which we need not characterize. Last of all comes William Morris, with his antique and objective spirit, as a healthful and needed counterpoise to the excessively subjective tendencies of the same recent school.

In religious poetry English literature is rich. Milton, George Herbert, Watts, Doddridge, the Wesleys, Keble, and Faber are examples of its different types. In poetic translators from the ancient bards we have of Homer, Chapman, Pope, Cowper, Lord Derby, Sotheby, Newman, Bryant and others; of Virgil, Dryden, and Conington; of Horace, Lytton Bulwer and Conington; of Dante, Cary and Longfellow; of Tasso, Fairfax; and of various works of the modern German, Coleridge, Scott, Lytton Bulwer, and others.

But it is time we had ended. The golden roll of English poetry is embarrassing from its wealth and tempting suggestions.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CRITICISM AND HISTORY OF LITERATURE.

WITHIN the present century, there has come into being a new description of Books and Reading, viz.: those which are devoted to the criticism and history of literature itself. Our libraries and book-shops are furnished with many books which consist of criticisms of other books. Not only is there a countless number of essays devoted to the criticism and interpretation of single authors and even of single works, but entire volumes are occupied with commentaries on great authors or some one of their writings. We have more than one series of essays, and even whole libraries, occupied solely with critiques upon single writers, as Homer, Goethe, and Shakspeare. Active controversies have arisen between the partisans of opposing theories. Indeed, critiques and counter critiques are so abundant, that it almost seems as though this was the age of nothing but criticism, and literature were nothing if not critical. It is certain there now exists a special department of literature which is employed in the interpretation and judgment of literature itself, and that it has enlisted the services of many of the ablest writers of their time, some of whom have not only been distinguished as critics of the productions of men of surpassing genius, but have themselves been known as foremost writers of their own generation. We need name only Goethe, the Schlegels, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Madé. de Stael, St. Beuve, Professor John Wilson, and Matthew Arnold. Criticism itself has become a department of literature, and is justified in its claims by

being also historical, philosophical, and almost creative of itself.

This new criticism, in the eminent sense of the phrase, may be said to be of German origin, though it has attained a vigorous growth on English soil. That it should first have taken form in Germany was natural. It is the natural outgrowth of extensive reading, joined with an appreciative imagination and reflective sagacity. It must necessarily have been somewhat late in its development. As men must act poems before they write them,—as one or many must act the hero, before others can recount their exploits or celebrate their praises, so literature must be created before it can be criticised. There must be brought into being a considerable number of productions, in the forms of poetry, fiction, the drama, history, biography, and eloquence, before the materials are prepared with which the critic can begin. When we assert that the species of criticism which we have in mind is comparatively of recent origin, we do not say that criticism of every kind is recent in its growth, nor indeed that before the present century there were no profound and genial critics, who took historic and philosophical estimates of the great writers who had gone before them, but only that criticism as it now exists. has come into organized being, with distinctly recognised functions and fixed principles and laws for its direction. Dryden and Johnson were both penetrating, and to a certain degree large-minded critics, but neither Dryden nor Johnson rose above very narrow traditions, or personal prejudices. We speak of the old and the new generally when we say, that formerly, criticism confined itself almost exclusively to the forms of literature, as the choice of words, the rhythm of verse, the proportion of parts, the order of development, the effectiveness of the introduction the argument and the peroration, and these, with the illustration and explanation of the meaning of a work or a writer, con

stituted its principal aims. Now, while it does not neglect the form, it thinks more of the matter, i. e. the weightiness and truth of the thoughts, the energy and nobleness of the sentiments, the splendor and power of the imagery, and the heroic manhood or the refined womanhood of the writer as expressed in his or her works. Formerly it judged of the form by the fashion of the day in respect of style and diction, and pronounced everything barbarous which was not after the newest type, very much as the dress or hat which are most becoming in themselves are declared to be dowdy and frightful, if worn a year or a season too early or too late. Now the form is regarded as that which in some respects must be transient and changeable, according to the shaping power of the matter itself, the temper of the writer, and the temper of the times in which he lived and in which he wrote. Formerly the critic was regarded by others and too often regarded himself as the natural enemy of the author. Now it is exacted of him that he should be the expounder of the author's thoughts and the sharer of his feelings; that he should almost see with his eyes, hear with his ears, and judge with his mind. But this estimate of the characteristic features of the new criticism is general and superficial. A closer and more careful examination, gives the following results:

First: the new criticism starts with a more enlarged and profound conception of literature itself. The word literature, etymologically considered, is necessarily somewhat loose and general in its import, signifying whatever is committed to a permanent form by writing. When this import is somewhat narrowed, it signifies whatever survives a merely ephemeral existence, and attracts the notice of a second generation. In this sense, any book or tract would come under this designation, if it be worth retaining in a library, or if it happens to be so preserved. With the older critics, literature included only those works which

were eminent and attractive from perfection in style, beauty and fitness of imagery, or elevation of sentiment; those being preeminent which combined all these excellencies in one. By a practice that was almost universal, the word was restricted to those works whose prime object was to address the imagination or to please the taste. Under this usage literature was confined to poetry, fiction, and the drama, also to various lighter effusions, but they all must have the common characteristic of being designed to amuse rather than instruct, to gratify some æsthetic interest rather than to convince or to arouse to action. If a work had any higher end than these, it was by general consent excluded from literature and deemed unworthy of the notice of the critic, as it was exempt from his censure. The poetry of Milton was literature, but his Areopagitica with its magnificent prose, and his Defensio Populi Anglicani with its splendid invective were not, because they were political tracts. The poems of Donne and Cowley were literature, but the sermons of Jeremy Taylor though luxuriant with the wealth of an oriental imagination, were not literature, because they were composed with an earnest Christian purpose. A work profound in thought, if it was designed to convince of truth; impassioned in eloquence, if it was written to persuade; bright with humor, if it was intended for practical effect; was excluded from the roll of the literature of the period, as too severe and earnest, however finished it might be in style, rich in imagery, or elevated in sentiment. A conception of literature so narrow must, of necessity, be belittling and trivial to author and critic. It could not but make the writer trifling and heartless, and his censor fastidious and flippant.

Now-a-days literature is restricted within no such narrow limits, and, as the result, both literature and criticism have been elevated. While it is required that every work