New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1904-11-06
gDe Nenu1alork gribaesaees
ILLUSTRATED SUPPLEMENT.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1904.

There is a SWinburnian neophyte in London
who Drostrates himself so funnily before his
idol that we have more than once found it
amusing to quote his divagations. We must
quote him again. The latest conclusion at
which he has arrived is that change has come
over literary criticism since Robert Buchanan
sailed into Rossetti. "Urbanity," he says,
seems now to be the badge Of all our tribe.
In no respect is this sea change more remarka-
BILE than in the case of Mr.. Swnburne The
third volume of the superb Collected Edition
of his Poems has been received, like the first
and the second, with resounding chorus OF
praise. Where the storms OF yesteryear!
Where are the old battlecrys7 Happy
is the poet of whom all mean speak We'll" Pre-
srmably our proud choragus Of the Swinburn-
ian band would be scandalized if he were to be
t Id that the poet is not really to be congratu-
lated on the overwhelming urbanity with which
lie is just now being treated. But we believe
that all serious minded readers must discern
signs of danger to his fame in that very urban
ty of the critics They are praisng him with
no more discretion than has been shown In the
booming of certain recent novests. They are
exhausting the language In their efforts to prove
him great poet When the inevitable reaction
sets in, the task of placing Swinburne where
he belongs will be the more difficult and he
will the more slowly come into his proper fame
While Mr. SWinburne is being exalted to the
skies by one critic of the day, Scott Is receiv-
ing scant mercy from another. In 'The At
lantic" Mr. Arthur Symons asks, WAS Sir Wal
ter Scott a poet% There is something so sin
cere about Mr. Symons's little essay that almost
enc is inclined to take it seriously. But some
how for the life of us, we cannot restrain
chuclle as we follow the development of this
grand, gloomy and peculiar deiverance. 1t
hot Sir
see in certain things of Scott's "the simple and
energetic style Of Homer" He quotes some
Scott and then some Homer NEED l say
more" he Observes than these extracts say
for themselves? What commences and what
distinction, what puerility of effort and what
rep0se in energy" Only once, it appears, was
Scott a poet. That was when he wrote Proud
Maisie" For the rest, Mr.. Symons has no hope.
Throughout the whole of his long poems, and
throughout almost the whole of his work in
verse, Scott remains an improViser in rhyme,
net poet All SCOTS verse is written
for boys. The taste for it may well be
outgrown with the first realization of why
Shakespeare is looked upon as the supreme
poet 1t is well, perhaps, that there
should be poet for boys, and for those grown
up people who are most like boys" The only
comment to be made on this is that Mr. Symons
is TO be pitied for having nothing of the boy
in him, as he tacitly confesses Through this
limitation his sense is sealed. He fails to see
that Scott has the secret Of poetry in his ballad
Tilt as clearly Homer and Shakespeare have
it in their totally different modes Of utterance.
Professor Saintsbury, in the third and last
volume of his History of Criticism" which
has just made its appearance, is not content to
exhibit the rules of practice which have been
followed by the great men, and, for that mat
ter the lesser men, in his profession Summing
up, lie defines criticism for himself The critic,
lie maintains, "must read, and, as far posi-
BILE read everything-that is the first and great
commandment Secondly he must con-
stantly compare books authors, literatures In
deed, to see in what each differs from each,
but never in order to dislike one because it is
not the other. Thirdly, he must, as far as he
possibly can divest himself of any idea of
what book ought to be, until he has seen what
it is" Professor Saintsbury admits that to fol-
low this course is difficult '1To carry it out
in Perfection he adds, sis, doubt, impossi-
BILE" The critic would certainly need more
tine than he is commonly vouchsafed by the
conditions of modern life to perfect himself in
his art, according to Professor Saintsburys
hypothesis. But if the critic only has the will
TO adopt these counsels of perfection he has
fought half his battle. 1t may be impossible
fo his ideoIS bUt no will far