The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1902-04-20
In THE LITERARY FIELD
ECCENTRICITIEs OF OPINION con-
CERNING wELL-kNOWN WRITINGS.
influence Of the Many Character of
Dickens-Relations OF Publish
ers and Authors.
Philadelphia Press.

Philadelphia Press.
y good deal Of unfavorable comment,
both in this country and in England. has
recently been aroused by the published ut
terances of a distinguished author and
critic whose avowed preferences disclose a
taste greatly at variance with some Of our
accepted standards.
Again. not long ago, a contagion OF half
suppressed laughter spread among current
reviewers when called upon 10 character
ize a fiction reclaimed from oblivion for a
brief space by "A celebrated noveiist's opin-
ion of il. He pronounced it to be worthy of
a place among the few masterpieces OF
storytelling in our language, whereas the
discernment of professional readers un-
hesitatingly classed it with the excess lit
erary baggage on which posterity resO-
lutely refuses TO pay the charges.
These eccentricities Of opinion are, per-
haps. more interesting than important.
Just as there is something not wholly hate
ful TO us-as remarked by Rochefoucauld-
in the misfortunes Of our friends, so also
we cannot fail TO relish the revelation Of
fallibility on the part of those whose brows
we have wreathed. 1t is true a mischief
may NC QOle through the NTlllen NOIu y
a great man in an uninspired mood. Just
how great a mischief it may sometimes be
is aptly indicated by that sturdy destroyer
of critical regulations, Mr.. John Churton
Collins, who deplores the consequences Of
Sir Walter SCOTS idle and reckless judg-
ment in assigning to William Dunbar the
first place among Scotland's poets. But. On
the whole, the damage done TO the public's
taste is not considerable.
And this is well. For the history of liter
airy criticism abOunds in instances Of er-
ratio deliverance by the oracles. Mr.. How
ellis, in his delightful "reminiscences, has re-
corded Emerson's opinion of Poe as a
"jingleman." and of The Marble Eaun''
as mere mush." Noltaire held that
Dante's reputation was safe because he
was not read by intelligent people. Goethe
has been credited with an estimate OF The
Divine Comedy" but little less hattering;
and in referring to Hugo, in his CONVERSE
lions with EcKermann, he remarked: Il
think that Notre Dame de Paris Is the
most detestable book ever written The
irritable Carlyle is quoted as saying that
George Eliot is simply dull" and Thack-
cray thought that Old Daddy Wordsworth
may bless his stars if he ever gets high
enough in heaven TO black Tommy Moore's
boots" Dryden had no great opinion or
Shakespeare, and patrOnized him, Just as
Anthony TrollOpe came to patronZe Thack-
eray-but in this case mere patrOnizing has
given way to the fashion of unmerciful
dissection. And TO get down 10 smaller
men-Horace Walpole, who was taken seri-
ously in his day, let fall in a letter this
criticism OF ''She Stops to Conquer" DR..
Goldsmith has written a comedy-no, ii is
the lowest of all farces : > . set up III
opposition TO sentimental comedy. and as
bad as the worst of them"
Ii was a curious oversight Of Addison, to
say the least, when he wrote AN Account
OF the Greatest English Poets" and omitted
the mama OF Sh9kSDearp- and IL Is OnIV the
essayists due TO note that he has not borne
out the inference in what he set .dOwn
about the greatest poet in his cOntribu-
tons TO the Spectator. Shakespeare has
really suffered worse things. whether We
consider Hume-juSt a century later than
Dryden-with his dictum. 1T is in vain we
look either for purity or simplicity of die
tion,' or whether We attend a somewhat
later lecture on rhetoric by Blair, and learn
that there is hardly any one Of his plays
which can be called altogether a good one,
or which can be read with uninterrupted
pleasure from beginning to end" II re-
NAMED for Guizot, well along in the nlae-
teenth century, to inform us that the Son
nets are fugitive pieces which the poetic
and sprightly grace of some lines would
not have rescued from oblivion but for the
curiosity which attache 10 the slightest
traces OF a celebrated man."
But. after all, Guizot was a foreigner,
and few foreigners have approached Taine
in his consideration OF our literature. The
latest OF them-Professor Engel-has not
done so, IL one may judge of him from eX-
tracts. In calling Matthew Arnold IA poet
below mediOcrity" he will, perhaps. pro-
woke a smile from some of his countrymen
who know Arnold's poetry only through the
medium Of "Memories"-tha tale of Ger
man lore which quotes the ~Englishman'S
The Buried Life" in full. And then there
is Professor EngeIS truly ingenious query
as TO Coleridge and THE Ancient Mari
ner." happily recorded by the London cor
respondent of the Mail and Express, But
why should the mere shooting of a bird call
for all this?" He might nave sized
was there an Audubon society in those
days.
Perhaps this only serves TO emphasize
what a delicate and elusive thing is poetry.
and how the intellect alone, as we under
stand the term, Is not able to appraise il,
but must be associated with states of re-
captivity corresponding TO the poets own
mood. One IL. indeed, tempted to fanniful
explanations in trying TO account for the
singular disparities in the judgments Of
intellectual men where poetry is concerned.
Ruskin, for example, said some things
which Will not help his reputation with
posterity; and it does not help IT with us
TO recall that he regarded Aurora Leigh"
as the greatest poem Of the nineteenth CEN
fury. The infallible judgment of time pre-
serves that opinion only as a curiosity.
Yet this particular infatuation is no great
er than the blind admiration OF Lord Byron
for the poetry OF Pope. His poetry is the
book of life" wrote the author OF Don
Juan" And again: 1.-The most perfect Of
our poets and the purest of our moralists
. let US hope that he viii one day be
the national poet of mankind"
1t seems strange that almost in the same
year William Hazlitt remarked that the
question whether Pope vas a poet has
hardly vet been settled"