New-York tribune., 1905-02-12

but not of any serious value. 1t is pleasant,
therefore, to find in the London Outlook
brief essay by Mr.. James FitZmaurice-Kelly, in
which that profound Cervantista explodes some
of the errors which have been repeated in re-
cent articles. He points out, for example, that
''the discoveries of the last few years involve
the destruction of the genealogical tree which
was planted with such pious industry by Fer
nandeZ de Navarrete in 1919 and under the
shade of which all subsequent English biogra-
pliers have been content to bask- We
must resign ourselves to accepting Ger
vanteSS father as simple apothecary- surgeon,
with no university diploma" He does not be-
lieve that CervanteS himself could have received
the university education with which he has
been credited; that he page at court;
that he ever had a love affair with a mysterious
Maid of Honor to the Queen; that he ever
fought duel with a rival in the precincts of
the Court, consequently condemned to
lose his right hand and fed to Italy to avoid
punishment The author of 'DOn Quixote'' did
not have, it is stated, the special weakness for
England which has been attributed to him.
Finally the assumption that ''the romances of
chivalry were in full vogue when Don QuiX-
ote' appeared, and that Cervantes arrested the
plague at its height" is dismissed an abso-
lutte perversion Of history.
To many writers Science is, like "MeSopo-
tamia,' n blessed word. which they roll a
sweet morsel under their tongues. To them we
commend the article on Biography" by Mr.
William Roscoe Thayer in the North Amer
lean Review" for February. We infer that he
knows all that it is necessary to know about
the merits of scientific biography. He writes,
obviously, out of full mind. But he has
healthy distruSt of the historian, who "see move
ments but not men," and makes most per-
c1I1SiVa DlPa for the restoration of the merely
human creature to the place in biography that
is nowadays too often occupied by what the
Oracles love to describe as "a representative
figure" He does not object to broad generaliza-
tions, provided they are kept within bounds,
but, he says, "the cardinal error comes when we
begin to account for the men of genius, the
few conspicuous exceptions, by the formula
which we have agreed upon for their time"
Paying his compliments to the doctrinaires who
are constantly falling into this error, he says
They pick out certain elements of Dante's
time let US say, and frame them into ma
chine which could not help making Dante; and
then they triumphantly assure us that they
have accounted for Dante" But surely this
machine, vast and intricate, composed of
all the actual hopes and deeds of that age
and of all the traditions which it kept alive
from the past ought to have produced nothing
but Dantes, whole population of Dantes, in
stead of a single specimen; in fact however
it produced a Boniface VIII, Cavalcanti and
innumerable other strongly individualized per-
sons unlike him and mutually unlike
Mr.. Thayer's paper is full of equally good
points, made with wit and logic. We would be
glad if copies of it could be placed in the hands
of all the biographers of day.
The controversy which mentioned last
Sunday as going in the London Saturday
Review" over Mr.. Aylmer Maude's translation
of TOlstoys play, THE Power of Darkness
has been brought to a close with a long letter
by Mr.. Maude in which he throws interesting
light on the results of the Russian authors an
nouncement of fifteen years ago, giving his
works to the world. ''To Segin with" we are
told, 'Tolstoy has written 100000 words of
stories, novels, essays, plays folklore, peda-
gogics aesthetics philosophy, exhortatiOns, phi
lippics, religious treatiSes and anti-theological
eXpoSitiOnS not to mention an immense number
of letters (many of which are almost essays,
and translation of "The -Four Gospels which
is among the most original of his works" Now
it is possible that one man may prove himself
qualified to make an adequate translation of all
this material. Professor Leo Wiener, greatly
daring, has at all events made up his mind to
try, as we announced some time ago. But Mr..
Maude points out that since Tolstoy has put
his writings at the disposal of any one who
cares to translate them, the man who devotes
years of loving labor to the work may have the
modification of seeing the wind taken out of his
sails, every now and then, by some machine
do .of urfia hryh