Part 6

“_Bitter cold._ Here bitter is used adverbially to qualify the adjective ‘cold.’ So we have ‘daring hardy’ in _Richard II._ i. 3. 43. When the combination is likely to be misunderstood, modern editors generally put a hyphen between the two words. _Sick at heart._ So _Macbeth_ v. 3. 19, ‘I am sick at heart.’ We have also in _Love’s Labour’s Lost_ ii. 1. 185, ‘sick at the heart,’ and _Romeo and Juliet_ iii. 3. 72, ‘heart-sick groans.’”

Now let us see how the poor student fares when real difficulties occur. Every reader of Shakespeare is familiar with the corrupt passage, Act iv. sc. 1:--

“The dram of eale Doth all the noble substance of worth out To his own scandal--

a passage which, as all Shakespearian scholars know, has been satisfactorily emended and explained. We turn to the notes for guidance, and find ourselves treated as poor Mrs. Quickly was treated by Falstaff, “fubbed off”--thus:--

“We leave this hopelessly corrupt passage as it stands in the two earliest quartos. The others read ‘ease’ for ‘eale,’ and modern writers have conjectured for the same word base, ill, bale, ale, evil, ail, vile, lead. For ‘of a doubt’ it has been proposed to substitute ‘of worth out,’ ‘soul with doubt,’ ‘oft adopt,’ ‘oft work out,’ ‘of good out,’ ‘of worth dout,’ ‘often dout,’ ‘often doubt,’ ‘oft adoubt,’ ‘oft delase,’ ‘over-cloud,’ ‘of a pound,’ and others.”

This, it may be added, is the sort of stuff--_incredibile dictu_--that our children have to get by heart; for this Press, be it remembered, practically controls half the English Literature examinations in England. As students know quite well that nine examiners out of ten will set their questions from “the Clarendon Press notes,” it is with “the Clarendon Press notes” that they are obliged to cram themselves. But to continue. Even a well-read man might be excused for not knowing the exact meaning of the following expression:--

“They clepe us drunkards, and with _swinish phrase Soil our addition_.”

He turns to the notes, and having been briefly informed that _clepe_ means “call,” and _addition_ “title,” is left to flounder with what he can get out of--“Could Shakespeare have had in his mind any pun upon ‘Sweyn,’ which was a common name of the kings of Denmark?”

Another leading characteristic of the _genus_ philologist, we mean the preposterous importance attached by them to the smallest trifles, finds ludicrous illustration in the following note:--

“My father, in his habit, as he lived!”

exclaims Hamlet to his mother. This is the signal for:--

“There is supposed to be a difficulty in these words, because in the earlier scenes the Ghost is in his armour, to which the word ‘habit’ is regarded as inappropriate. In the earlier form of the play, as it appears in the quarto of 1603, the Ghost enters ‘in his nightgowne,’ and as the words ‘in the habit as he lived’ occur in the corresponding passage of that edition, it is probable that on this occasion the Ghost appeared in the ordinary dress of the king, although this is not indicated in the stage directions of the other quartos or of the folios.”

As a possible solution of this grave difficulty, we would suggest that, as the Ghost was undoubtedly in a very hot place, he might have found his nightgown less oppressive than his armour, and though it would certainly have been more decorous to have exchanged his nightgown for his uniform on revisiting the earth, yet, as the visit was to his wife, he thought perhaps less seriously about his apparel than our editors have done. We have nothing to warrant us in assuming that he was in his “ordinary dress.” The choice must lie between the nightgown and the armour. But a truce to jesting.

If any one would understand the opacity and callousness which philological study induces, we would refer them to the note on Hamlet’s last sublime words, “The rest is silence”:--

“The quartos have ‘Which have solicited, the rest is silence.’ The folios, ‘Which have solicited. The rest is silence.’ ‘O, O, O, O. _Dyes._’ If Hamlet’s speech is interrupted by his death it would be more natural that the words ‘The rest is silence’ should be spoken by Horatio.”

We said at the beginning of this article that there was not a word of commentary on the poetical merits of the play. We beg the editors’ pardon. They have in one note, and in one note only, ventured on an expression of critical opinion. We all know the lines--

“There is a willow grows aslant a brook That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream,”

etc., etc. We transcribe the note on this passage that it may be a sign to all men of what Philology is able to effect, an omen and testimony of what must inevitably be the fate of Literature if the direction and regulation of its study be entrusted to philologists:--

“This speech of the Queen is certainly unworthy of its author and of the occasion. The enumeration of plants is quite as unsuitable to so tragical a scene as the description of Dover cliff in _King Lear_ iv. 6. 11-24. Besides there was no one by to witness the death of Ophelia, else she would have been rescued.”

As this beggars commentary, transcription shall suffice.

Now we would ask any sensible person who has followed us, we do not say in our own remarks--for they may be supposed to be the expression of biassed opinion--but in the specimens we have given of such an edition as this of _Hamlet_, and of such an edition as we have just reviewed of _Adonais_, what is likely to be the fate of English Literature, as a subject of teaching, so long as our Universities ignore their responsibilities as the centres of culture by not only countenancing, but assisting in the production and dissemination of such publications as these? How can we expect anything but anarchy wherever the subject is treated?--there an extreme of flaccid dilettantism, here an extreme of philological pedantry. Conceive the tone and temper which, especially at the impressionable age of the students for whom the book is intended, the study of Shakespeare, under such guides as the editors of this _Hamlet_, would be likely to induce. Is it not monstrous that young students between the ages of about fifteen and eighteen should have such text books as these inflicted on them?

The radical fault of those who regulate education in our Universities 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!