work, the divergence of opinion is more often attributable to this cause than to a difference in their respective points of view. Haste, vanity, theoretical prejudices, personal likes and dislikes, intervene and disturb the contemplative attitude. In other words, the mind insists y upon thinking and willing when it ought to be all concentrated in seeing. This mental struggle, which the critic himself experiences when bent to his task, should predispose him to sympathise with the poet whose work z he is judging. For it is the exact parallel of that which, taking place in the poet's mind, results in the production of his poem, that poem's failure or success depending upon its issue. If the critic be a true captain of his soul, the te struggle always ends in the victory of imagination. The imagination is, so to speak, given its chance and catches that which it is seeking—a living impression of the whole, without which no amount of subsequent reflexion will enable the critic to decide with assurance upon the causes of the beauty or relative ugliness of the expression; for he will not have made it his own.

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He requires the further gift of acuteness in analysing the reasons of the poet's success or failure. For it is not enough to say 'this poem has succeeded' or 'it has failed'; he must know why, he must understand. understand a poet critically, says Croce in one of his brilliant articles on Carducci, is

'to understand the dialectic of his mind, the practical and emotional forces no less than the contemplative and poeticall forces which are struggling within him. To criticise him is to show how, as a result of the struggle between these forces, his poetry is at one time advanced, at another impeded. For the non-poetical elements of his mind sometimes nourish of their own accord the poetical elements, and sometimes consume and are nourished by them.'

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Too often, he adds, instead of fixing attention upon this complex yet single process, particular aspects of it are gathered haphazard by the critic and then confusedly presented; the obstructions in the way of poetry or its crude material being substituted for the poetry itself, and, conversely, its very heart's blood described as that which impedes it and causes it to fail.

The final stage of criticism consists in the synthetic

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process by which the critic puts together in his exposition or critical estimate his view of how it happened,' the result of his analysis of the poet's mental activity immanent in the poem or rather' identical with the poem. The critic is here making a judgment of fact, and, if he commits his criticism to words, is writing History. For History, as conceived by Croce, is not a dead past, but a present reality. All poetry, however long ago its author lived, is contemporary poetry, for it is non-existent or at the best a mere unintelligible hieroglyph, until it is re-created in the reader's mind, who, as already pointed out, thereby makes it quite literally his own. It is of the essence of criticism, as of poetry, to be lyrical-in other words, an intimately personal or subjective expression. To aim at what is commonly called objectivity in criticism is, according to Croce, to aim at the impossible.

The reason is thus plain why Croce lays so much stress on the enormous importance to the critic of possessing historical learning. For without it he runs the risk of using the poem he is criticising as a means, not to re-creating or reproducing the original expression created by the poet, but to producing upon it a new one of his own. It is, however, difficult to see how, on Croce's theory-the theory that the physical work of art has no artistic reality-the critic, whatever his erudition as an historian, can be certain that he is not in any case doing this. Croce does indeed take this objection, which if admitted would be fatal to his whole argument, into consideration; but stoutly denies that changes in physical and psychological conditions are, as a matter of fact, insurmountable. He claims that we are constantly surmounting them; otherwise, he says, individual life, which is communion with our past selves and with our fellows, would be impossible. Nevertheless, he might well be challenged to point out any piece of actually existing criticism of a classic, even if based on the most exact historical knowledge, which in some degree is not, or could not be shown to be, what he compares to a palimpsest, a new expression imposed on the antique. It is, therefore, perhaps not without significance that Croce's own critical powers have been chiefly exercised upon quite modern poets. For obviously, if historical culture is a necessary condition of sound criticism

(because the more we know about the circumstances in which a poem was actually written the better able are we to adopt the poet's point of view), then we are forced to accept the paradox that the verdict of contemporary men of taste must in the nature of the case be always preferred to that of posterity, when the beauty of any 'historic' poem is the subject of dispute.

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But to criticise Croce's method of criticism is to criticise his theory of art. The two are rigidly welded together and, as already said, must stand or fall together. Yet it is probably true to say that one's estimate of Croce as an æsthetician will closely depend upon whether one has first approached him from the side of his philosophy or from that of his literary criticism. For the former seems rather to have arisen out of the latter than vice versa; and he is such a born critic that the strength and efficacy of his critical method are far more apparent in the pages of 'La Critica,' where he is putting his principles into practice, than in the Estetica' where he formulates them philosophically.

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As a theory, his Esthetic seems lean, not to say deliberately starved; but to see it applied, or at any rate applied by Croce himself, is to realise that lack of flesh need not necessarily imply absence of muscle. His method, whatever its defects, is an unrivalled instrument for detecting pose and sentimentality, the two most heinous of artistic sins; he brings them unerringly to light, however ingeniously the poet may have managed t to conceal their presence in his work. It matters not to Croce whether a poem is full of wisdom, its vowel sounds charged with music, its metre impeccable, its rhythms bewitching to the sense; it may possess all these qualities and yet be an ugly thing if it is not artistically h sincere, that is, imaginatively pure. Did the poet really see a vision or did he only urge himself to see one because the occasion seemed to demand it? Was he content to wait upon his imagination, or did he suffer his imagination to become wholly or in part the slave of the material it should control? What was the true state of the poet's mind when he wrote his poem? How has that state of mind been developed in the various parts of the poem ? Is the poem in harmony or out of harmony with it? Does the poem express it

well or ill? These are the sort of questions which Croce seeks to answer and generally succeeds in answering Or in a way which brings conviction to his readers, and ON with a superb mastery of all the weapons of his critical armoury that arouses their enthusiastic admiration. Moreover, those very personal qualities-his downrightness and occasionally arrogant tone, his sarcasms and delight (as he himself confesses) in Bioneis sermonibus et sale nigro'-which would perhaps be better suppressed et in a philosophical treatise, add a force, vivacity, and sparkle to his literary criticism which are extraordinarily stimulating.

It is a question, therefore, whether his disciples in this country would not have better promoted their master's influence by giving to the English public specimens of his quality as a literary critic before they introduced the philosopher. It would be better still if some of them would themselves illustrate his method by applying it to the criticism of English poetry. He himself has recently shown them the way in his study of Shakespeare. Yet it must be admitted that it is a method which, though simple in itself and seemingly easy to handle, yet requires for its successful employment a combination of qualities not often found united in the professional critic, Croce has identified criticism with art not only in theory but also in practice, for he is himself an artist of the first rank. Hence, like the work of all great artists, his criticism may be more easily admired than imitated. He has made us free of all the secrets of his studio, has put his brush into our hands and shown us how to apply it to the canvas; yet he cannot transfer to us his skill. To attain to that we should need in the first place his intellect, and secondly his learning; and even so we could not be critics after the Crocean manner unless endowed with a highly-trained re-creative imagination.

GEOFFREY L. BICKERSTETH.

Art. 5.-IMPERIAL UNITY AND THE PEACE TREATY. MORE than once a great Empire has passed through a crisis at Versailles. In 1871 Bismarck celebrated the German victory over France by crowning the King of Prussia German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors. This brought into being the Federal German Empire. In 1919 the Peace Treaty which consummated the Allied victory over Germany embodied far-reaching changes in the relation of the constituent members of the British Empire. In 1871 Bismarck used the immense authority developed through his successful conduct of the war and imposed on the German people a mighty instrument of Government. The changes of 1919 have a centrifugal tendency; and, if the British Empire is to remain powerful, it will be due to the integrating influence of freedom. There is a curious contrast between the different uses to which victory has been put. The German method has been justly discredited. But it is only right to say that the war has not developed any overwhelming case for a change in Imperial relations.

The British Empire came through the war thoroughly tested but unscathed. A remarkable feature of British war effort was the high degree of co-operation which existed between the various autonomous units which formed the Commonwealth. Successful co-operation between autonomous States is a great test of enlightened policy. The recalcitrant States of America during the War of Independence showed a very different spirit. Their impracticability and mutual distrust nearly broke the heart of Washington. But, when the war broke out in 1914, the Dominions, without hesitation, put their naval and military forces under the control of the British authorities, and thus secured the unity of command necessary to success. The Imperial War Cabinet did useful work, and served a most important end by bringing the Dominions into touch with the real situation, while a vast organisation mobilised the economic resources of the whole Empire. The association and co-operation which took place involved no diminution of the freedom and prestige of the Dominions. Their actions constituted an enlightened exercise of their responsibility as autonomous States mutually interested in the victorious issue