New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1895-08-18

&c diminished in a democracy" he thinks 1T is
because together with such minds, thousand
others are contributing to the total result"
The fashionable science OF the present day
r,akes even genius n matter Of heredity and en-
,ironment This seems to Professor Dowden
merely an idle way OF speaking. He insists that
therc Is as vet no method Of predicting the ad-
vent Of genius. and his insstence Is In form
freouent enough in his book but not 80 common
With the run of present day critics. He has a
liking for Biblical ausion. and so In this case he
speaks Of the coming Of genius as something OF
which I'VE can still say no more than that the
wind bloweth where II listeth." However. he
does not neglect environment He betrays
minute interest In the conditions, social, political
and literary, in which Coeridge matured as
poet No critic of the scientific school could be
more curious on these matters. The contrast Is
marked between his essay and that OF StopfoTd
Brooke who In his introduction to his Golden
Book Of Coerdgc." rather avoids all these
things Yet the two critics seem to be In agree
ment as to the depth Of Colerdges humanity
and his want of individuality 1t was not hu-
manity nor indeed anything in the concrete that
he sought. but humanity In the abstract.
For the professed scientist in fiction ,Drofes-
sor Dowden displays something like contempt.
He looks at NJ. lola, the self-styled champion OF
the Experimental Romance. and describes him
sententiously as a "charlatan Juggling with
words" To a student Of Goethe-who II he
had not been the greatest poet Of his time might
easily have been its foremost naturalist-it must
be difficult to bear with the quackery shown In
NJ Zola's essays his own art as novelist
But in his elaborate studies OF Goethe. Profes-
sor Dowden yields more than he ought to the
psychological theories of the present day. Goethe
was himself at fault. He did more than any
other man to inoculate humanity with that ex-
cess of introspection which is disease when
he declared that everything he had written was
In sense photographed Surely that was
an afterthought. and far from a lucky one. II
has indeed led TO microscopic investigation.
But II II has made Faust any better reading
than II was without this explanation one would
Ike to know where the Improvement lies. III
Is pleasant at times to conjecture that Shake
speare has written himself into his plays-Pro-
fessor Dowden maintains this to be true-but on
the whole there is reason to be glad that con-
lecture on the subject can so rarely be certified
by biographical facts. Professor Dowden goes too
far. nav he goes wrong. when he seems to APP
ply to Shakespeare the very words or Goethe
"All my writings are fragments of great con-
fesson" 1t is impossible to believe tfat man
who could have told everything about himself
and who rever told anything in a recognizable
FORM imagined that he was revealing himself
in his writings.
But this is not serious matter. III PROFESSOR
Dowden Yields more than he should to the cur
rent Of his time, he has nevertheless shown his
opposition to it, not only in expressed opinions,
but In the sobriety of his critical method. To
have written so much and so well on Goethe, to
have advocated methodcaI study Of Shake
speare with so little efervescence OF fancy. are
not things that the most recent hysterical criti-
cism takes 10 kindly But a better indication Of
a welcome react.onary turn Is the choice Of such
themes as the poetry Of George Meredith or Of
John Dome or the prose OF Edmond Scherer.
These are surely "cavare to the general"