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A HISTORY OF CRITICISM
AND LITERARY TASTE
_Ignorantium temeraria plerumque sunt judicia._
—POLYCARP LEYSER.
A HISTORY OF CRITICISM
AND
LITERARY TASTE IN EUROPE
_FROM THE EARLIEST TEXTS TO THE PRESENT DAY_
BY
GEORGE SAINTSBURY
M.A. OXON.; HON. LL.D. ABERD.
PROFESSOR OF RHETORIC AND ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. III.
MODERN CRITICISM
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MCMIV
PREFACE.
In the first volume of this History we had to summarise the critical
work of nearly two thousand years; in the second, that of two whole
centuries, with the major part of that of the third. In this we have had
the apparently more manageable task of considering the whole work of the
nineteenth century only, with the _remanets_ (left over, not by accident
but design) from the eighteenth and earlier. Yet it would be a poor
compliment to the reader’s intelligence to waste time in explaining to
him that the weight of the task is very little lightened by the lessened
number of the years with which we have to deal. And the actual
congestion of the volume ought all the less to be increased by
repetition of things already said in former Prefaces, or by single-stick
play with reviewers. Some points, which seemed to be really worth
handling, I have dealt with in the text; the others I must let alone. I
have little fear that many impartial and competent critics will dispute
my claim to have surveyed the matter with the actual documents in hand,
and not (save in the rare cases specified) from comments and
go-betweens, from abstracts and translations; while such critics may
even grant my “mass,” as some indeed have in their kindness granted it
already, a fair share of “agitating mind,” under the conditions and with
the limitations specified in the original preface. I may at least hope
that I shall not be charged with
“la fretta
Che l’onestade ad ogni atto dismaga,”
in regard to a book which has been the actual work and companion of
seven years in its composition, the result of more than seven-and-twenty
in direct or indirect preparation.
After all it is, as Dante says elsewhere, for knowledge “not to prove
but to set forth its subject,” and I do not see any further necessity to
argue against the notion that Criticism, alone of the departments of
literary energy, is to be denied a simple and straightforward History of
its actual accomplishments. That is what I set myself to give. If other
people want other things, let them go and do them. When the next History
of Criticism is written it will doubtless be, if the author knows his
business, a much better book than mine; but I may perhaps hope that his
might be worse, and would certainly cost him more time and labour, were
it not for this.
One final point I think it may be well to take up. A friend who is at
once friendly, most competent, and of a different complexion in critical
thought, objected to me that I “treat literature as something by
itself.” I hastened to admit the impeachment, and to declare that this
is the very postulate of my book. That literature can be _absolutely_
isolated is, of course, not to be thought of; nothing human can be
absolutely isolated from the general conditions of humanity, and from
the other functions and operations thereof. But in that _comparative_
isolation and separate presentation which Aristotle meant by his caution
against confusion of kinds, I do thoroughly believe. With which
profession of faith, and with all renewed acknowledgments to friends and
helpers, especially to Professors Elton, Ker, and Raleigh for their
kindness in reading the proofs of this volume, I must leave the book to
its fate.[1]
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
HOLMBURY ST MARY, _Lammas 1904_.
ADDENDA AND CORRIGENDA.
-------
VOLUME I.
P. 63, note. “_Lu_dhaus” should be “_Su_dhaus.” I received from
Professor Gudeman of Cornell University, along with the notice of this
misprint, and some other minor corrections which I gratefully
acknowledge, a large number of much more important animadversions, for
noticing which generally I may make it a pretext. I have the highest
respect for their author: and it is quite natural that to him, as a
professed and professional classical philologist, my treatment should in
many respects seem superficial, or amateurish, or even positively wrong.
But on at least one point we are, I fear, irreconcilable. Professor
Gudeman thinks that Kaibel has “settled once for all” the question of
the Περὶ Ὕψους,—has “given incontrovertible proof” that it cannot be
later than the first century. Now, as an old student of Logic and of
Law, and as a literary critic of thirty years’ standing, I absolutely
deny the possibility of “settling once for all,” of “incontrovertible
proof,” in this matter as in many others. The evidence is not extant, if
it is existent. It may turn up, but it has not turned up yet. On this
point—the point as to what constitutes _literary_ evidence and what does
not—I am well aware that I am at issue, perhaps with the majority, at
any rate with a large number, of scholars in the ancient and modern
languages; but I am quite content to remain so. As to another protest of
Professor Gudeman’s against my neglect of the latest editions, I might
refer him to Schopenhauer (_v. infra_, p. 567); but I will only say that
_for my purpose_ the date of an edition is of very little importance,
and the spelling of “_G_næus” or “_C_næus,” “_iu_ris” or “_ju_ris,” of
no importance at all. I am sorry to appear stiff-necked in reference to
criticisms made with many obliging expressions, but _Ich kann nicht
anders_, as also in reference to Theophrastus, the Alexandrians, and
others, whose substantive works are lost, but with whom Mr Gudeman would
like me to deal in the usual manner of conjectural and inferential
patchwork.
P. 280. I had not observed (oddly enough) that _Clæris_ had crept into
text and headings, where it has no business, and that “Fabius” was
misprinted “Falinus,” till Professor Gudeman kindly brought both to my
notice.
Pp. 410, 411. I owe to Dr Sandys (in _Hermathena_, vol. xii. p. 438) the
removal of certain ignorances or forgetfulnesses here. “Solymarius,” as
I most assuredly ought to have remembered, seeing that the information
is in Warton, was a poem on the Crusades by Gunther, the author of the
better known _Ligurinus_ on Barbarossa, and the “Guntero” to whom I
myself, in vol. ii. p. 96, alluded in connection with Patrizzi.
“Paraclitus” and “Sidonius” were two poems by Warnerius of Basle. I am
even more indebted to Dr Sandys for a sheaf of privately communicated
annotations on vol. i., of many of which I hope to avail myself in a
future edition—if such a thing is called for.
VOLUME II.
P. 23 _sq._ A reference of Hallam’s (_Literature of Europe_, iii. 5, 76,
77) to the _Miscellanies_ of Politian has led some critics, who
apparently do not know the book itself, and have not even read Hallam
carefully, to object to its omission here. Their authority might have
saved them; for he very correctly describes these _Miscellanies_ as
“sometimes grammatical, but more frequently relating to obscure customs
and mythological allusions.” In other words, the book—which _I_ have
read—is hardly, in my sense, critical at all.
P. 29, note 3, l. 3, _for_ “ii.” _read_ “i.” (The _first_ vol. of Pope.)
P. 30, _for_ “with his two great disciples” _read_ “between his master
Horace and his pupil Boileau.”
P. 38, note, _for first sentence read_: “But most of this latter part
had been written in 1548-49, and all must have been before 1550, when T.
died.”
P. 51, l. 7 from bottom, _for_ “Rote” _read_ “Rota.”
P. 67, l. 4, _for_ “prose” _read_ “poor.”
P. 80, note. When I wrote on Castelvetro I was not aware that the
Commentary on Dante (at least that on _Inf._, Cantos i.-xxix.) had been
recovered and published by Signor Giovanni Franciosi (Modena, 1886) in a
stately royal 4to (which I have now read, and possess), with the owl and
the pitcher, but without the _Kekrika_, and without the proper
resolution in the owl’s countenance. This may be metaphysically
connected with the fact that the editor is rather unhappy about his
author, and tells us that he was long in two minds about sending him out
at last to the world. He admires Castelvetro’s boldness, scholarship,
intellect; but thinks him sadly destitute of reverence for Dante, and
deplores his “lack of lively and cheerful sense of the Beautiful.” If it
were not that my gratitude to the man who gives me a text seals my mouth
as to everything else, I should be a little inclined to cry “Fudge!” at
this. Nobody would expect from any Renaissance scholar, and least of all
from Castelvetro, “unction,” mysticism, rapture at the things that give
_us_ rapture in Dante. All the more honour to him that, as in the case
of Petrarch, he thought it worth while to bestow on that vernacular,
which too many Renaissance scholars despised, the same intense desire to
understand, the same pains, the same “taking seriously,” which he showed
towards the ancients. This is the true reverence: the rest is but
“leather and prunella.”
P. 87, l. 5, _for_ “ideals” _read_ “idols.”
P. 107. Some time after vol. ii. was published I came across (in the
catalogues of Mr Voynich, who might really inscribe on these documents
for motto
“Das Unzulängliche
Hier wird’s Ereignis”)
quite a nest of Zinanos, mostly written about that year 1590, which
seems to have been this curious writer’s most active time; and I bought
two of them as specially appurtenant to our subject. One is a _Discorso
della Tragedia_, appended (though separately paged and dedicated) to the
author’s tragedy of _Almerigo_; the other _Le Due Giornate della Ninfa
overo del Diletto e delle Muse_, all printed by Bartholi, at Reggio, and
the two prose books or booklets dated 1590. The _Discorso_ is chiefly
occupied with an attack on the position that Tragedy (especially
according to Aristotle) ought to be busied with true subjects only. The
_Giornate_ (which contain another reference to Patrizzi) deal—more or
less fancifully, but in a manner following Boethius, which is
interesting at so late a date—with philosophy and things in general,
rather than with literature.
P. 140, l. 3 from bottom, _delete_ “of” before Catullus.
P. 162, l. 17. “Thomas” should have been “George,” as it appears
correctly elsewhere: and “fourth” in the note should be “quarto” (“4th,”
“4to”).
P. 191. “_Topmost_ Verulam” should, of course, be “_large-browed_
Verulam”—a curious instance of the tricks played by memory. I know _The
Palace of Art_ so well as to see it all printed before me; but the
treacherous mind’s eye must have slipped from the epithet of the first
line, “topmost _oriels_,” to the name of the third.
P. 248. In the line beginning _O, débile raison!_ “lors” has been
misprinted for “ores,” thereby spoiling the metre.
P. 263, l. 12, _for_ “Beni—Pacius” _read_ “Beni and Pazzi (Pacius) as
well as of Heinsius.”
P. 301, note, “Grands Écrivains _Français_” should be “G. E. _de la
France_.”
P. 319, note. Gibert is, it seems, appended to some edd. of Baillet.
P. 322, bk. IV. chap. i. I ought, perhaps, to have noticed in this
context a book rather widely spread—Sorel’s _De La Connaissance des Bons
Livres_, Paris, 1671. It contains some not uninteresting things on
literature in general, on novels, poetry, comedy, &c., on the laws of
good speaking and writing, on the “new language of French.” But it is,
on the whole, as anybody acquainted with any part of the voluminous work
of the author of _Francion_ would expect, mainly not disagreeable nor
ignorant _chat_—newspaper work before the newspaper.
P. 350. The opposition of the two “doctors” is perhaps too sharply put.
P. 376, note, _for_ “Schenck” _read_ “Strunk.”
P. 436. I should like to add as a special “place” for Dennis’s
criticism, his comparatively early _Remarks on_ Prince Arthur _and
Virgil_ (title abbreviated), London, 1696. It is, as it stands, of some
elaboration; but its author tells us that he “meant” to do things which
would have made it an almost complete Poetic from his point of view. It
is pervaded with that refrain of “this _ought_ to be” and “that _must_
have been” to which I have referred in the text; and bristles with
purely arbitrary preceptist statements, such as that Criticism cannot be
ill-natured because Good Nature in man cannot be contrary to Justice and
Reason; that a man must not like what he ought not to like—a doctrine
underlying, of course, the whole Neo-classic teaching, and not that
only; almost literally cropping up in Wordsworth; and the very
formulation, in categorical-imperative, of La Harpe’s “monstrous
beauty.” The book (in which poet and critic are very comfortably and
equally yoked together) is full of agreeable things; and may possibly
have suggested one of Swift’s most exquisite pieces of irony in its
contention that Mr Blackmore’s Celestial Machines are directly contrary
to the Doctrine of the Church of England.
P. 449, l. 1, _for_ “is more curious” _read_ “gives rather more.”
P. 478, l. 12 from bottom, _for_ “and in some cases” _read_ “in the
lady’s case.”
P. 546. Denina. This author is a good instance of the things which the
reader sometimes rather reproachfully demands, when the writer would
only too fain have supplied them. I could write more than a page with
satisfaction on Denina’s _Discorso sopra le Vicende della Litteratura_,
which, rather surprisingly, underwent its second edition in Glasgow at
the Foulis press (1763), and which not only deals at large with the
subject in an interesting manner, but accepts the _religio loci_ by
dealing specially with _Scottish_ literature. But, once more, this is
for a fourth volume—or even a fifth—things belonging to the
Thinkable-Unthinkable.
P. 550, note. Something like “pie” has been made of this. It should
read: “This Gallicism was _not_ universal. _As_ Mr Ticknor,” &c.
P. 554, l. 3. For the _Paragone_ see the present volume under Conti,
Antonio.
VOLUME III.
P. 152, note, l. 6 from bottom, _for_ “condenses” _read_ “condemns.”
P. 173, l. 11, _for_ “he” _read_ “Spenser.”
P. 208, ll. 1, 2, _for_ “moon_light_” _read_ “moon_shine_.”
P. 254, note, _add_, “as well as sometimes on Southey.”
P. 267, l. 4. I am glad to know that Blake’s poems at least, and at
last, are being edited more than competently.
P. 283, note 2. I accepted too hastily the statement that T. Wright
contributed to the _Retrospective Review_ proper. Dates (see Index) will
show that he could not have done so, though he might to the so-called
“Third” series.
P. 308, l. 8 from bottom, _for_ “Mestre” _read_ “Maistre.”
P. 312, l. 24, _for_ “nor” _read_ “or.”
P. 357, _for_ “Walder” _read_ “Wälder.”
P. 357, sidenote, _for_ “Geschmack” _read_ “Geschmacks.”
P. 471, l. 1, _for_ “more” _read_ “so.”
P. 488. Perhaps the _most_ remarkable example of this parody-criticism
is Aytoun’a _Firmilian_, an astonishing satire-judgment, not merely of
the actual “Spasmodics,” but of the long-subsequent class, all over
Europe, of whom Dr Ibsen is the chief.
CONTENTS.
----------
BOOK VII.
THE DISSOLVENTS OF NEO-CLASSICISM.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY AND RETROSPECTIVE.
PAGE
Scope of the volume 3
The term Modern 3
The origins 4
Need of caution here 5
Case of Butler on Rymer, Denham 5
And Benlowes 6
PAGE
Of Addison and others 7
Of La Bruyère and “_Tout est dit_” 8
Of Fénelon and Gravina 9
Of Dryden and Fontenelle 9
The more excellent way 10