and elsewhere, and prescribe 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 philological criticism and exegesis, and
appealing only to those who approach the study of Shakespeare 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.
OUR LITERARY GUIDES
I. A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE[11]
[Footnote 11: _A Short History of English Literature._ By George
Saintsbury, Professor of Rhetoric and English Literature in the
University of Edinburgh.]
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
examination. 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 misstatements, 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 statements or
question his dogmas, and who naturally suppose that the post which he
occupies is a sufficient guarantee of the soundness and accuracy 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 irresponsible 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 incredible.
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 statement, that
in Anglo-Saxon poetry “there is practically no lyric.”[12] It is
scarcely necessary to say that not only does Anglo-Saxon poetry 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 _Deor’s 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 attributed to Cynewulf,
and of the poem attributed to Cædmon, 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:--
“O thou glory of the Lord! Guardian of Heaven’s hosts,
O thou might of the Creator! O thou mid-circle!
O thou bright day of splendour! O thou jubilee of God!
O ye hosts of angels! O 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.”[13]
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. Saintsbury’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
statement is partly erroneous and wholly misleading. In the account
given of the Scotch poets, the Professor, speaking of Douglas’
translation of the _Æneid_, says, he “does not embroider on his text.”
This is an excellent illustration of the confidence which may be placed
in Mr. Saintsbury’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 _Æneid_ II. 496-499:--
“Non sic, aggeribus ruptis cum spumeus amnis
Exiit, oppositasque evicit gurgite moles,
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 houssis and the flokkis flittis away,
The corne grangis and standard stakkys of hay.”
We open _Æneid_ IX. 2:--
“Irim de cœlo misit Saturnia Juno
Audacem ad Turnum. Luco tum forte parentis
Pilumni Turnus sacratâ valle sedebat.
Ad quem 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 meyn Iris thys ilk fornamyt maide,
And with hir rosy lippis thus him said.”
We turn to the end of the tenth _Æneid_ 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 embroider on his text”! It is
perfectly plain that Professor Saintsbury has criticised and commented
on a work which he could never have inspected. The same ignorance is
displayed in the account of Lydgate. He is pronounced to be a versifier
rather than a poet, his verse is described as “sprawling and
staggering.” 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 encyclopædias 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 smoothness 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.”[14] Warton also
notices his “perspicuous and musical numbers,” and “the harmony,
strength, and dignity” of his verses.[15]
Turn where we will we are confronted with blunders. Take the account
given of Shakespeare. He began his metre, we are told, with the
lumbering “fourteeners.” He did, so 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
Andronicus_ 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 traditionally 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 Labour’s Lost_ and culminating with the _Midsummer Night’s
Dream_. It 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 probably 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 administration,
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 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
initiative, 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 Revolution, 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 _Avisa_, the Professor observes that nothing is known of
Willoughby or of _Avisa_. If the Professor had known anything about the
work, he would have known that _Avisa_ is simply an anagram made up of
the initial letters of _Amans_, _vxor_, _inviolata semper amanda_, and
that nothing is known of Avisa 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, confounded 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 century, 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 nobleman. 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 confinement
less than two years. On page 358, Brutus, the legendary founder of
Britain, is actually described as the son of Æneas. If Professor
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, consequently, the great-grandson of Æneas. 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 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 writings, 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
covetousness 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
reformation, 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 hornwork of papal jurisdiction; 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”!
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 expression.” Vivid and vernacular expression is, next to its
stateliness, the distinguishing characteristic of Hooker’s style. It
would be interesting to know what is meant by the remark 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 exponents of the gorgeous style in the seventeenth
century.” Very ‘gorgeous’ the style of the _Vanity of Dogmatizing_, of
its later edition the _Scepsis Scientifica_, of the _Sadducismus
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 Shakespeare.” 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 hearer who knew no English,
but knew Tennyson 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 Lee’s 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
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 compels 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.”[16] “What the _Voyage and Travaile_ really
is, is this--it is, so far as we know, and even beyond our knowledge in
all probability and likelihood, the first considerable example of prose
in English dealing neither with the beaten track of theology and
philosophy, nor with the, even in the Middle Ages, restricted field of
history and home topography, but expatiating freely on unguarded plains
and on untrodden hills, sometimes dropping into actual prose romance and
always treating its subject as the poets had treated theirs in _Brut_
and _Mort d’Arthur_, in _Troy-book_ and _Alexandreid_, as a mere canvas
on which to embroider flowers of fancy.”[17] Again, “With Anglo-Saxon
history he deals slightly, and despite his ardent English
patriotism--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 Angliæ_ might be made)--he deals very harshly with Harold
Godwinson.”[18] “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 exactness 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 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.
We must now conclude, though we have very far from exhausted the list of
errors and misstatements, of absurdities in criticism and absurdities in
theory, which we have noted. Bacon has observed 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 incapable of distinguishing vulgarity and coarseness
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
indifference to all that should be dear to a scholar, the mingled
coarseness, triviality and dogmatism of his tone, the audacious nonsense
of his generalisations, 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_.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 12: Page 37.]
[Footnote 13: