The times., 1901-03-10
lcpyrig 100 oy Tho Sun Priutng Pu6bg Aocatonl
L~rNE and space" noble phi
BY ANDREW LANG.

o7,rs NAV be merely a 'so-cailed Ihl'e-
% ,osrt,,ry'' Certain it is that to
iudge literature in blocks Of cenlul 'e9
l. 70 make a convenient but uioglcal
gross-7iyision. The early and perhaps
the most important literary influences
Of the century were in existence loHE
before 1901 Thus if We look at "Ha'-
ever is now called fin de steele, al NloIelI
autagouism to tradition and conNeh-oN
at discomfort Of every sort with every
+biur-vfth rank. wealth. morality. law
,--,,-isga the familv-we find that this
passion was as noisy and sclf-complacenl
"A hundred years ago as it is today Inc
French Revolution was the lurld play
arof,nd OF New Women" full Of what
they .suuposed to be new ideas The Ger
man drama of 17S0-1S20, now best remeIn-
bered by the parody called The RoNeis'
in the anti-Jacobiu, was replete with the
humorless paradoXes and strained sltua-
tions of Ibsen The shortest way TO an
understanding Of the antiquity oil our
new ideas Is, in fact study OF lhe
poetry Of the anu-Jacohin.
Romance. again. as far as romance de-
pends for her effects on desperate oeeus'
on the rhetoric Of noble brlgands, on the
phantasms of the sheeted dead shFer-
inc down dark passages among skeletons
sells. was as much alive in the end OF the
last century as at any age OF literary
history Goethe. Schiller, Burger, Mrs
Radcliffe. all following in the Gothic wake
of honest Horace Walpole and his Castle
of Ctranto." were preparing the ground
for Scott and Dumas. Once more the old
popular elements SO necessary to htera-
ture (Which like Antaeus regalns Vlgor
on touching mother esrth) had been who's
" absent from the poetry and prose of the
last reigning Stuart and Of the first two
Hanoverian Kings of England. But,
about I770-17S0 literature had returned 10
its archaic popular sources surviyals IN
present tradition. Percy had made volks-
HeGer fashionable Ferguson and Burns
had revived the rustic muse Of Scotland,
and Macpherson had given mankind a
draught. though an adulterated draught.
from rhe cup Of the sorceries Of the Gel
tic enchautress. In opposition to the ur-
ban self-restraint and contented compla-
cency Of the Augustan age Rousseau had
preached the pleasures Of virtue senu-
ueut and Of a blessed state Of nature;
Young Werther had gotten him stool
10 be sad upon, like Master Stephen;
weeping was the mode. Rousseau, as Mr..
Pater once observed in conversation, was
the grandmother Of US all, and as tear
ful as Mrs Gummidge in David Copper
field" Meanwhile the emancipation born
Of science had set in; people thought they
knew all about everything; the elder Dar-
win could explain the universe without
God. quite as easily as any modern Oar
winian. If not so elaborately. He may not
have been always correct in his theories
and facts. stiI, there they were and they
were "emancipating" Yet, far from be
ing laughed out Of court by the crafty
ing progress Of science, a more mystical
religion and a life more austere had come
~in from the preaching Of Wesley, who was
practically the parent Of our neo-Cathol-
icism in its varying forms. The oxford
Movement" with all the strange after
symptoms which it has left behind it, is
directly descended from Wesley. Thus
romance, sentiment, freedom, and variety
in poetic form, philanthropy, revolt
against the past, return to and reverence
for the past, scientific doubt, WEAKNESS Of
life, love Of nature, wistful belief. relapse
on the forms Of the Church and every
thing else which stamps the literature Of
the nineteenth century were alive and ac-
tive in the last half Of the eighteenth CEN
tury. The year 1So1 made no sudden break.
The nineteenth century merely went on
evolving the principles, revolutionary or
reactionary. Of the last half Of the eight
eenth century.
Thus Crabbe. the precursor OF whoever,
Englishman. American, Frenchman. OF
Siav. has written OF the sombre tragedies
Of the poor. was born in l35i- Blake,
whose perfectly un-Augustan rhapsodies
and mystic lyrics were made fashionable
about 1870 was born in 1857. out Of due
time for his best side is EiZabethan in
quality. Burns born in 1I5s, is as much
at home in the nineteenth century as
Tolstoi. while Goodwin could not be more
advanced or Mary Wollstonecraft more
Of a New Woman" # the former belong
ed 10 cur Forward Liberals and the lat
ter perora ted at congresses Of her sex.
The frst twenty-five years Of Miss Austen
belong TO the eighteenth century; yet, ex-
cept for a certain "oId-fashioned" prim-
ness Of style, she is the first, and beyond
all doubt the greatest, Of all nineteenth
century realistic" novelists Of domestic
life For though a ''realist" she is
humorist, and the combination is almost
unexampled. Your common realist is
gloomy thing. with no more sense Of the
comic than N. Zola.
OF the new poets, revolutionary in metre
and matter. Wordsworth, Scott, Cole
ridge. and Southey were born IN I770-1774;
they were mature before our century
dawned. His northern home. among the
hills and lakes, fitted Wordsworth TO be
the austere and mystical poet Of nature
and Of man IN relation TO nature. Born a
poet. his genius was determined by his
u environment, while his ardent sympathy
with the Revolution at once turned his
ttention to the unregarded poor and in
pired his not wholly successful attempt
20 shake off the trammels OF Augustan
poetic diction," the survival Of the Latin
= ism Of Boileau and Pope Later Of
course, Wordsworth became the Tory. the
patriot. the churchman, and the stamp
collector. But his poetical creed ne never
consciously changed. though he often
20 DE a poet at all he was fated 10 be in
fuenced by the New World, not in it's
emancipated ideas. but in its wistful
turn 10 the Old World Of reivers. spear
men, claymores, goblin, ghost, and fairy.
The Border ballads lulled his cradle and
were the JOY Of his childhood and man
hood. All tradition murmured TO him her
charms Of Border and highland legend:
every ruined abbey and castle had its tale
for him: to Ettrick and Yarrow he need
ed nos o say like Lady John Scott Have
You ~ Dssage for me?" He ro--- had
S the Augustan horIor Of noun
-. nev4f a touch Of the
- Of "Barbarism."
s the novels of
c1opy4efga Go