New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-08-20
THE SALON IN ENGLAND
A Chapter of Eighteenth Cen
fury Literary History.

THE SALON AND ENGLISH LETTERS. Chapters
= on the lnterelatIons OF Literature and Society
IN the Age OF Johnson BY Chsuncey Brewster
Tinker. illustrated. svo. pp IL. 200. The Mac
milan Company.
Buttons familiar epigram upon style
might be paraphrased for application
to the Salon. The Salon is the people
who compose it. Whenever and where
ever there exist people possessing the
culture and the temperament Of the
Salon, the Salon will exist. Without
them. artificial attempts to create it
must be doomed to failure. The varia-
tons of the human factor, Of course,
cause variations in the character of the
Salon. There were marked differences
between that Of Italy and that of
France, and between each of these and
that of England. But the central feat
ure was common TO them all. 1t was
the borderland between society and lit
erature. Some have described the
Salon as fashionable society playing at
intellectually, and others as scholars
aping and striving to enter fashionable
society. Both definitions are wrong.
In no one of its three great develop
ments, in Italy, in France, in England,
did the Salon answer to either of them.
Nor will it do to assume that wher-
ever much learning exists the Salon is
possible; certainly not that wherever
there is no Salon there is no culture.
On the contrary, culture of the highest
and noblest character may abound with
entire unfitness for the Salon and in
ability to organize and to maintain it.
We must doubt if Wordsworth or Ten
nyson would greatly have shone, or
would have enjoyed shining, in fash
ionable social coterie, or if Nathaniel
Hawthorne or Matthew Arnold would
have been in his best element in dane
ing attendance upon blue-stockinged
ladies. On the other hand, people of
the finest intellectual gifts and accom-
plishments did find the atmosphere Of
the Salon congenial and inspiring, and
because of that fact that institution
undoubtedly rendered valuable SER
vices to both the intellectual and the
social worlds.
Professor Tinker's eminently read
able volume deals chiefly with the Eng
lish Salon of Georgian days, which was
one of the most notable of all, and
which perhaps made a greater and
more permanent impress upon both
literature and society than any other.
There is just enough about the other
salons to enable us to trace the devel-
opment of the institution and to place
this last of the great salons in its
proper perspective and setting. There
is also enough for the correction OF
various too prevalent errors. The
French name has perhaps been respon-
sibe for the notion that the Salon was
pre-eminently French institution;
when in fact it originated in the Italian
Renaissance, and its development in
France was really of less consequence
than in either Italy or England. The
term "bluestocking," too, is often sup
posed to have been translated from
the French "bas bleu," and TO have
been coined to describe women of lit
erary aspirations; when in fact it was
of English origin, and was at first APP
piled to men. But the English Salon
was by no means altogether composed
OF bluestockings, or the French of
pr6cieuses ridicules.
The English Salon in Johnson's time
is spoken of as an attempt to emulate
the literary world Of Paris by bring
ing men of letters and men Of the
world into closer relations and by max
ing the things of the mind an avocation
Of the drawing room. ltis thus that
Professor Tinker describes it. There
was, however, a contrast between the
two salons in spirit, at least as marked
as that between the supreme Eliza
bethan salon under the Countess of
Pembroke and the Countess of Bed
ford and the degenerate Stuart salon
of the Duchess of Mazarin and Mrs.
Behn. This latest English salon re-
suited in a more enduring impression
upon both literature and society than
any other. To its effects we may at
tribute very largely the high social
esteem in which men and women of let
ters have ever since been held in Eng
land, and also the noteworthy particl-
patton of social and political leaders
in literary work. 1t was, moreover,
unique in having given rise to, or at