New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1902-11-23

| EXPRESSION of opinion to the statement on IAcr
and gives US in the best sense history "orA
to which the student may prOfitably turn wnen-
ever he wishes to ascertain who the crluS
were at a given period. what subjects they Ak
tackled and what they said about them THIS
Is a kind of anthology with the difference that
! in place of bald quotations have miniatures
portraits of authors and readable summaries
of their works. We say readable advlsedly'
/ for in many cases what Professor SaIntsDur5
has to do and does. is to quicken into lie tns
dry bones of the driest of controversies, to dis
entangIe from voluminOus writings, long slhce
shelved ana forgotten. if not dead and buried.
| the essential points by virtue OF which an an
cient pedant is to be forgiven a little of his
pedantry. The book teens with opportunities
inviting to the scholar and critic, with names
| representative of phases in the evolution OF
criticism on which it would be most interest,"
ms. to Iinger. But to yield to temptation here
! would be to be carried too far afield, and We
can only glance at few of the questions raised
| Poetry provided the principal theme OF the
early Italian critics with whom Professor
| Saintsbury practically begins his examination
| Among the writings OF these SOutherners. he
| finds again and again critical GPeTe1fs of con-
| siderable interest, and remem berins that II IL
Is important to state the value Of a critic to his
posterity il is OF even more Importance to indi-
| cate the value that he had for his contempt
rarieS, he appraiSeS more than one OF theIn NlIn
| generosity. Thus in his pages Vida-which
| include. by the way. in the summary Of the
| 'Poetics' of the authors best essays IN
vivacious description and analysis-his impa-
| thence with the Italians deplorable addiction
| to the rule of thumb does not prevent him from
| recognizing the profound influence he eXerted In
| fact he declares that Vida seems, by a sort OK
intuition Ito have anticipated, at the beginning
of the sixteenth century. almost the whole crit
icaI orthodoxy of the sixteenth, seventeenth and
| eighteenth The rule of thumb was at the
! bottom of that orthodoxy obscured no doubt
| by the glamour of scholarship. and even. from
| time time more or less transmogrihed by the
power Of something like genius. but still the rule
| of thumb PlatOnsts and Aristotelians, then as
always. disposed 10 form themselves into
| separate camps, but they cheerfully hlched from
one another when they could. and on one point
may be said to have almost practically united.
that is. in recognizing the authority Of classical
precedent paramount The long story OF
| their doings discloses a fact which wish
Professor Saintsbury had thought TO put in the
| foreground. 1t is not much for their con-
scous efforts toward the establishment OF .
| canon of criticism that the pioneers in Europe
are TO be remembered as II is for the service
! they rendered in enforcing the disciplinary side
of the To put il in another way. II the FlrsA
worship which did much to land many an
early critic in an impasse of complacency was
iniIncaI 10 sound criticism in erecting single
classic into a kind of law-the very foundation
stone of sound criticism being CathOlicity-it
was not bad for the writers in the centuries
| traversed by Professor Saintsbury TO be held
back. even though by error, from mere whim
and from the loose thinking that whimsicality
| too often implies. When the human mind goes
| to school it may resent discipline too peda-
| gogic but il is necessary that the pedagogue
| should be there constant in insiStence upon the
rules OF the game.
Considered from this point Of view. great
| many of Professor Saintsbury's pedagOgueS de-
| serve we think even warmer tribute than he in
| himself willing to pay them. For example. II is
| plain that he is restless under the pressure OF
| that opinion which would eXalt BoileaU beyond
| all measure We can sympathize. with him
| There is no cant more offensive than that OF the
| diIettanti who. having rediScOvered an old au-
| thor at once seek 70 place him a pedestal
| higher than the one TO which he IS entitled
| But to ask, as our author asks. that the famous
| Frenchman should have been diverted from his
! perpetual appeal to Good Sense and Reason
by the warning of Longinus C'Eeishts OF elo-
quence of poetry. but especially of poetry.
do not lead to persuasion but to ecStdSyO Is to
ask little too much; il is not simply to con-
tradict but to misapprehend the contention that
Boileau is IAN adequate representative OF the