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011 - Chapter IV The Critics Part 3 · Victorian Literature

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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten of Victorian Literature. This is a LibriVox recording.
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  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
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  Speaker 1: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
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  Speaker 1: by Ruhee Huck Victorian Literature by Clement Shorter, The Critics,
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  Speaker 1: Part four eighteen fifteen to eighteen eighty one. Arthur Penryn
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  Speaker 1: Stanley wrote his Life of Doctor Arnold in eighteen eighty four.
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  Speaker 1: A son of Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, he was
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  Speaker 1: born at Alderly, in Cheshire. From Rugby, he went to
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  Speaker 1: Balliol College, Oxford, where he had an exceptionally distinguished career.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty one he became a canon of Canterbury,
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  Speaker 1: and his picturesque Memorials of Canterbury were the outcome of
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  Speaker 1: residence in that city. In eighteen sixty three he was
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  Speaker 1: made Dean of Westminster, notwithstanding the opposition of the High
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  Speaker 1: Church Party, to whom the theological views expressed in his
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  Speaker 1: numerous works were distasteful. Of these writings, Sinnai in Palestine,
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  Speaker 1: Lectures on the Eastern Church and Lectures on the Jewish
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  Speaker 1: Church are the best known. As Dean of Westminster, doctor
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  Speaker 1: Stanley became an active leader of the broad Church movement.
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  Speaker 1: Although not a contributor to Essays and Reviews, his services
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  Speaker 1: to the movement were incalculable. He invited Max Muller to
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  Speaker 1: lecture in the abbe, befriended Pierre's Hyacinthe, and gave sympathy
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  Speaker 1: to Bishop Colenso. His speeches in the Lower House of Convocation,
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  Speaker 1: particularly one in which he proposed the suppression of the
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  Speaker 1: Athenasian creed in the services of the Church, made him
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  Speaker 1: many enemies, but few ecclesiastics have been so beloved by
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  Speaker 1: both sovereign and people. One recalls the pleasant, active little man,
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  Speaker 1: so proud of his abbey church, with a deep sigh
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  Speaker 1: that he should be no more. His life was written
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  Speaker 1: by his successor, Dean Bradley eighteen seventeen to eighteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: three eighteen thirteen to eighteen eighty four. Of the contributors
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  Speaker 1: to Essays and Reviews the Manifesto of the broad Church Party,
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  Speaker 1: which appeared in eighteen sixty, Frederick Temple must be mentioned
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  Speaker 1: because this contribution the education of the world led to
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  Speaker 1: a frantic effort to prevent his receiving the Bishopric of Exeter,
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  Speaker 1: an effort which was unsuccessful. In eighteen eighty five, Doctor
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  Speaker 1: Temple was made Bishop of London and in eighteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: six Archbishop of Canterbury. Other distinguished writers in Essays and
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  Speaker 1: Revives views were doctor Jouette and mister Mark Patterson. Benjamin Jouette,
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  Speaker 1: Master of belliol who wrote the Essay on the Interpretation
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  Speaker 1: of Scripture, achieved his greatest successes by his brilliant translations
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  Speaker 1: of Plato, Thusedides, and the politics of Aristotle. His Plato
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  Speaker 1: drew from John Bright, who was little inclined to appreciate
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  Speaker 1: the great thoughts of the Athenian philosopher. An expression of
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  Speaker 1: admiration for the classic English of the Oxford professor. Jowett's
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  Speaker 1: life was written by Evelyn Abbott and Louis Campbell. Mark Patterson,
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  Speaker 1: whose contribution to Essays and Reviews was on the tendencies
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  Speaker 1: of religious thought in England, assisted Newman and Pussy in
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  Speaker 1: the early days of the tractarian movement, but finally went
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  Speaker 1: over to the liberalism which they so much dreaded. In
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  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty one he was elected Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.
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  Speaker 1: Patterson was a profound scholar. Few men have led life
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  Speaker 1: so absorbed in books. The results of his learning are
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  Speaker 1: a parent in his interesting Life of Isaac Ksorbo, which
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  Speaker 1: he had hoped to follow by a Life of Scaliger
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  Speaker 1: eighteen o five to eighteen seventy two. But men like
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  Speaker 1: Sherwett and Patterson had been the armchair representatives of a
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  Speaker 1: movement which found one of its most active supporters in
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  Speaker 1: John Frederick Denison Maurice. Maurice was the son of a
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  Speaker 1: Unitarian minister and was born at norman Stone, near Lovestaft.
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  Speaker 1: For a time he was editor of the Athenaeum, but
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  Speaker 1: joined the Anglican Church in eighteen thirty one and accepted
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  Speaker 1: a curacy near Leamington. The Triatis entitled Subscription No Bondage,
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  Speaker 1: which defined his position in the church, excited much attention,
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  Speaker 1: as did also his tracts on the Kingdom of Christ.
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  Speaker 1: In conjunction with Kingsley and Hughes, he published Bamfort's called
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  Speaker 1: Politics for the People, and organized the Christian Socialist and
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  Speaker 1: Cooperative Movement of eighteen fifty. Like Kingsley, Maurice may be
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  Speaker 1: labeled a broad churchman, not so much on doctrinal grounds
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  Speaker 1: as for the breadth of his sympathies. It was social
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  Speaker 1: rather than theological problems to which he attached importance. Kingsley
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  Speaker 1: indeed described himself to Correspondence as a broad churchman, a
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  Speaker 1: high churchman, and an Evanglican, as the mood seemed to
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  Speaker 1: take him. Bishop Colenso is a good type of the
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  Speaker 1: more militant theologians. John William Colenso first came before the
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  Speaker 1: public as the author of mathematical textbooks. At this time
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  Speaker 1: he was Vicar of fonce Said Saint Mary in Norfolk,
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  Speaker 1: but in eighteen fifty three he was made Bishop of
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  Speaker 1: Natal in South Africa. He was a zealous advocate of
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  Speaker 1: the rights of the natives against the oppression of the
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  Speaker 1: boers and Cape town officials, but in a measure his
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  Speaker 1: influence was weakened by the publication of his work on
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  Speaker 1: biblical criticism, The pentatioch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined,
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  Speaker 1: which was condemned by both houses of Convocation as heretical.
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  Speaker 1: When Colenso came to England in eighteen seventy four, he
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  Speaker 1: was inhibited from preaching in the Diocese of London, Lincoln
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  Speaker 1: and Oxford. At Oxford, however, his sermon was read from
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  Speaker 1: the pulpit of Balliol while the Bishop sat below, and
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  Speaker 1: the same device was pursued at mister Stockford Brooks Church
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  Speaker 1: in London. Jean Stanley invited him to the abbey pulpit,
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  Speaker 1: claiming freedom from the jurisdiction of doctor Jackson, the then
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  Speaker 1: Bishop of London, but colenso declined to increase the ill
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  Speaker 1: feeling which had been excited eighteen thirty eight. Another distinguished
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  Speaker 1: member of the broad Church Party, Edwin Abbott, was head
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  Speaker 1: master of the City of London School from eighteen six
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  Speaker 1: to eighteen eighty nine. He has published several educational works.
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  Speaker 1: His religious influence has developed itself through Philocritus Memoirs of
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  Speaker 1: a Disciple of Our Lord and Onesimus Memoirs of a
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  Speaker 1: Disciple of Saint Paul. Also by a volume of Sermons
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  Speaker 1: through Nature to Christ, which is perhaps the best evidence
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  Speaker 1: of the development of the broad Church movement. Doctor Weightley,
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  Speaker 1: one of its founders, argued for the miracles as indicative
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  Speaker 1: of the divine origin of Christianity. Doctor Abbot esteems the
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  Speaker 1: insistence on miracles as a bar to believe. Perhaps the
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  Speaker 1: purest and most inspiring of all the eloquent teachers belonging
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  Speaker 1: to this party was Frederick William Robertson of Brighton, whose
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  Speaker 1: sermons have been widely read, especially in America, and whose
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  Speaker 1: lectures are as helpful and bracing as any written in
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  Speaker 1: our time. Robertson's remarkable career of only thirty seven years
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  Speaker 1: has been made known to us by the Beautiful Life,
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  Speaker 1: which was written by mister Stopford Brooke eighteen sixteen to
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  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty three. Stopford Augustus Brook eighteen thirty two was
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  Speaker 1: born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College. At first
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  Speaker 1: he was a Church of England clergyman and a Queen's chaplain,
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  Speaker 1: but succeeded in eighteen eighty on account of his inability
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  Speaker 1: to believe in many supernatural phrases of Christian teaching. His
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  Speaker 1: primer of English literature, history of early English poetry, theology
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  Speaker 1: in the English Poets, and Life of Milton have the
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  Speaker 1: ring of the genuine and indeed of the great critic
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  Speaker 1: eighteen eighteen to eighteen seventy one, outside the pale of
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  Speaker 1: the Anglican community, but powerful factors in that same broad
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  Speaker 1: Church movement which has been charged with stretching the old
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  Speaker 1: formula to meet the new facts. One recalls the names
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  Speaker 1: of Lynch and mun Know. Thomas Toaklinch was born in
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  Speaker 1: Dannow in Essex, and held for many years the ministry
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  Speaker 1: of a small congregational church, first in Grafton Street and
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  Speaker 1: afterwards in the Hampstead Roade, London. He died in comparative obscurity,
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  Speaker 1: but the poems in his rivulette, once condemned as heretical,
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  Speaker 1: have found their way into most hymnologies eighteen oh five.
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  Speaker 1: James Martineau was born at Norwich and was originally educated
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  Speaker 1: for the profession of civil engineer, but turned to theological
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  Speaker 1: studies and was for some time the minister of a
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  Speaker 1: Presbyterian church in Dublin. Then, during a residence in Liverpool,
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  Speaker 1: he became a supporter of the philosophy of Bentham and
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  Speaker 1: the elder Mill, but finally abandoned that position for Kantean metaphysics.
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  Speaker 1: Thenceforth he was to be a great power on behalf
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  Speaker 1: of the theistic and Unitarian position, and he turned vigorously
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  Speaker 1: upon the materialistic beliefs which he had abandoned, and was
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  Speaker 1: it maybe added somewhat too harsh to his sister Harriet,
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  Speaker 1: when later in life she adopted them. His endeavor after
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  Speaker 1: the Christian Life and Hours of Thought on Sacred Things
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  Speaker 1: are two of his best known works, though a more
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  Speaker 1: philosophical interest matches to his study of Spinoza and his
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  Speaker 1: types of ethical theory eighteen fifteen to eighteen ninety, eighteen
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  Speaker 1: twenty nine to eighteen ninety, eighteen twenty eight to eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eighty nine, eighteen thirty one, eighteen sixteen to eighteen eighty five.
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  Speaker 1: I have twelve at some length on the work of
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  Speaker 1: the high Church and broad Church parties during the reign,
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  Speaker 1: because with these bodies it has been a period of
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  Speaker 1: great literary achievement, and it can scarcely be claimed that Evangelicanism,
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  Speaker 1: however ernest, zealous and numerically powerful, has added much of
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  Speaker 1: enduring worth to religious little. Richard William Church, dean of
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  Speaker 1: Saint Paul's, who wrote so eloquently on Dante and Saint Anselm,
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  Speaker 1: belonged to the liberal high Church school, as did also
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  Speaker 1: Henry Parry Liddon, a canon of the same cathedral, whose
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  Speaker 1: Bantam lectures on the Divinity of Jesus Christ marked him
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  Speaker 1: out as one of the most eloquent of modern preachers.
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  Speaker 1: One of the greatest scholars in the English Church Joseph
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  Speaker 1: Barber Lightfoot, Bishop of Durham, who applied to the author
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  Speaker 1: of Supernatural Religion, belonged to the same party. Midway between
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  Speaker 1: the broad Church and the evangelical schools we find Frederick
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  Speaker 1: William Farrer, Dean of Canterbury, who, as head master of
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  Speaker 1: Marlborough College, wrote stories of boy life. He succeeded Kingsley
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  Speaker 1: as the Canon of Westminster and excited much attention by
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  Speaker 1: his sermons on the doctrine of eternal punishment. His Lives
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  Speaker 1: of Christ and Saint Paul had widely read. John Charles
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  Speaker 1: Ryle eighteen sixteen, Bishop of Liverpool, has been perhaps the
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  Speaker 1: most famous literary exponent of the evangelical position. Shall we
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  Speaker 1: know one another in Heaven and Bible Inspiration were characteristic
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  Speaker 1: books from his pen. John soul Hausen, Dean of Chester,
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  Speaker 1: who in conjunction with the Reverend W. G. Conybier, wrote
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  Speaker 1: an able work on the life and epistles of Saint Paul,
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  Speaker 1: was also a low churchman. Eighteen thirty four to eighteen
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  Speaker 1: ninety two. The most distinguished nonconformist minister of the Victorian
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  Speaker 1: period and the man whose sermons found most readers, was
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  Speaker 1: Charles Hadden's Persian, with whom eloquence and earnestness were combined
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  Speaker 1: with the possession of a simple English style, which he
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  Speaker 1: derived from a study of the Puritan fathers. In John
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  Speaker 1: Plowman's Talk Si. Eight, Spurgeon put forth much homely wisdom
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  Speaker 1: in a quaint and humorous garb. Eighteen twenty to eighteen
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  Speaker 1: seventy one, eighteen o eight to eighteen ninety two. I
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  Speaker 1: have said well nigh enough concerning speculative writers and theologians,
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  Speaker 1: but it is necessary to mention here Henry longwill Mansell,
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  Speaker 1: who succeeded Milman as Dean of Saint Paul's mancill was
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  Speaker 1: a vigorous defender of the Anglican position. The Limits of
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: religious thought was the title of one of his books, Metaphysics,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: so the Philosophy of Consciousness Phenomenal and Real was another.
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  Speaker 1: But he crossed swords with many disputants, with F. T.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: Maurice and J. S. Mill, And indeed he was ever
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  Speaker 1: a fighter, subtle and skillful. Another theologian, Cardinal Manning, was
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  Speaker 1: a disputant on behalf of Roman Catholicism, having left the
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  Speaker 1: Anglical Church in eighteen fifty one, his many books and
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: sermons are today only of interest to the theological student.
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  Speaker 1: His life was written in eighteen ninety six and caused
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  Speaker 1: much controversy through its succeeding candor and indiscretion eighteen o
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  Speaker 1: eight to eighteen sixty four. Philosophy has had notable students
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  Speaker 1: also in Ferrier cared In Clifford. James Frederick Ferrier, who
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  Speaker 1: was a nephew of Susan Ferrier, the author of Marriage,
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  Speaker 1: was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Saint Andrews. He wrote
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: lectures in Greek Philosophy and other works. Edward Cared eighteen
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  Speaker 1: thirty five is Master of Balliol and he has written
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  Speaker 1: Philosophy of Kant, Essays on Literature and Philosophy, and the
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  Speaker 1: Evolution of Religion eighteen forty five to eighteen seventy nine.
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  Speaker 1: William Kingdom Clifford belonged to the opposite camp. Hugh gained
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  Speaker 1: an early reputation as a mathematician and became Professor of
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  Speaker 1: Applied Mathematics at University College London in eighteen seventy one.
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  Speaker 1: His powerful contributions to the literary side of science were
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: contained in Seeing and Thinking and Lectures and Essays, the
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  Speaker 1: latter volume being edited after his death by his friends
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  Speaker 1: mister Leslie Stephen and Sir Frederick Pollocke eighteen o nine
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  Speaker 1: to eighteen eighty one eighteen o five to eighteen ninety seven.
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  Speaker 1: The three most notable books that we have seen from
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  Speaker 1: the anti theological side, apart from Matthew Arnold's Literature and Dogma,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: are The Creed of Christendom, Phases of Faith and Supernatural Religion,
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: although to these may perhaps be added translations of the
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Lives of Christ, of Strauss and of Renan. The Creed
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of Christendom was the work of William Rathbourne greg who
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: wrote also Enigmas of Life eighteen seven twenty two and
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  Speaker 1: Rocks Ahead eighteen seventy four. Phases of Faith was the
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  Speaker 1: work of Francis William Newman, a younger brother of Cardinal Newman,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: but at the opposite pole of religious conviction. He has
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  Speaker 1: written many books, the most successful being one on the
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  Speaker 1: Soul eighteen forty nine. Another on Theism eighteen fifty eight,
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  Speaker 1: was inspired by the same theistic but non Christian impulse.
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  Speaker 1: Phases of Faith eighteen fifty eight was his most successful work.
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  Speaker 1: The author of Supernatural Religion is Walter Richard Cassel's, who
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  Speaker 1: has also published a reply to Bishop Lightfoot strictures upon
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: his larger work, a work now all but forgotten, which
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: created a considerable sensation at the time of its appearance
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four to eighteen ninety four. The age has been,
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: particularly in its later developments, an age of good critics
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: of literature. Criticism, unhappily rarely lasts much beyond it so decade.
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  Speaker 1: Even mister Matthew Arnold lives now only by his poetry,
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  Speaker 1: and the many good things that he has said about
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: books are being steadily forgotten. Arnold was a great critic,
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: and so also was Walter Peter, whose marriers the Epicurean
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: and Imaginary Portraits should have ranked him with writers of imagination,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: were it not that criticism was his dominant faculty. Peter
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: has been described as the most rhythmical of English prose writers,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: and his Renaissance studies in art and poetry and his
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: appreciations gave him a very high place among the writers
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: of our time. Eighteen thirty nine to eighteen ninety four.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Philip Gilbert Hamerton was another great critic who wrote at
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: least one work of imagination. Marmon is a very pretty
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: story of life in France, with every aspect of French life.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Mister Hamerton was well acquainted, as he lived in that
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: country for very many years. He wrote regularly upon art
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: topics and edited an art magazine, The Portfolio. But it
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: is by his volume of essays entitled The Intellectual Life,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: that he will be most kindly remembered for many a
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: year to come eighteen forty nine, eighteen forty three, eighteen
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  Speaker 1: eleven to eighteen ninety, eighteen twenty four to eighteen eighty nine.
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  Speaker 1: Certain writers whom I must mention are entitled to a
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  Speaker 1: place both as critics and as poets. Mister W. E. Henley,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Mister F. W. H. Myers, William bell Scott, and William Anglingham.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: For example, William Ernest Henley has written plays in conjunction
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: with Arl Stevenson, and his Book of Verses and Song
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: of the Sword entitled him to very high rank among
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: the poets of the day. But he's also a critic
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: of exceptional vigor and force, And since Matthew Arnold there
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: has been no volume of criticism so full of discrimination
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: and sound judgment as views and reviews. Ill health has
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: compelled mister Henley to waste much of his undoubted talent.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: He's at present editing fine library editions of Burns and
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Byron Frederick. William Henry Myers wrote Saint Paul, a poem
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of considerable reputation, but his critical essays are more widely known.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: They were published in two volumes, Classical and Modern, and
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: are full of delightful ideas and delightfully expressed. His biography
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: of Wordsworth is a daintily fanciful memoir abounding in good criticism.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Mister Meyers's brother Ernest is also a poet, and so
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: also was mister well Scott. He was, it is true,
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: a poet of narrow range, but a critic of great
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: energy and industry. Bell Scott became best known by his autobiography,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: published after his death. In it he discussed Rosetti and
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: the pre Raphaelite movement with sufficient frankness. William Allingham wrote
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: many points and ballots, full of the Celtic spirit and
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: of Ireland, which he loved as the land of his birth.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Allingham was for a time editor of Fraser's magazine, and
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: he contributed regularly to the chief literary periodicals of his day.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Literary critics of importance today are Edward Dowden, Richard Garnett,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: John Sainsbury, Edmund Goss, Leslie Stephen and Andrew Lank, all
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: of whom are happily living in writing. Richard Garnett, better
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: known to the world today as Doctor Garnett, has also
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: written on Shelley, not merely with sympathy but with partisanship.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Doctor Garnett, who was honorably associated with the British Museum Library,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: is a most acute critic, a biographer of Carlyle and Emerson,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: a translator from the Greek and German, and, like Professor Dowden,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: a poet eighteen forty five. George Sainsbury, who is Professor
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: of English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, has been
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: an industrious critic for many years, and his knowledge of
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: French literature in particular is profound. His acquaintance with English
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: literature in the seventeenth century has, however, considerably vitiated his style.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: It is not easy to tolerate the phraseology of the
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: seventeenth century in modern books. This defect of style is
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  Speaker 1: regrettably noticeable in two volumes of literary history which Professor
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Saintsbury has published, one dealing with the seventeenth and the
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: other with the nineteenth century. It is in certain brief
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: biographies of Sir Walter Scott and others that Professor Saintsbury
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: is most excellent. But his wide knowledge and his genius
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: grasp of the most salient characteristics of good literature are
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: indisputable qualities which rank him high among the bookmen of
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: his day. Eighteen forty nine. Edmund Gass is not less
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: distinguished than the writers I have named. He would be
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: widely known as a writer of charming verse were he
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: not actively engaged in literary criticism. The son of a
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: famous naturalist, mister Goss is the author of many admirably
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: written books about the literature of the past and the present.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: What Carlile so largely did for German literature by introducing
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: it to English readers, mister Goss has done for Scandinavian literature.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: In conjunction with mister William Archer, a dramatic critic of
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: singular insight, he has translated Ibsen, whose influence has been
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: as marked during the past ten years as the influence
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: of German writers was marked during the previous thirty. Mister
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Goss's best biography is his life of Gray eighteen thirty two.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: A critic of remarkably learning is Leslie Stephen, whose Hours
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: in a Library and History of English Thought in the
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: eighteenth century are books which have profoundly impressed the age.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Mister Leslie Stephen has written a large number of biographies,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: all of them characterized by singular accuracy, by remarkable graces
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: of style, and by genuine insight. He was the first
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: editor of the Dictionary of Natural Biography, a work which
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: has proved invaluable to students of our later literature eighteen
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: forty four. Andrew Lang is the last of the critics
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I have named, and not the least active. He has
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: shown in many branches of literary work. His ballads and
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: lyrics of Old France, Ballads in Blue China, and numerous
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: other verses have gained him considerable reputation. As a poet.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: His translations of Homer and Theocritus are by many counted
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: the finest translations that our literature has seen. Some have
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: contended that his musical prose rendering of the Odyssey is
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: incomparably superior to all the efforts of Pope of Copper
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and of the many other poets who have attempted to
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: render Homer in verse. Mister Lang is an authority on folklore.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: He has joined issue with Professor Max Miller on many
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: points which are of keen interest to those who are
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: attracted towards the science of language and the study of
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: comparative religion. As a writer of fairy tales and as
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the editor of books on fairy stories, mister Lang has
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: endeared himself to thousands belonging to the younger generation. But
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: all this is but dimly and inefficiently to appraise mister
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Lang's marvelous versatility. He has written fiction, history and above
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: all biography. His biographical work including a Life of Sir
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: Stafford Northcote and a Life of John Gibson Lockhart, Scott's
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: son in law seventeen ninety four to eighteen fifty four,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: eighteen twenty two, eighteen twelve to eighteen seventy six. Biography
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: has generally been written by literary critics, and one requires
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: no apology in any case for ranking the biographers among
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: the critics. John Gibson Lockhart himself was a notable example.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: He was editor of the Quarterly Review and an industrious
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: writer for many years. He is best known to us
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: by his Life of Sir Walter Scott, which was published.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: It is worthy of note in eighteen thirty seven, the
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: year of the Queen's accession. Lockhart's Scott is beyond question
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the most important biography of the reign. The longest is
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: that of Milton by Professor Mason. David Mason has held
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a Chair of Literature and University College London and later
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: at Edinburgh. Few men know English literature better than he.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: His name will always be associated with his monumental Life
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: of Milton, a solid, accurate, exhaustive book, but he has
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: written pleasantly on British novelists and their styles and Drummond
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: of Hawthornden, besides sundry other books. Many of our poets
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: have had capable biographers. Professor Knight of Saint Andrew has
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: devoted himself for many years to Wordsworth and has written
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: his biography besides editing his collected works. The late James
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: Dyke Scambo eighteen fifty five to eighteen ninety four wrote
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: a biography of Coleridge distinguished by remarkable tarrannus. Professor W. J.
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: Gowthorpe has proved himself Pope's best biographer and editor and
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: is giving us a good history of English poetry, which
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: at present reaches only to the Reformation. Mister Curtain Collins,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: one of the most thorough of our critics, has written
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: on Swift, as has also Sir Henry Craig, and Swift's
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: life in Ireland has been gracefully sketched by mister Richard
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: ash King, novelist whose loved The Debt and the Wearing
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: of the Green have commanded a large audience. Swift has
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: been a favorite subject with the biographers. A life of
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: him was the task upon which John Forrester was engaged
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: at the time of his Debt. Forster was an untiring biographer,
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: and as benefited literature as well by his death as
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: by his life, in that he bequeathed his fine library
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: of books and manuscripts to the nation. Eighteen twenty two
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: eighteen twelve to eighteen seventy six, John Forster wrote a
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: life of Walter Savage landor another of Goldsmith, and another
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of Charles Dickens, against which it was urged that he
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: had introduced too much of his own personality. Perhaps Forster's
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: best work was his Life of Sir John Elliot, an
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: expansion of a biography of that patriot, which he had
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: contributed to his statesman of the Commonwealth. End of the Critics,
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Part four