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_Ignorantium temeraria plerumque sunt judicia._
—POLYCARP LEYSER.
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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. I.
CLASSICAL AND MEDIÆVAL CRITICISM
SECOND EDITION
WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS
EDINBURGH AND LONDON
MCMII
PREFACE.
It is perhaps vain to attempt to tone down the audacity of the present
essay by any explanations or limitations; it is certain that those who
are offended by it at first blush are very unlikely to be propitiated by
excuses of the faults which, excusably or inexcusably, it no doubt
contains. The genesis of it is as follows. When, not much less than
thirty years ago, the writer was first asked to undertake the duty of a
critic, he had naturally to overhaul his own acquaintance with the
theory and practice of criticism, and to inquire what was the
acquaintance of others therewith. The disconcerting smallness of the
first was a little compensated by the discovery that very few persons
seemed to be much better furnished. Dr Johnson’s projected “History of
Criticism, as it relates to Judging of Authours” no doubt has had
fellows in the great library of books unwritten. But there were then,
and I believe there are still, only two actual attempts to deal with the
whole subject. One of these[1] I have never seen, and indeed had never
heard of till nearly the whole of the present volume was written.
Moreover, it seems to be merely a torso. The other, Théry’s _Histoire
des Opinions Littéraires_,[2] a book which, after two editions at some
interval, has been long out of print, is a work of great liveliness, no
small knowledge, and, in its airy French kind, a good deal of acuteness.
But the way in which “Critique Arabe,” “Critique Juive,” &c., are
knocked off in a page or a paragraph at one end, and the way in which,
at the other—though the second edition was published when Mr Arnold was
just going to write, and the first when Coleridge, and Hazlitt, and Lamb
had already written—the historian knows of nothing English later than
Campbell and Blair, are things a little disquieting. At any rate,
neither of these was then known to me, and I had, year by year, to pick
up for myself, and piece together, the greater and lesser classics of
the subject in a haphazard and groping fashion.
Footnote 1:
Delia Critica, Libri Tre. B. Mazzarella, Geneva, 1866. The book to
which I owe my knowledge of this, Professors Gayley and Scott’s
_Introduction to the Methods and Materials of Literary Criticism_,
Boston, U.S.A., 1899, is invaluable as a bibliography, and has much
more than merely bibliographical interest.
Footnote 2:
Ed. 2, Paris, 1849. The first edition may have appeared between 1830
and 1840. Vapereau says 1844, which would strengthen my point in the
text; but this does not seem to agree with the Preface of the second.
This volume—which will, fortune permitting, be followed by a second
dealing with the matter from the Renaissance to the death of
eighteenth-century Classicism, and by a third on Modern Criticism—is an
attempt to supply for others, on the basis of these years of reading,
the Atlas of which the writer himself so sorely felt the need. He may
have put elephants for towns, he may have neglected important rivers and
mountains, like a general from the point of view of a newspaper
correspondent, or a newspaper correspondent from the point of view of a
general; but he has done what he could.
The book, the plan of which was accepted by my publishers some five or
six years ago, before I was appointed to the Chair which I have the
honour to hold, has been delayed in its composition, partly by work
previously undertaken, partly by professional duties. But it has
probably not been injured by the necessity of reading, for these duties,
some four or five times over again, the _Poetics_ and the _Rhetoric_,
the _Institutes_ and the Περὶ Ὕψους,, the _De Vulgari Eloquio_ and the
_Discoveries_, the _Essay of Dramatic Poesy_ and the _Preface to Lyrical
Ballads_.
I do not know whether some apology may be expected from a man whom
readers, if they know him at all, are likely to know only as a student
of modern literature, for the presumption of making his own translations
from Greek and Latin. But when one has learnt these languages for twelve
or fifteen years, taught them for eight more, and read them for nearly
another five-and-twenty, it seems rather pusillanimous to take cover
behind “cribs.” I have aimed throughout rather at closeness than at
elegance. An apology of another kind may be offered for the biographical
and lexicographical details which, at the cost of some trouble, have
been incorporated in the Index. Everybody has not a classical dictionary
at hand, and probably few people have a full rhetorical lexicon. Yet it
was inevitable, in a book of this kind, that a large number of persons,
books, and words should be introduced, as to the date, the contents, the
meaning of which or of whom, the ordinary reader might require some
enlightenment. Information of the sort would have made the text
indigestible and have overballasted the notes; so I have put it in the
Index, where those who do not want it need not seek it, and where those
who seek will, I hope, find.
It only remains to thank, with a heartiness not easily to be expressed,
the friends who have been good enough to read my proofs and to give me
the benefit of their special knowledge. Not always does the restless
explorer of literature at large who, knowing that here also “the merry
world is round And [he] may sail for evermore,” elects to be a
world-wanderer, receive, from the legitimate authorities of the ports
into which he puts, a genuine welcome, cheerful victualling, and
assistance in visiting the adjacent provinces. Sometimes they fire into
him, sometimes they deny him food and water, often they look upon him as
a filibuster, or an interloper, or presumptuous. But Professor Butcher,
Professor Hardie, and Professor Ker, who have had the exceeding kindness
to read each the portion of this volume which belongs to him more
specially of right, have not only given me invaluable suggestions and
corrections, but have even encouraged me to hope that my treatment,
however far it may fall short of what is desirable, is not grossly and
impudently inadequate. May all other competent persons be equally
lenient!
GEORGE SAINTSBURY.
EDINBURGH, _Lammastide 1900_.
NOTE TO SECOND EDITION.
Since this book was first printed, I have remembered that the story
about Malatesta and the bones (note, p. 124) is told by Mr Symonds in
more than one place (_e.g._, _The Revival of Learning_, new ed., p. 151)
of _Gemistus_ Pletho, the well-known Grecian and Platonist, whose
appearance in Italy so much excited Humanism. This is, for many reasons,
much more probable; but the mistake of “Themistius,” if mistake it be,
is not mine but Dindorf’s, or rather that of Keyssler, from whom Dindorf
quotes an account of the matter, and an apparently literal transcript of
the inscription. Some minor emendations have been made in this edition,
but it has been thought better to place the major corrections of fact
and explanations of meaning in the second volume, in order that all
possessors of the book may be equally furnished with these.
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CONTENTS.
----------
BOOK I.
GREEK CRITICISM.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY.
PAGE
Delimitation of frontier 3
Classes of Criticism excluded 4
Class retained 4
Method 4
Texts the chief object 5
_Hypotheses non fingo_ 6
Illustration from M. Egger 6
The Documents 7
Greek 7
Roman 7
Mediæval 7
Renaissance and Modern 8