6. Lastly, if there be not really more of art in our present literature than there is in that of the last age, there is certainly much more of the appearance, we might almost say the ostentation, of it. We have fallen off decidedly in the art of concealing our art. Byron has said of two of his heroines, that the difference between them sent. "Was such as is between a flower and gem;" but the general difference between the most highly finished poetry of the last and of the present age might rather be compared to that between a natural flower and an artificial one. The latter is possibly a very elaborate and perfect piece of workmanship; there may be an exactness in what is cut in ivory which is never found in nature. But, as Burke has observed, "it is the nature of all greatness not to be exact." The poetry of Virgil is more exact than that of Homer; but the Eneid is not therefore a greater poem than the Iliad. It may be doubted if some of the most remarkable poetry of the last age would have found any acceptance at all if it had been produced in the preWhat would have been thought of Crabbe, for instance, with his habitual carelessness both of rhyme and of grammar, and his innumerable passages, not unfrequently of considerable length, which evidently have not received any dressing whatever? Nay, what reception would some of our old poetry have had of far greater renown than his? The steady progress we have been making towards more and more of mere grammatical correctness for more than a century must, indeed, be obvious to every student of our literature; but it may occasion some surprise to find how far we have advanced in that direction in the course of a single generation. Or, if we would measure the change that the lapse of two generations has made, we may compare Burke and Macaulay. The freedom of Burke's style in all his more characteristic writings would be altogether strange and startling in a writer of the present day. It is something that we have either lost or laid aside. We have, in fact, outgrown it. Whether we have thereby been gainers or losers may be a question. It is common to assume that the greater regularity of our present style is an evidence of our literature having got past its manhood and entered its old age. upon But correctness is not in itself a defect. It has been always the reproach of our English literature with other nations that it has so little, if it have anything at all, to boast of which is at the same time of great excellence and free from great faults. We ourselves may hold, perhaps, that this comparative lawlessness with which our literature is charged is only a thing of the same kind with the spirit of freedom which animates our political institutions. Still it is impossible to found any system either of art or of politics upon the principle of insubordination. Wherever rules exist, they exist to be obeyed, not to be violated or neglected. And strength is always most shown in conforming to law, not in disregarding it. It never can be admitted, therefore, that it is better for any age to write incorrectly than correctly,-although it may be only a declining age that will make correctness its first aim. For it is a kind of excellence the utmost possible degree of which is soon reached ; and what alone makes it of any value is its combination with higher things. Our literature was never so generally distinguished by elaborateness of finish as it is at the present day; but the perfection of its workmanship does not look so much a part of itself as in the best specimens of the last age. The secret by which that effect was attained seems to be lost. Even where the faultlessness is as complete in Tennyson as it is in Shelley, the spontaneousness, or semblance of spontaneousness, which charms us in Shelley is wanting. The art, exquisite as it is, is no longer the same true counterpart and wonderful rival of nature. Such appear to be the chief essential differences. Others that might be noticed are rather of external circumstances; such as the extension of Criticism, of Journalism, and of Anonymous writing. These three things naturally go together, and they had all attained considerable growth in the last age; but they have been much more largely developed in the present. In no preceding time, in our own or in any other country, has Anonymous Periodical Criticism ever acquired nearly the same ascendancy and power. It might be interesting to consider how and in how far, if at all, our literature may be likely to be thereby affected, whether in its actual state or in its tendencies and prospects. As for the Anonymity, however, which might seem to be the most important of the three combined elements, it is for the greater part only formal. Of writing the authorship of which is really unknown there probably never was less than there is in the present day. And the custom according to which the name of the writer is withheld in certain cases is obviously one of great convenience. More especially, it is indispensable for any free criticism touching living persons in regard to such points as are never discussed with or in the presence of a man himself in ordinary society. Not, indeed, that the necessary boldness and effrontery, or honesty, if you will, might not be forthcoming in abundance under a system which allowed no public writer to assume a mask or a veil; but that the proceeding would outrage our notions of common decency and common humanity. The only way in which the truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth can be spoken in the case supposed is by means of a voice, which is no doubt that of an individual, and may even be perfectly well known to be that of a certain individual, but yet does not offensively proclaim itself as such, nay rather claims to be taken for that of nobody in particular. The old proverb would have us say nothing but what is good, nothing but what is complimentary, of the dead: De mortuis nil nisi bonum ; but in point of fact it is rather of the living that we usually speak under that restriction. Neither, besides, is it easy often to make up one's mind about even the greatest man while he is still running his course. He dazzles you, or he eludes you. Not till the night of death has closed upon him does any calm and clear observation of him become practicable. The stars themselves are invisible in the daytime. 545 INDEX. A. ACCENTUAL verse, 227, 249 Addison, Joseph, ii. 232 Adrian IV., Pope, 58 Age, Style of the, ii. 525 Akenside, Dr. Mark, ii. 269 Albert, Abbot, 28 Alchemists, 147, 367 Aldhelm, Abbot, 9 Aldred, Archbishop, Curse of, 175 Alexander the Great, romances on, 165 Alfred the Great, 22, 39, 40, 41 Alfred, or Alured, of Beverley, 86 Alfric, or Aelfric, 39, 41 Alice of Louvain, 109, 114 Arbuthnot, Dr. John, ii. 245 Ash, Simon, vide Fresne, du. Astronomy and astrology, 147 Atterbury, Bishop, ii. 191, 246 Augustine, Archbishop of Canterbury, 18 Austen, Miss, ii. 534 Avesbury, Robert of, 154 Ayton, Sir Robert, ii. 270 B. Bacon, Francis, 585; ii. 128 Alliterative verse, 184, 224, 228, 241, Bacon, Roger, 144, 148 243 Alured, vide Alfred. Americanisms, ii. 526, 527 Ancren Riwle, the, 198, 204 Ancrum, Robert Ker, Earl of, ii. 270 Andrews, Bishop, 582 Aneurin, 7, 17 Angles and Saxons, 29, 31 Anglo-Norman poets, 108, 163 Anglo-Saxon, vide Original English. Anglo-Saxons, the, 29 Anne, age of, ii. 433, 435 Anonymous writing, ii. 543 Anselm, 50, 53, 60 Anster, John, 30, ii. 515 Anstey, Christopher, ii. 289 Apollonius of Tyre, 39 VOL. II. Baillie, Joanna, ii. 397, 515, 517 Baker, Sir R. ii. 72 Baldwynne, Richard, 438 Bale's Kynge Johan, 453 Ballad poetry of Scotland, ii. 273.-New Bannatyne, George, ii. 272 Barbauld, Mrs. ii. 515 Barbour, John, 317 Barclay, John, 593 Bards, Welsh, 17 Barklay, Alexander, 425 Barrow, Dr. Isaac, ii. 118, 161 Barton, B. ii. 512 Baxter, Andrew, ii. 335 Baxter, Richard, ii. 118, 175 Beattie, Dr. James, ii. 289, 336 2 N Beaulieu, vide Guichard. Beaumont, Francis, 572; ii. 2, 4, 105 Beda, or Bede, 10, 21 Behn, Aphra, ii. 106 Bellenden, John, 421 Bellenden, William, ii. 429 Benedict, Bishop, 10, 18, 28 Bentley, Dr. Richard, ii. 191, 209 Berkeley, Bishop, ii. 335 Bigott, Hugh, Rhyming Boast, 176 Blesensis, Petrus, vide Blois. Bloomfield, R. ii, 513 Bolingbroke, Lord, ii. 247, 297, 318 Bologna, University of, 55 Bonus Sylvius, vide Coil. Boswell, James, ii. 428 Botoner, William, 370 Bower, Walter, 156 Bowles, Rev. William Lisle, ii. 397, 511 Boyle and Bentley controversy, ii. 190, 209 Boyle, Hon. Robert, ii. 143, 157, 175 Brandan, Pilgrimage of St., 111 Brooke, Charlotte, ii. 397 Brooke, Frances (Moore), Mrs. i'. 295, 298 Brougham, Lord, ii. 334, 518 Brouncker, Lord, ii. 150, 159 Browne, Sir Thomas, ii. 67 Browne, William, ii. 43 Browning, Mrs. ii. 531, 532, 537 Brunanburg, battle of, 39 Brut, 115 Brydges, Sir Egerton, ii. 514 Buckhurst, Thomas Sackville, Lord, vide Sackville. Buckingham, George Villiers (second) Duke of, ii. 99, 105 Burgess, Bishop, ii. 430 Burke, Edmund, ii. 310-334, 351, 426, Burnet, Bishop, ii. 175, 271 Burnet, Dr. Thomas, ii. 169, 177 Burns, Robert, ii. 398-425, 426 Butler, Samuel, ii. 86 Byron, ii. 493-496, 511, 514, 517, 518 Cadmon, 58 C. Cambrensis, vide Giraldus. Camden, William, 593 Campbell, Dr. George, ii. 336 Campbell, Thomas, ii. 484, 486-488, 493, 518 Canterbury, vide Gervase. Canute, Song of, 175 Carlyle, ii. 532, 537 Carter, Elizabeth, ii. 296 Cartwright, Rev. William, ii. 10 Catharine, St., Play of, 51 Caw, 7 Caxton, William, 339, 358, 359-361, 372 Celtic in English, 13 Celtic Languages, 12 Celtic Languages, relationship to Gothic, 14 Chalmers, George, ii. 389 Chapman, George, 545, 566 |