62 ; his apology for 
 Smectymnuus, quoted, 103 ; 
 on poetry, 267; quoted, 212; 
 music of his verse, 317 
 MITFORD, Kev. J., on the 
 corrections in Thomson's 
 Seasons, 830-4 
 MONTAGUE, Lady Mary 
 
 Wortley, 125 : 306 
 MOREL, M. L&m, his Mono- 
 graph on Thomson, 319 
 MORB, Sir Thomas, his 
 
 Utopia, 101 
 MORE, Henry, 274 
 MORGAN, Sir George Osborne, 
 his Translation of VirgiVs 
 Eclogues reviewed, 308-17 
 MORLEY, Mr. John, 63; 
 
 quoted, 64 
 
 MYERS, Mr. Ernest, 259 
 MULLER, Prof. E., his 
 Geschichte der Theorie der 
 Kunst bfi den Alien, 264 
 
 375
 
 INDEX 
 
 OGILVIE, John, 310 
 OVID, 60 : 177 : 178 : 246 
 
 PACUVIUS, his Dulorestes 
 quoted, 244 
 
 PALGRAVE, Francis Turner, 
 his Landscape in Poetry 
 reviewed, 236-49; an ap- 
 preciation of, 250-4 
 
 PATER, Walter, 62 : 152 : 
 265 : 267 
 
 PECOCK, Eeginald, his Re- 
 pressor, 128-9 
 
 PETRARCH, 287 : 296 
 
 PERSIUS quoted, 15 
 
 PHILLIPS, Mr. Stephen, his 
 poems reviewed, 294-300 
 
 PINDAR quoted, 262; his 
 word pictures, 240 
 
 PLATO, his Symposium, 78-9 ; 
 quoted, 263 ; his theory of 
 poetry, 274 : 276 
 
 PLUTARCH, his pictures of 
 women, 290 
 
 POMFRET, John, his Choice, 
 101 
 
 POPE quoted, 84 ; on Philo- 
 logists, 86 ; quoted, 139 ; 
 his Satires and Epistles, 
 125; his alleged revision 
 of Thomson's Seasons dis- 
 cussed, 328-32 
 
 PROPERTIUS quoted, 246 
 
 PUBLISHERS, honourable 
 character of the leading, 23 
 
 QUARTERLY REVIEW, article 
 
 on From Shakespeare to 
 Pope, 40 
 QUINTILIAN as a critic, 278 
 
 KAFFETY, Mr. Frank W., 
 
 his Books worth Beading 
 
 reviewed, 145-50 
 BOSSETTI, Dante Gabriel, 
 
 quoted, 173 
 ROSSETTI, William Michael, 
 
 his edition of Shelley's 
 
 Adonais, 76-83 
 RUCELLAI, his dramas and 
 
 his L'Api, 124 
 
 SAINTE-BEUVE, his essays, 
 41 ; on Philologists, 86 ; 
 his criticism, 270 ; the 
 master of Matthew Arnold, 
 281 
 
 SAINTSBURY, Prof., his Short 
 History of English Litera- 
 ture reviewed, 93-109 
 
 SALLUST, 61 
 
 SCHILLER, 41 
 
 SCHICK, Dr., on Lydgate's 
 versification, 99 
 
 SCHIPPER, Dr. J., on Dun- 
 bar, 183 
 
 SCHMEDING, Dr. G., his 
 Monograph on Thomson, 
 318 
 
 SCHOOL OF ENGLISH LITERA- 
 TURE AT OXFORD, its de- 
 plorable organization, 45- 
 72; how this may be 
 remedied, 73-5 
 
 376
 
 INDEX 
 
 SCOTT OF AMWBLL, 249 
 
 SCOTT, Sir Walter, on Dun- 
 bar, 186 
 
 SBLF- ADVERTISEMENT, its 
 organization and effects, 
 158-64 
 
 SENECA, influence on English 
 prose, 61 
 
 SEDULIUS, 251 
 
 SHAFTESBURY, third Earl of, 
 his style, 117-9 
 
 SHAKESPEARE, 62 : 81-2; 
 Clarendon Press edition of 
 his Hamlet, 84-92 ; quoted, 
 154 : 168 ; Mr. Lee's Life 
 of, 211-8 ; scantiness of 
 traditions of, 213; his 
 sonnets, various theories, 
 219-20; about difficulties 
 of supposing them auto- 
 biographical, 225-6 ; his 
 relations with Southamp- 
 ton and Pembroke, 228- 
 34 ; story in the Son- 
 nets probably fictitious, 
 235 ; religion of Shake- 
 speare, 351-69 ; his poli- 
 tics, 352-3 ; not a Ro- 
 man Catholic, 352-6 ; 
 on death, 357-8 ; silence 
 about a future life, 859, 
 and about metaphysical 
 questions, 360 ; comparison 
 in this respect with Aris- 
 totle, 360; his theology, 
 362-4; on prayer, 365; 
 on conscience, 366 ; his 
 
 attitude to Christianity, 
 
 366 ; when his ethics are 
 
 Christian, 368; his reli- 
 gious ideas summed up, 
 
 368-9 
 SHARP, Archbishop, quoted, 
 
 218 
 SHELLEY, his Adonais, 76- 
 
 83 ; absurd criticism of 
 
 his style, 126 
 SHENSTONE, William, 249 
 SIDNEY, Sir Philip, 131 
 SIMPSON, Richard, 351 : 
 
 368 
 SMART, Christopher, his 
 
 Song to David, 340 
 SMEATON, Mr. Oliphant, his 
 
 life of Dunbar reviewed, 
 
 183-92 
 SOPHOCLES, 242; his ethics, 
 
 267-9 ; quoted, 285 ; his 
 
 ideal man, 366 
 SPENSER, Edmund, 112:113 ; 
 
 influence of Greek and 
 
 Latin Classics on, 120-1 ; 
 
 influence of, on Milton, 
 
 121; on the functions of 
 
 poetry, 280 
 
 STANIHURST, Richard, 308 
 STEPHEN, Mr. Leslie, 35 
 STESICHORUS, his Calyce, 
 
 287 
 STEVENSON, R. L., Letters 
 
 reviewed, 165-71 
 STRABO quoted, 287 
 SWIFT, Jonathan, his Senti- 
 
 ment$ of a Church of 
 
 E.G. 
 
 377 
 
 BB
 
 INDEX 
 
 England Man, 113; Tale 
 of a Tub, 144 
 
 TACITUS quoted, 20 : 192 : 
 264 ; as a critic, 278-9 ; on 
 immortality, 360 
 
 TALLEYRAND quoted, 210 
 
 TENNYSON, Lord, 62 : 162-3 : 
 245 : 247 : 298 : 337 ; as a 
 critic, 252 
 
 TERENCE, women of, 292 
 
 TEXT-BOOKS on English 
 Literature, specimens of, 
 76-150 
 
 THACKERAY on Wordsworth 
 and Moore, 250 
 
 THEOCRITUS, 243 
 
 THEOGNIS quoted, 262 
 
 THOMSON, James, 243; quoted, 
 248; claim to the author- 
 ship of Rule Britannia 
 vindicated, 321-8 ; cor- j 
 rections in the Seasons , 
 discussed, 328-34 
 
 THORPE, Thomas, 216 : 227 : 
 235 
 
 TOVEY, Eev. D. C., his edi- 
 tion of Thomson's poems 
 reviewed, 318-34 
 
 TREMENHEERE, Mr. J. H. A., 
 his version of Catullus' 
 Love Poems, 335-50 
 
 TRISSINO, his Sofonisba, 
 123 
 
 THUCYDIDBS, 258 : 260 ; on 
 hope, 262 
 
 TUPPER, Martin, 251 
 
 TYLER, Mr. Thomas, on 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets, 228 
 
 TYRWHITT, Thomas, 223 : 
 234 
 
 UNIVERSITIES, their indiffer- 
 ence to the interests of 
 literature, 38-40 : 45-50 ; 
 effects of the exclusion of 
 the Greek and Eoman 
 Classics from the so-called 
 Schools of Literature at 
 Oxford and Cambridge, 
 55-71 
 
 VARRO, as a critic, 278 
 VIRGIL, his beautiful descrip- 
 tions of Nature, 245-6; his 
 Eclogues, 308-17 
 VOLTAIRE on Philologists, 
 86 
 
 WALTERS, Cuming, on 
 
 Shakespeare's Sonnets, 
 
 220-1 
 WARBURTON, Bishop, 205 ; 
 
 quoted, 270 
 WARTON, Dr. Joseph, on 
 
 Thomson's poetry, 330 
 WARTON, Thomas, on Lyd- 
 
 gate, 98 
 WATSON, Mr. William, great 
 
 beauty of his English 
 
 hexameters, 317 
 WHARTON, Dr., his Sappho, 
 
 148 
 WILLMOTT, Rev. Aris, his 
 
 378
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gems from English Litera- 
 ture, 163-1 
 
 WiLLOUGHBYjhis Avisa, 101 : 
 225 
 
 WORDSWORTH, William, 153; 
 on Dyer's poetry, 248 ; his 
 poems on classical legends, 
 298 
 
 WORSFOLD, Mr. Basil, his 
 Principles of Criticism 
 reviewed, 270-82 
 
 WRANQHAM, Archdeacon, 
 310 
 
 WRIGHT, Dr. Aldis, his 
 
 edition of Shakespeare's 
 
 Hamlet, 84-92 
 WRIGHT, Mr. W. H. Kearley, 
 
 his West Country Poets 
 
 reviewed, 301-7 
 WYNTOWN, his Chronicle, 
 
 180-1 
 
 XBNOPHON on women, 290 
 
 YOUNG, Edward, quoted, 87 
 
 Butler & Tanner, The Selwcxxl Printing Works, Frome, and London. 
 
 370
 
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