New-York tribune., 1905-01-29

scientious are. but Mr.. Lee certainly put1
the temptation behind him with a resoluteness
to be commended to every scholar. He does not.
ike Professor Wendell, on being brought to con
slider such a work as Bacon's ''N0vum Organun.-
avoid direct exposition by writing a page OK
pretty fancies suggested by the symbolic nlus-
trations the title page Of the great treatise
Doubtless Mr.. Lee could not spin such pretty
fancies even if he tried hard TO do so. but doubt
less also he would not spin them. even il he
could His is the safe method OF dealing with
literature. and. much as we have enjoyed Pro
fessor WendeIPs book. we have gathered more
from Mr. Lees.
The great EngIishmen he treats are Sir
Thomas More. Sir Philip Sidney. Sir Walter Pal
egh. Edmund Spenser. Francis Bacon and
Shakespeare. His introduction deals with The
Spirit of the Sixteenth Century" his concluding
lecture with Foreign Influences on Shake
speare-" Slight photographed notes. an analyt-
ical table OF contents. chronological table and
an index help to render the volume all the more
useful to the student Each life Is treated IN a
methodical fashion, and, whenever an imp0r-
tant book like Mores Utopia" Is under discus
sion. enough Of it's substance Is given TO enable
any reader to obtain fair idea. OF it's character
and purpose. There is little or no tendency to
hero worship; indeed in few cases. notably
with regard to Raleigh one feels that Mr. Lee
might have been kinder without having been
less just Not few vulgar errors are given
quietus, and facts often overlooked are brought
forward-for example, the rather amusing way
in which Sidney obtained the honor of knight
hood In a word scholarly, useful, solid infor-
nation is what this volume exists to give.
Sometimes. of course, find ourselves won-
dering at MIR. Lees statements and opinions He
sets a strangely high store by SpenseTs pastoral
ba n
Astrophel to Stella sonnets than many readers
do; he is very rash in asserting that the Spen-
serian stanza was formed by adding an alex
andrine to the ottawa rima; he is surely almost
unique in thinking that no Tower Of Shakespeare
would complain if the final judgment to be
pronounced on his works were based on his three
Roman tragedies But these are trifes- II lS
better to dwell on the excellent way in which
the lecture on Shakespeare's career treats 1he
contentious Of those persons who think thar me
dramatist must have been lawyer a JrdVeiIeI'
and one knows not what, as we'll as OF those
who insist upon having Bacon father the plays
Equally good is the lecture which disposes Oh
the extraordinary delusiOn that induces critics
like Mr. Churton Collins to maintain that
Shakespeare had a knowledge of the classics
sufficient to have enabled him to fill one or two
university chairs 1t is here that Mr. Lee nm
self perhaps lays too much emphasis upon the
Indebtedness of Elizabethan sonneteers to tne
Petrarchists of Italy and France and mlnl1nlzes
the part played by experience of life IN the noo4e
sonnet sequences of Sidney and Shakespeare
but in the main. his book is as free from exas-
gerations and alterations it rs solid and IN
forming We trust that it will not be long De-
fore he again draws on the fund Of inforrnanon
he acquired as editor of the Dictionary OF Ma
tionaI Biography" and gives US another series
of lectures upon selected English worthless