New-York tribune., 1901-07-20

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
MORE LITERARY TWADDLE.
A FArUOUs ENGLISH ORACLE AND III
AMERICAN FOLLOWERS

AMERICAN FOLLOWERS
To the Editor of The Tribune
Sir; You did well to put into the piory the other
day the "litry gent with his pompous asninity
ABOUT the late Sir Walter Besant and THE Golden
Butterfly" But he was fear onIv one of q
numerous tribe whose weird twaddle put forth
with an owlish air of authority is too often per-
mittedst to pass unchallenged into popular accent
ance. Here. for example. is another specimen 1t
Is an article in a London publication which poses
as a sort of universal authority, and 1t has been
widely copied, without protest and indeed with
tacit approval, by many papers in this country
which are supposed to be conducted by men of at
least ordinary intelligence. 1t is devoted to a re-
view of the roll of those who, because of the writ
Ing of "a single line poem volume. are forever
ranked with the immortals' That there have been
some such is not to be denied But 1t so happens
that scarcely one mentioned In this article is thus
to be described.
Congreve. for example. is named. as being remem-
bered chiefly by the line Music hath charms
to soothe the savage breast" There are other
lines of his far familiar the general public
and far more often auoted-e. g.. Married in
haste, We may repent at leisure" and NOR hell q
fury like woman scorned''-while to intimate that
any one who IS at all We'll read is unfamiliar with
the works of one of the most noted of English
dramatists Is simply absurd
Charles Wolfe is said to be redeemed from OBJ
Ecurity by only single poem. Doubtless that one
is his best known. Yet there have not been MANY
songs more widely known than his Go forget
MS biography of Scott he and all his writings
would 'be forgotten by all but the student" Per-
maps, II by the student mean the millions of
schoolooys who have read and declaimed the
Spanish Ballads than which there are not many
more familiar poems in English literature.
Aiming at still bigger game, this arbiter of fame
tells us that Gray has left legacy only from
all his writings'-to wit, the ''Elegy'-and those
who can recite every word of 1t could probably not
give the name of a single other poem by the same
writer. Are. then, THE Progress of Poesy' THE
Bard and the "Ode Distant Prospect of Eton
| College unknown TO the general reading world?
| Has no one ever heard such familiar quotations
as Youth on the prov. and pleasure at the helm -
! or Beneath the good how far-but far above the
/ great?" Surely the writer | am quoting
| should have heard the apt lines
| g.. -. Where ignorance Is bliss
'Tfs folly to be wise
! Goldsmith. too. is declared to live Immortality In
his Vicar of Wakefield" and practically in moth.
| Ing else. That. of the author of she Stoops tc
! Conquer The Deserted Village" The Good
: Natured Man and half dozen other works. pas
sages from which have become household words
the world around, and part of the intellectual
! equipment of every mind that knows a book from
| q brickbat,
; The worst of II is not that one man should be sc
! bumptiously asinne : write the stuff | have
! quoted. but that dozens of editors-practisng the
! fad OF the hour for furnishing reviews and lit.
/ ersry news by the yard. a supposed means
| for gaining circulation and publishers advertise
! mepts-should accept 1t and reprint 1t as
; true and instructive and that uncounted myri
\ ads OF readers should let such an insult tC
! common intelligence pass without a wOrd Of
| protest Really. II such things can be, we arr
said 10 have left say. in Macbeth "one solitary
: legacy which redeems him and all his works from
! obscurity.' IGNOTUS
| NewYork. July is. 1901