,,on ,,the ,,art ,,of ,,writing ,,cambridge ,,university ,,press ,c4,f4 ,,clay1 ,manager ,london3 ,,fetter ,,lane1 ,e4,c4 ,edinburgh3 #ajj ,,princes ,,street4 ,bombay1 ,calcutta and ,madras3 ,,macmillan ,,co4 ,,ltd4 ,toronto3 ,j4,m4 ,,dent ,,and ,,sons1 ,,ltd4 ,tokyo3 ,,the ,,maruzen-,,kabushiki-,,kaisha4 ,copyrighted in the ,united ,states of ,america by ,g4,p4 ,,putnam',s ,,sons1 #b1 #d ,,and #f1 ,,west #de,,th ,,street1 ,,new ,,york ,,city4 ,all rights reserved ,,on ,,the ,,art ,,of ,,writing ,,lectures ,,delivered ,,in ,,the ,,university ,,of ,,cambridge #aiac-aiad ,,by ,,sir ,,arthur ,,quiller-,,couch1 ,m4,a4 ,fellow of ,jesus ,college ,king ,edward ,,vii ,professor of ,english ,literature ,cambridge3 at the ,university ,press #aiag ,first ,edition #aiaf ,reprinted #aiaf1aiag ,,to ,,john ,,hay ,,lobban ,,preface ,by recasting these lectures ,i might with pains have turned them into a smooth treatise4 ,but ,i prefer to leave them 7bating a very few corrections and additions7 as they were delivered4 ,if1 as the reader will all too easily detect1 they abound no less in repetitions than in arguments dropped and left at loose ends--the whole bewraying a man called unexpectedly to a post where in the act of adapting himself1 of learning that he might teach1 he had often to adjourn his main purpose and skirmish with difficulties--they will be the truer to life2 and so may experimentally enforce their preaching1 that the ,art of ,writing is a living business4 ,bearing this in mind1 the reader will perhaps excuse certain small vivacities1 sallies that meet fools with their folly1 masking the main attack4 ,that1 we will see1 is serious enough2 and others will carry it on1 though my effort come to naught4 ,it amounts to this--,literature is not a mere ,science1 to be studied2 but an ,art1 to be practised4 ,great as is our own literature1 we must consider it as a legacy to be improved4 ,any nation that potters with any glory of its past1 as a thing dead and done for1 is to that extent renegade4 ,if that be granted1 not all our pride in a ,shakespeare can excuse the relaxation of an effort--however vain and hopeless--to better him1 or some part of him4 ,if1 with all our native exemplars to give us courage1 we persist in striving to write well1 we can easily resign to other nations all the secondary fame to be picked up by commentators4 ,recent history has strengthened1 with passion and scorn1 the faith in which ,i wrote the following pages4 ,,arthur ,,quiller-,,couch ,november #aiae ,,contents ,,lecture ,i ,,inaugural ,,ii ,,the ,,practice ,,of ,,writing ,,iii ,,on ,,the ,,difference ,,between ,,verse ,,and ,,prose ,,iv ,,on ,,the ,,capital ,,difficulty ,,of ,,verse ,v ,,interlude3 ,,on ,,jargon ,,vi ,,on ,,the ,,capital ,,difficulty ,,of ,,prose ,,vii ,,some ,,principles ,,reaffirmed ,,viii ,,on ,,the ,,lineage ,,of ,,english ,,literature 7,i7 ,,ix ,,on ,,the ,,lineage ,,of ,,english ,,literature 7,,ii7 ,x ,,english ,,literature ,,in ,,our ,,universities 7,i7 ,,xi ,,english ,,literature ,,in ,,our ,,universities 7,,ii7 ,,xii ,,on ,,style ,,index ,,lecture ,i4 ,,inaugural ,wednesday1 ,january #bi1 #aiac ,in all the long quarrel set between philosophy and poetry ,i know of nothing finer1 as of nothing more pathetically hopeless1 than ,plato's return upon himself in his last dialogue ',the ,laws4' ,there are who find that dialogue 7left unrevised7 insufferably dull1 as no doubt it is without form and garrulous4 ,but ,i think they will read it with a new tolerance1 may-be even with a touch of feeling1 if upon second thoughts they recognise in its twisting and turnings1 its prolixities and repetitions1 the scruples of an old man who1 knowing that his time in this world is short1 would not go out of it pretending to know more than he does1 and even in matters concerning which he was once very sure has come to divine that1 after all1 as ,renan says1 ',la ,verite consiste dans les nuances4' ,certainly 'the mind's dark cottage battered and decayed' does in that last dialogue admit some wonderful flashes1 ,from ,heaven descended to the low-roofed house ,of ,socrates1 or rather to that noble 'banquet-hall deserted' which aforetime had entertained ,socrates4 ,suffer me1 ,mr ,vice-,chancellor and ,gentlemen1 before reaching my text1 to remind you of the characteristically beautiful setting4 ,the place is ,crete1 and the three interlocutors--,cleinias a ,cretan1 ,megillus a ,lacedaemonian1 and an ,athenian stranger--have joined company on a pilgrimage to the cave and shrine of ,zeus1 from whom ,minos1 first lawgiver of the island1 had reputedly derived not only his parentage but much parental instruction4 ,now the day being hot1 even scorching1 and the road from ,cnossus to the ,sacred ,cave a long one1 our three pilgrims1 who have foregathered as elderly men1 take it at their leisure1 and propose to beguile it with talk upon ,minos and his laws4 ',yes1 and on the way1' promises the ,cretan1 'we shall come to cypress-groves exceedingly tall and fair1 and to green meadows1 where we may repose ourselves and converse4' ',good1' assents the ,athenian4 ',ay1 very good indeed1 and better still when we arrive at them4 ,let us push on4' ,so they proceed4 ,i have said that all three are elderly men2 that is1 men who have had their opportunities1 earned their wages1 and so nearly earned their discharge that now1 looking back on life1 they can afford to see ,man for what he really is--at his best a noble plaything for the gods4 ,yet they look forward1 too1 a little wistfully4 ,they are of the world1 after all1 and nowise so tired of it1 albeit disillusioned1 as to have lost interest in the game or in the young who will carry it on4 ,so ,minos and his laws soon get left behind1 and the talk 7as so often befalls with ,plato7 is of the perfect citizen and how to train him--of education1 in short2 and so1 as ever with ,plato1 we are back at length upon the old question which he could never get out of his way--,what to do with the poets8 ,it scarcely needs to be said that the ,athenian has taken hold of the conversation1 and that the others are as wax in his hands4 ',o ,athenian stranger1' ,cleinias addresses him--'inhabitant of ,attica ,i will not call you1 for you seem to deserve rather the name of ,athene herself1 because you go back to first principles4' ,thus complimented1 the stranger lets himself go4 ,yet somehow he would seem to have lost speculative nerve4 ,it was all very well in the ',republic1' the ideal ,state1 to be bold and declare for banishing poetry altogether4 ,but elderly men have given up pursuing ideals2 they have 'seen too many leaders of revolt4' ,our ,athenian is driving now at practice 7as we say71 at a well-governed ,state realisable on earth2 and after all it is hard to chase out the poets1 especially if you yourself happen to be something of a poet at heart4 ,hear1 then1 the terms on which1 after allowing that comedies may be performed1 but only by slaves and hirelings1 he proceeds to allow serious poetry4 ,and if any of the serious poets1 as they are termed1 who write tragedy1 come to us and say--',o strangers1 may we go to your city and country1 or may we not1 and shall we bring with us our poetry8 ,what is your will about these matters8'--how shall we answer the divine men8 ,i think that our answer should be as follows3-- ',best of strangers1' we will say to them1 'we also1 according to our ability1 are tragic poets1 and our tragedy is the best and noblest3 for our whole state is an imitation of the best and noblest life4444 ,you are poets and we are poets1 both makers of the same strains1 rivals and antagonists in the noblest of dramas1 which true law alone can perfect1 as our hope is4 ,do not then suppose that we shall all in a moment allow you to erect your stage in the ,agora1 and introduce the fair voices of your actors1 speaking above our own1 and permit you to harangue our women and children and the common people in language other than our own1 and very often the opposite of our own4 ,for a ,state would be mad which gave you this license1 until the magistrates had determined whether your poetry might be recited and was fit for publication or not4 ,wherefore1 ,o ye sons and scions of the softer ,muses6 first of all show your songs to the ,magistrates and let them compare them with our own1 and if they are the same or better1 we will give you a chorus2 but if not1 then1 my friends1 we cannot4' ,lame conclusion6 ,impotent compromise6 ,how little applicable1 at all events1 to our ,commonwealth6 though1 to be sure 7you may say7 we possess a relic of it in ,his ,majesty's ,licenser of ,plays4 ,as you know1 there has been so much heated talk of late over the composition of the ,county ,magistracy2 yet ,i give you a countryman's word1 ,sir1 that ,i have heard many names proposed for the ,commission of the ,peace1 and on many grounds1 but never one on the ground that its owner had a conservative taste in verse6 ,nevertheless1 as ,plato saw1 we must deal with these poets somehow4 ,it is possible 7though not1 ,i think1 likely7 that in the ideal ,state there would be no ,literature1 as it is certain there would be no ,professors of it2 but since its invention men have never been able to rid themselves of it for any length of time4 ,tamen usque recurrit4 ,they may forbid ,apollo1 but still he comes leading his choir1 the ,nine3-- ,greek3 ,akletos men egoge menoimi ken es de kaleunton ,tharsesas ,moisaisi snu amepeaisin ikoiman4 ,and he may challenge us ,english boldly6 ,for since ,chaucer1 at any rate1 he and his train have never been ,greek3 akletoi to us--least of all here in ,cambridge4 ,nay1 we know that he should be welcome4 ,cardinal ,newman1 proposing the idea of a ,university to the ,roman ,catholics of ,dublin1 lamented that the ,english language had not1 like the ,greek1 'some definite words to express1 simply and generally1 intellectual proficiency or perfection1 such as health1 as used with reference to the animal frame1 and virtue1 with reference to our moral nature4' ,well1 it is a reproach to us that we do not possess the term3 and perhaps again a reproach to us that our attempts at it--the word 'culture' for instance--have been apt to take on some soil of controversy1 some connotative damage from over-preaching on the one hand and impatience on the other4 ,but we do earnestly desire the thing4 ,we do prize that grace of intellect which sets ,so-and-so in our view as 'a scholar and a gentleman4' ,we do wish as many sons of this ,university as may be to carry forth that lifelong stamp from her precincts2 and--this is my point--from our notion of such a man the touch of literary grace cannot be excluded4 ,i put to you for a test ,lucian's description of his friend ,demonax-- ,his way was like other people's2 he mounted no high horse2 he was just a man and a citizen4 ,he indulged in no ,socratic irony4 ,but his discourse was full of ,attic grace2 those who heard it went away neither disgusted by servility1 nor repelled by ill-tempered censure1 but on the contrary lifted out of themselves by charity1 and encouraged to more orderly1 contented1 hopeful lives4 ,i put it to you1 ,sir1 that ,lucian needs not to say another word1 but we know that ,demonax had loved letters1 and partly by aid of them had arrived at being such a man4 ,no2 by consent of all1 ,literature is a nurse of noble natures1 and right reading makes a full man in a sense even better than ,bacon's2 not replete1 but complete rather1 to the pattern for which ,heaven designed him4 ,in this conviction1 in this hope1 public spirited men endow ,chairs in our ,universities1 sure that ,literature is a good thing if only we can bring it to operate on young minds4 ,that he has in him some power to guide such operation a man must believe before accepting such a ,chair as this4 ,and now1 ,sir1 the terrible moment is come when your ,greek3 xenos must render some account--,i will not say of himself1 for that cannot be attempted--but of his business here4 ,well1 first let me plead that while you have been infinitely kind to the stranger1 feasting him and casting a gown over him1 one thing not all your kindness has been able to do4 ,with precedents1 with traditions such as other ,professors enjoy1 you could not furnish him4 ,the ,chair is a new one1 or almost new1 and for the present would seem to float in the void1 like ,mahomet's coffin4 ,wherefore1 being one who 7in my ,lord ,chief ,justice ,crewe's phrase7 would 'take hold of a twig or twine-thread to uphold it'2 being also prone 7with ,bacon7 to believe that 'the counsels to which ,time hath not been called1 ,time will not ratify'2 ,i do assure you that1 had any legacy of guidance been discovered among the papers left by my predecessor1 it would have been eagerly welcomed and as piously honoured4 ,o1 trust me1 ,sir6--if any design for this ,chair of ,english ,literature had been left by ,dr ,verrall1 it is not ,i who would be setting up any new stage in your agora6 ,but in his papers--most kindly searched for me by ,mrs ,verrall--no such design can be found4 ,he was1 in truth1 a stricken man when he came to the ,chair1 and of what he would have built we can only be sure that1 had it been this or had it been that1 it would infallibly have borne the impress of one of the most beautiful minds of our generation4 ,the gods saw otherwise2 and for me1 following him1 ,i came to a trench and stretched my hands to a shade4 ,for me1 then1 if you put questions concerning the work of this ,chair1 ,i must take example from the artist in ,don ,quixote1 who being asked what he was painting1 answered modestly1 ',that is as it may turn out4' ,the course is uncharted1 and for sailing directions ,i have but these words of your ,ordinance3 ,it shall be the duty of the ,professor to deliver courses of lectures on ,english ,literature from the age of ,chaucer onwards1 and otherwise to promote1 so far as may be in his power1 the study in the ,university of the subject of ,english ,literature4 ,and ,i never even knew that ,english ,literature had a 'subject'2 or1 rather1 supposed it to have several6 ,to resume3 ,the ,professor shall treat this subject on literary and critical rather than on philological and linguistic lines3 --a proviso which at any rate cuts off a cantle1 large in itself1 if not comparatively1 of the new ,professor's ignorance4 ,but ,i ask you to note the phrase 'to promote1 so far as may be in his power1 the study'--not1 you will observe1 'to teach'2 for this absolves me from raising at the start a question of some delicacy for me1 as ,green launched his ,prolegomena to ,ethics upon the remark that 'an author who seeks to gain general confidence scarcely goes the right way to work when he begins with asking whether there really is such a subject as that of which he proposes to treat4' ,in spite of--mark1 pray1 that ,i say in spite of--the activity of many learned ,professors1 some doubt does lurk in the public mind if1 after all1 ,english ,literature can1 in any ordinary sense1 be taught1 and if the attempts to teach it do not1 after all1 justify 7as ,wisdom is so often justified of her grandparents7 the silence sapience of those old benefactors who abstained from endowing any such ,chairs4 ,but that the study of ,english ,literature can be promoted in young minds by an elder one1 that their zeal may be encouraged1 their tastes directed1 their vision cleared1 quickened1 enlarged--this1 ,i take it1 no man of experience will deny4 ,nay1 since our two oldest ,universities have a habit of marking one another with interest--an interest1 indeed1 sometimes heightened by nervousness--,i may point out that all this has been done of late years1 and eminently done1 by a ,cambridge man you gave to ,oxford4 ,this1 then1 ,mr ,vice-,chancellor--this or something like this1 ,gentlemen--is to be my task if ,i have the good fortune to win your confidence4 ,let me1 then1 lay down two or three principles by which ,i propose to be guided4 7#a7 ,for the first principle of all ,i put to you that in studying any work of genius we should begin by taking it absolutely2 that is to say1 with minds intent on discovering just what the author's mind intended2 this being at once the obvious approach to its meaning 7its ,greek3 to ti en einai1 the 'thing it was to be'71 and the merest duty of politeness we owe to the great man addressing us4 ,we should lay our minds open to what he wishes to tell1 and if what he has to tell be noble and high and beautiful1 we should surrender and let soak our minds in it4 ,pray understand that in claiming1 even insisting upon1 the first place for this absolute study of a great work ,i use no disrespect towards those learned scholars whose labours will help you1 ,gentlemen1 to enjoy it afterwards in other ways and from other aspects2 since ,i hold there is no surer sign of intellectual ill-breeding than to speak1 even to feel1 slightingly of any knowledge oneself does not happen to possess4 ,still less do ,i aim to persuade you that anyone should be able to earn a ,cambridge degree by the process 7to borrow ,macaulay's phrase7 of reading our great authors 'with his feet on the hob1' a posture ,i have not even tried1 to recommend it for a contemplative man's recreation4 ,these editors not only set us the priceless example of learning for learning's sake3 but even in practice they clear our texts for us1 and afterwards--when we go more minutely into our author's acquaintance1 wishing to learn all we can about him--by increasing our knowledge of detail they enchance our delight4 ,nay1 with certain early writers--say ,chaucer or ,dunbar1 as with certain highly allusive ones--,bacon1 or ,milton1 or ,sir ,thomas ,browne--some apparatus must be supplied from the start4 ,but on the whole ,i think it a fair contention that such helps to studying an author are secondary and subsidiary2 that1 for example1 with any author who by consent is less of his age than for all time1 to study the relation he bore to his age may be important indeed1 and even highly important1 yet must in the nature of things be of secondary importance1 not of the first4 ,but let us examine this principle a little more attentively--for it is the palmary one4 ,as ,i conceive it1 that understanding of literature which we desire in our ,euphues1 our gracefully-minded youth1 will include knowledge in varying degree1 yet is itself something distinct from knowledge4 ,let us illustrate this upon ,poetry1 which the most of us will allow to be the highest form of literary expression1 if not of all artistic expression4 ,of all the testimony paid to ,poetry1 none commands better witness than this--that1 as ,johnson said of ,gray's ,elegy 'it abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind1 and with sentiments to which every heart returns an echo4' ,when ,george ,eliot said1 ',i never before met with so many of my own feelings expressed just as ,i should like them1' she but repeated of ,wordsworth 7in homelier1 more familiar fashion7 what ,johnson said of ,gray2 and the same testimony lies implicit in ,emerson's fine remark that ',universal history1 the poets1 the romancers'--all good writers1 in short--'do not anywhere make us feel that we intrude1 that this is for our betters4 ,rather it is true that1 in their greatest strokes1 there we feel most at home4' ,the mass of evidence1 of which these are samples1 may be summarised thus3--,as we dwell here between two mysteries1 of a soul within and an ordered ,universe without1 so among us are granted to dwell certain men of more delicate intellectual fibre than their fellows--men whose minds have1 as it were1 filaments to intercept1 apprehend1 conduct1 translate home to us stray messages between these two mysteries1 as modern telegraphy has learnt to search out1 snatch1 gather home human messages astray over waste waters of the ,ocean4 ,if1 then1 the ordinary man be done this service by the poet1 that 7as ,dr ,johnson defines it7 'he feels what he remembers to have felt before1 but he feels it with a great increase of sensibility'2 or even if1 though the message be unfamiliar1 it suggests to us1 in ,wordsworth's phrase1 to 'feel that we are greater than we know1' ,i submit that we respond to it less by anything that usually passes for knowledge1 than by an improvement of sensibility1 a tuning up of the mind to the poet's pitch2 so that the man we are proud to send forth from our ,schools will be remarkable less for something he can take out of his wallet and exhibit for knowledge1 than for being something1 and that 'something1' a man of unmistakable intellectual breeding1 whose trained judgment we can trust to choose the better and reject the worse4 ,but since this refining of the critical judgment happens to be less easy of practice than the memorising of much that passes for knowledge--of what happened to ,harriet or what ,blake said to the soldier--and far less easy to examine on1 the pedagogic mind 7which ,i implore you not to suppose me confusing with the scholarly7 for avoidance of trouble tends all the while to dodge or obfuscate what is essential1 piling up accidents and irrelevancies before it until its very face is hidden4 ,and we should be the more watchful not to confuse the pedagogic mind with the scholarly since it is from the scholar that the pedagogue pretends to derive his sanction2 ransacking the great genuine commentators--be it a ,skeat or a ,masson or 7may ,i add for old reverence' sake87 an ,aldis ,wright--fetching home bits of erudition1 non sua poma1 and announcing ',this must be the true ,sion1 for we found it in a wood4' ,hence a swarm of little school books pullulates annually1 all upside down and wrong from beginning to end2 and hence a worse evil afflicts us1 that the ,english schoolboy starts with a false perspective of any given masterpiece1 his pedagogue urging1 obtruding lesser things upon his vision until what is really important1 the poem or the play itself1 is seen in distorted glimpses1 if not quite blocked out of view4 ,this same temptation--to remove a work of art from the category for which the author designed it into another where it can be more conveniently studied--reaches even above the schoolmaster to assail some very eminent critics4 ,i cite an example from a book of which ,i shall hereafter have to speak with gratitude as ,i shall always name it with respect--,the ,history of ,english ,poetry1 by ,dr ,courthope1 sometime ,professor of ,poetry at ,oxford4 ,in his fourth volume1 and in his estimate of ,fletcher as a dramatist1 ,i find this passage3-- ,but the crucial test of a play's quality is only applied when it is read4 ,so long as the illusion of the stage gives credit to the action1 and the words and gestures of the actor impose themselves on the imagination of the spectator1 the latter will pass over a thousand imperfections1 which reveal themselves to the reader1 who1 as he has to satisfy himself with the drama of silent images1 will nor be content if this or that in any way fall short of his conception of truth and nature1 --which seems equivalent to saying that the crucial test of the frieze of the ,parthenon is its adaptability to an apartment in ,bloomsbury4 ,so long as the illusion of the ,acropolis gave credit to ,pheidias' design1 and the sunlight of ,attica imposed its delicate intended shadows edging the reliefs1 the countrymen of ,pericles might be tricked2 but the visitor to the ,british ,museum1 as he has to satisfy himself with what happens indoors in the atmosphere of the ,west ,central ,postal ,division of ,london1 will not be content if ,pheidias in any way fall short of his conception of truth and nature4 ,yet ,fletcher 7,i take it7 constructed his plays as plays2 the illusion of the stage1 the persuasiveness of the actor's voice1 were conditions for which he wrought1 and on which he had a right to rely2 and1 in short1 any critic behaves uncritically who1 distrusting his imagination to recreate the play as a play1 elects to consider it in the category of something else4 ,in sum1 if the great authors never oppress us with airs of condescension1 but1 like the great lords they are1 put the meanest of us at our ease in their presence1 ,i see no reason why we should pay to any commentator a servility not demanded by his master4 ,my next two principles may be more briefly stated4 7#b7 ,i propose next1 then1 that since our investigations will deal largely with style1 that curiously personal thing2 and since 7as ,i have said7 they cannot in their nature be readily brought to rule-of-thumb tests1 and may therefore so easily be suspected of evading all tests1 of being mere dilettantism2 ,i propose 7,i say7 that my pupils and ,i rebuke this suspicion by constantly aiming at the concrete1 at the study of such definite beauties as we can see presented in print under our eyes2 always seeking the author's intention1 but eschewing1 for the present at any rate1 all general definitions and theories1 through the sieve of which the particular achievement of genius is so apt to slip4 ,and having excluded them at first in prudence1 ,i make little doubt we shall go on to exclude them in pride4 ,definitions1 formulae 7some would add1 creeds7 have their use in any society in that they restrain the ordinary unintellectual man from making himself a public nuisance with his private opinions4 ,but they go a very little way in helping the man who has a real sense of prose or verse4 ,in other words1 they are good discipline for some thyrsus-bearers1 but the initiated have little use for them4 ,as ,thomas a ,kempis 'would rather feel compunction than understand the definition thereof1' so the initiated man will say of the ',grand ,style1' for example--',why define it for me8' ,when ,viola says simply3 ,i am all the daughters of my father's house1 ,and all the brothers too1 or ,macbeth demands of the ,doctor ,canst thou not minister to a mind diseased1 ,pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow448 or ,hamlet greets ,ophelia1 reading her ,book of ,hours1 with ,nymph1 in thy orisons ,be all my sins remembered6 or when ,milton tells of his dead friend how ,together both1 ere the high lawns appear'd ,under the opening eyelids of the morn1 ,we drove afield1 or describes the battalions of ,heaven ,on they move ,indissolubly firm3 nor obvious hill1 ,nor strait'ning vale1 nor wood1 nor stream divide ,their perfect ranks1 or when ,gray exalts the great commonplace ,the boast of heraldry1 the pomp of power1 ,and all that beauty1 all that wealth e'er gave1 ,awaits alike th' inevitable hour2 ,the paths of glory lead but to the grave1 or when ,keats casually drops us such a line as ,the journey homeward to habitual self1 or1 to come down to our own times and to a living poet1 when ,i open on a page of ,william ,watson and read ,o ancient streams1 ,o far descended woods1 ,full of the fluttering of melodious souls6444 'why then 7will say the initiated one71 why worry me with any definition of the ,grand ,style in ,english1 when here1 and here1 and again here--in all these lines1 simple or intense or exquisite or solemn--,i recognise and feel the thing8' ,indeed1 ,sir1 the long and the short of the argument lie just here4 ,literature is not an abstract ,science1 to which exact definitions can be applied4 ,it is an ,art rather1 the success of which depends on personal persuasiveness1 on the author's skill to give as on ours to receive4 7#c7 ,for our third principle ,i will ask you to go back with me to ,plato's wayfarers1 whom we have left so long under the cypresses2 and loth as we must be to lay hands on our father ,parmenides1 ,i feel we must treat the gifted ,athenian stranger to a little manhandling4 ,for did you not observe--though ,greek was a living language and to his metropolitan mind the only language--how envious he showed himself to seal up the well1 or allow it to trickle only under permit of a public analyst3 to treat all innovation as suspect1 even as1 a hundred odd years ago1 the ,lyrical ,ballads were suspect8 ,but the very hope of this ,chair1 ,sir 7as ,i conceive it71 relies on the courage of the young4 ,as ,literature is an ,art and therefore not to be pondered only1 but practised1 so ours is a living language and therefore to be kept alive1 supple1 active in all honourable use4 ,the orator can yet sway men1 the poet ravish them1 the dramatist fill their lungs with salutary laughter or purge their emotions by pity or terror4 ,the historian 'superinduces upon events the charm of order4' ,the novelist--well1 even the novelist has his uses2 and ,i would warn you against despising any form of art which is alive and pliant in the hands of men4 ,for my part1 ,i believe1 bearing in mind ,mr4 ,barrie's ,peter ,pan and the old bottles he renovated to hold that joyous wine1 that even ,musical ,comedy1 in the hands of a master1 might become a thing of beauty4 ,of the ,novel1 at any rate--whether we like it or not--we have to admit that it does hold a commanding position in the literature of our times1 and to consider how far ,mr4 ,lascelles ,abercrombie was right the other day when he claimed1 on the first page of his brilliant study of ,thomas ,hardy1 that 'the right to such a position is not to be disputed2 for here1 as elsewhere1 the right to a position is no more than the power to maintain it4' ,you may agree with that or you may not2 you may or may not deplore the forms that literature is choosing now-a-days2 but there is no gainsaying that it is still very much alive4 ,and ,i would say to you1 ,gentlemen1 ',believe1 and be glad that ,literature and the ,english tongue are both alive4' ,carlyle1 in his explosive way1 once demanded of his countrymen1 ',shakespeare or ,india8 ,if you had to surrender one to retain the other1 which would you choose8' ,well1 our ,indian ,empire is yet in the making1 while the works of ,shakespeare are complete and purchasable in whole calf2 so the alternatives are scarcely in pari materia2 and moreover let us not be in a hurry to meet trouble half way4 ,but in ,english ,literature1 which1 like ,india1 is still in the making1 you have at once an ,empire and an ,emprise4 ,in that alone you have inherited something greater than ,sparta4 ,let us strive1 each in his little way1 to adorn it4 ,but here at the close of my hour1 the double argument1 that ,literature is an ,art and ,english a living tongue1 has led me right up to a fourth principle1 the plunge into which 7though ,i foresaw it from the first7 all the coward in me rejoices at having to defer to another lecture4 ,i conclude then1 ,gentlemen1 by answering two suspicions1 which very likely have been shaping themselves in your minds4 ,in the first place1 you will say1 ',it is all very well for this man to talk about cultivating an increased sensibility1 and the like2 but we know what that leads to--to quackery1 to aesthetic chatter3 ,isn't this pretty8 ,don't you admire that8' ,well1 ,i am not greatly frightened4 ,to begin with1 when we come to particular criticism ,i shall endeavour to exchange it with you in plain terms2 a manner which 7to quote ,mr ,robert ,bridges' ,essay on ,keats7 ',i prefer1 because by obliging the lecturer to say definitely what he means1 it makes his mistakes easy to point out1 and in this way the true business of criticism is advanced4' ,but ,i have a second safeguard1 more to be trusted3 that here in ,cambridge1 with all her traditions of austere scholarship1 anyone who indulges in loose distinct talk will be quickly recalled to his tether4 ,though at the time ,athene be not kind enough to descend from heaven and pluck him backward by the hair1 yet the very genius loci will walk home with him from the lecture room1 whispering monitions1 cruel to be kind4 ',but1' you will say alternatively1 'if we avoid loose talk on these matters we are embarking on a mighty difficult business4' ,why1 to be sure we are2 and that1 ,i hope1 will be half the enjoyment4 ,after all1 we have a number of critics among whose methods we may search for help--from the ,persian monarch who1 having to adjudicate upon two poems1 caused the one to be read to him1 and at once1 without ado1 awarded the prize to the other1 up to the great ,frenchman whom ,i shall finally invoke to sustain my hope of building something2 that is if you1 ,gentlemen1 will be content to accept me less as a ,professor than as an ,elder ,brother4 ,the ,frenchman is ,sainte-,beuve1 and ,i pay a debt1 perhaps appropriately here1 by quoting him as translated by the friend of mine1 now dead1 who first invited me to ,cambridge and taught me to admire her--one ,arthur ,john ,butler1 sometime a ,fellow of ,trinity1 and later a great pioneer among ,englishmen in the study of ,dante4 ,thus while you listen to the appeal of ,sainte-,beuve1 ,i can hear beneath it a more intimate voice1 not for the first time1 encouraging me4 ,sainte-,beuve then--si magna licet componere parvis--is delivering an ,inaugural ,lecture in the ,ecole ,normale1 the date being ,april #abth1 #aheh4 ',gentlemen1' he begins1 ',i have written a good deal in the last thirty years2 that is1 ,i have scattered myself a good deal2 so that ,i need to gather myself together1 in order that my words may come before you with all the more freedom and confidence4' ,that is his opening2 and he ends3-- ,as time goes on1 you will make me believe that ,i can for my part be of some good to you3 and with the generosity of your age you will repay me1 in this feeling alone1 far more than ,i shall be able to give you in intellectual freedom1 in literary thought4 ,if in one sense ,i bestow on you some of my experience1 you will requite me1 and in a more profitable manner1 by the sight of your ardour for what is noble3 you will accustom me to turn oftener and more willingly towards the future in your company4 ,you will teach me again to hope4 ,,lecture ,,ii4 ,,the ,,practice ,,of ,,writing4 ,wednesday1 ,february #ab ,we found1 ,gentlemen1 towards the close of our first lecture1 that the argument had drawn us1 as by a double chain1 up to the edge of a bold leap1 over which ,i deferred asking you to take the plunge with me4 ,yet the plunge must be taken1 and to-day ,i see nothing for it but to harden our hearts4 ,well1 then1 ,i propose to you that1 ,english ,literature being 7as we agreed7 an ,art1 with a living and therefore improvable language for its medium or vehicle1 a part--and no small part--of our business is to practise it4 ,yes1 ,i seriously propose to you that here in ,cambridge we practise writing3 that we practise it not only for our own improvement1 but to make1 or at least try to make1 appropriate1 perspicuous1 accurate1 persuasive writing a recognisable hall-mark of anything turned out by our ,english ,school4 ,by all means let us study the great writers of the past for their own sakes2 but let us study them for our guidance2 that we1 in our turn1 having 7it is to be hoped7 something to say in our span of time1 say it worthily1 not dwindling out the large utterance of ,shakespeare or of ,burke4 ,portraits of other great ones look down on you in your college halls3 but while you are young and sit at the brief feast1 what avails their serene gaze if it do not lift up your hearts and movingly persuade you to match your manhood to its inheritance8 ,i protest1 ,gentlemen1 that if our eyes had not been sealed1 as with wax1 by the pedagogues of whom ,i spoke a fortnight ago1 this one habit of regarding our own literature as a hortus siccus1 this our neglect to practise good writing as the constant auxiliary of an ,englishman's liberal education1 would be amazing to you seated here to-day as it will be starkly incredible to the future historian of our times4 ,tell me1 pray2 if it concerned ,painting--an art in which ,englishmen boast a record far briefer1 far less distinguished--what would you think of a similar acquiescence in the past1 a like haste to presume the dissolution of aptitude and to close accounts1 a like precipitancy to divorce us from the past1 to rob the future of hope and even the present of lively interest8 ,consider1 for reproof of these null men1 the ,discourses addressed 7in a pedantic age1 too7 by ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds to the ,members and ,students of the ,royal ,academy4 ,he has 7as you might expect7 enough to say of ,tintoretto1 of ,titian1 of ,caracci1 and of the duty of studying their work with patience1 with humility4 ,but why does he exhort his hearers to con them8--,why1 because he is all the time driving at practice4 ,hear how he opens his second ,discourse 7his first to the ,students74 ,after congratulating the prize-winners of #agfi1 he desires 'to lead them into such a course of study as may render their future progress answerable to their past improvement'2 and the great man goes on3-- ,i flatter myself that from the long experience ,i have had1 and the necessary assiduity with which ,i have pursued these studies in which like you ,i have been engaged1 ,i shall be acquitted of vanity in offering some hints to your consideration4 ,they are indeed in a great degree founded upon my own mistakes in the same pursuit4444 ,mark the noble modesty of that6 ,to resume-- ,in speaking to you of the ,theory of the ,art1 ,i shall only consider it as it has relation to the method of your studies4 ,and then he proceeds to preach the ,old ,masters4--,but how8--why8--to what end8 ,does he recite lists of names1 dates1 with formulae concerning styles8 ,he does nothing of the sort4 ,does he recommend his old masters for copying1 then8--for mere imitation8 ,not a bit of it6--he comes down like a hammer on copying4 ,then for what1 in fine1 will he have them studied8 ,listen3-- ,the more extensive your acquaintance is with the works of those who have excelled1 the more extensive will be your powers of invention4 ,yes1 of invention1 your power to make something new3 --and what may appear still more like a paradox1 the more original will be your conceptions4 ,there spake ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds3 and ,i call that the voice of a true ,elder ,brother4 ,he1 standing face to face with the young1 thought of the old masters mainly as spiritual begetters of practice4 ,and will anyone in this room tell me that what ,reynolds said of painting is not to-day1 for us1 applicable to writing8 ,we accept it of ,greek and ,latin4 ,an old ,sixth ,form master once said to me1 ',you may give up ,latin ,verse for this term1 if you will3 but ,i warn you1 no one can be a real scholar who does not constantly practise verse4' ,he was mistaken1 belike4 ,i hold1 for my part1 that in our ,public ,schools1 we give up a quite disproportionate amount of time to 'composition' 7of ,latin ,prose especially7 and starve the boys' reading thereby4 ,but at any rate we do give up a large share of the time to it4 ,then if we insist on this way with the tongues of ,homer and ,virgil1 why do we avoid it with the tongue of ,shakespeare1 our own living tongue8 ,i answer by quoting one of the simplest wisest sayings of ,don ,quixote 7,gentlemen1 you will easily1 as time goes on1 and we better our acquaintance1 discover my favourite authors73-- ,the great ,homer wrote not in ,latin1 for he was a ,greek2 and ,virgil wrote not in ,greek1 because he was a ,latin4 ,in brief1 all the ancient poets wrote in the tongue which they sucked in with their mother's milk1 nor did they go forth to seek for strange ones to express the greatness of their conceptions3 and1 this being so1 it should be a reason for the fashion to extend to all nations4 ,does the difference1 then1 perchance lie in ourselves8 ,will you tell me1 ',oh1 painting is a special art1 whereas anyone can write prose passably well'8 ,can he1 indeed8444 ,can you1 sir8 ,nay1 believe me1 you are either an archangel or a very bourgeois gentleman indeed if you admit to having spoken ,english prose all your life without knowing it4 ,indeed1 when we try to speak prose without having practised it the result is apt to be worse than our own vernacular4 ,how often have ,i heard some worthy fellow addressing a public audience6--say a ,parliamentary candidate who believes himself a ,liberal ,home ,ruler1 and for the moment is addressing himself to meet some criticism of the financial proposals of a ,home ,rule ,bill4 ,his own vernacular would be somewhat as follows3-- ,oh1 rot6 ,give the ,irish their heads and they'll run straight enough4 ,look at the ,boers1 don't you know4 ,not half such a decent sort as the ,irish4 ,look at ,irish horses1 too4 ,eh8 ,what8 ,but this1 he is conscious1 would hardly suit the occasion4 ,he therefore amends it thus3-- ,mr ,chairman--er--as regards the financial proposals of ,his ,majesty's ,government1 ,i am of the deliberate--er--opinion that our national security--,i may say1 our ,imperial security--our security as--er--a governing people--lies in trusting the ,irish as we did in the--er --case of the ,boers--,h'm ,mr ,gladstone1 ,mr ,chairman--,mr ,chairman1 ,mr ,gladstone---- and so on4 ,you perceive that the style is actually worse than in the sample quoted before2 it has become flabby whereas that other was at any rate nervous8 ,but now suppose that1 having practised it1 our candidate was able to speak like this3-- ',but what 7says the ,financier7 is peace to us without money8 ,your plan gives us no revenue4' ,no8 ,but it does--for it secures to the subject the power of ,refusal1 the first of all ,revenues4 ,experience is a cheat1 and fact is a liar1 if this power in the subject of proportioning his grant1 or of not granting at all1 has not been found the richest mine of ,revenue ever discovered by the skill or by the fortune of man4 ,it does not indeed vote you #aeb1gej pounds #aa shillings #b #c_/d pence1 nor any other paltry limited sum--but it gives you the strong box itself1 the fund1 the bank1 from whence only revenues can arise among a people sensible of freedom3 ,posita luditur arca4444 ,is this principle to be true in ,england1 and false everywhere else8 ,is it not true in ,ireland8 ,has it not hitherto been true in the ,colonies8 ,why should you presume that in any country a body duly constituted for any function will neglect to perform its duty and abdicate its trust8 ,such a presumption would go against all ,governments in all nations4 ,but in truth this dread of penury of supply1 from a free assembly1 has no foundation in nature4 ,for first1 observe that1 besides the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the honour of their own ,government1 that sense of dignity1 and that security to property1 which ever attend freedom1 have a tendency to increase the stock of a free community4 ,most may be taken where most is accumulated4 ,and what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty1 bursting from the weight of its own luxuriance1 has ever run with a more copious stream of revenue than could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence by the straining of all the politic machinery in the world8 ,that1 whether you agree or disagree with its doctrine1 is great prose4 ,that is ,burke4 ',o ,athenian stranger1' said the ,cretan ,i quoted in my first lecture1--'inhabitant of ,attica ,i will not call you1 since you deserve the name of ,athene herself1 because you go back to first principles6' ,but1 you may object1 ',burke is talking like a book1 and ,i have no wish to talk like a book4' ,well1 as a fact1 ,burke is here at the culmen of a long sustained argument1 and his language has soared with it1 as his way was--logic and emotion lifting him together as upon two balanced majestic wings4 ,but you are shy of such heights8 ,very well again1 and all credit to your modesty6 ,yet at least 7,i appeal to that same modesty7 when you talk or write1 you would wish to observe the occasion2 to say what you have to say without impertinence or ill-timed excess4 ,you would not harangue a drawing-room or a subcommittee1 or be facetious at a funeral1 or play the skeleton at a banquet3 for in all such conduct you would be mixing up things that differ4 ,be cheerful1 then3 for this desire of yours to be appropriate is really the root of the matter4 ,nor do ,i ask you to accept this on my sole word1 but will cite you the most respectable witnesses4 ,take1 for instance1 a critic who should be old enough to impress you--,dionysius of ,halicarnassus4 ,after enumerating the qualities which lend charm and nobility to style1 he closes the list with 'appropriateness1 which all these need'3-- ,as there is a charming diction1 so there is another that is noble2 as there is a polished rhythm1 so there is another that is dignified2 as variety adds grace in one passage1 so in another it adds fulness2 and as for appropriation1 it will prove the chief source of beauty1 or else of nothing at all4 ,or listen to ,cicero1 how he sets appropriateness in the very heart of his teaching1 as the master secret3-- ,is erit eloquens qui poterit parva summisse1 modica temperate1 magna graviter dicere4444 ,qui ad id quodcunque decebit poterit accommodare orationem4 ,quod quum statuerit1 tum1 ut quidque erit dicendum1 ita dicet1 nec satura jejune1 nec grandia minute1 nec item contra1 sed erit rebus ipsis par et aequalis oratio4 ',whatever his theme he will speak as becomes it2 neither meagrely where it is copious1 nor meanly where it is ample1 nor in this way where it demands that2 but keeping his speech level with the actual subject and adequate to it4' ,i might quote another great man1 ,quintilian1 to you on the first importance of this appropriateness1 or 'propriety'2 of speaking not only to the purpose but becomingly--though the two as 7he rightly says7 are often enough one and the same thing4 ,but ,i will pass on to what has ever seemed1 since ,i found it in one of ,jowett's ',introductions' to ,plato1 the best definition known to me of good style in literature3-- ,the perfection of style is variety in unity1 freedom1 ease1 clearness1 the power of saying anything1 and of striking any note in the scale of human feelings1 without impropriety4 ,you see1 ,o my modest friend6 that your gamut needs not to be very wide1 to begin with4 ,the point is that within it you learn to play becomingly4 ,now ,i started by proposing that we try together to make appropriate1 perspicuous1 accurate1 persuasive writing a hall-mark of anything turned out by our ,english ,school here1 and ,i would add 7growing somewhat hardier7 a hall-mark of all ,cambridge style so far as our ,english ,school can influence it4 ,i chose these four epithets accurate1 perspicuous1 persuasive1 appropriate1 with some care1 of course as my duty was2 and will assume that by this time we are agreed to desire appropriateness4 ,now for the other three3-- ,perspicuity4--,i shall waste no words on the need of this3 since the first aim of speech is to be understood4 ,the more clearly you write the more easily and surely you will be understood4 ,i propose to demonstrate to you further1 in a minute or so1 that the more clearly you write the more clearly you will understand yourself4 ,but a sufficient reason has been given in ten words why you should desire perspicuity4 ,accuracy4--,did ,i not remind myself in my first lecture1 that ,cambridge is the home of accurate scholarship8 ,surely no ,cambridge man would willingly be a sloven in speech1 oral or written8 ,surely here1 if anywhere1 should be acknowledged of all what ,newman says of the classics1 that 'a certain unaffected neatness and propriety and grace of diction may be required of any author1 for the same reason that a certain attention to dress is expected of every gentleman4' ,after all1 what are the chief differentiae between man and the brute creation but that he clothes himself1 that he cooks his food1 that he uses articulate speech8 ,let us cherish and improve all these distinctions4 ,but shall we now look more carefully into these twin questions of perspicuity and accuracy3 for ,i think pursuing them1 we may almost reach the philosophic kernel of good writing4 ,i quoted ,newman playfully a moment ago4 ,i am going to quote him in strong earnest4 ,and here let me say that of all the books written in these hundred years there is perhaps none you can more profitably thumb and ponder than that volume of his in which1 under the title of ,the ,idea of a ,university1 he collected nine discourses addressed to the ,roman ,catholics of ,dublin with some lectures delivered to the ,catholic ,university there4 ,it is fragmentary1 because its themes were occasional4 ,it has missed to be appraised at its true worth1 partly no doubt by reason of the colour it derives from a religion still unpopular in ,england4 ,but in fact it may be read without offence by the strictest ,protestant2 and the book is so wise--so eminently wise--as to deserve being bound by the young student of literature for a frontlet on his brow and a talisman on his writing wrist4 ,now you will find much pretty swordsmanship in its pages1 but nothing more trenchant than the passage in which ,newman assails and puts to rout the ,persian host of infidels--,i regret to say1 for the most part ,men of ,science--who would persuade us that good writing1 that style1 is something extrinsic to the subject1 a kind of ornamentation laid on to tickle the taste1 a study for the dilettante1 but beneath the notice of their stern and masculine minds4 ,such a view1 as he justly points out1 belongs rather to the ,oriental mind than to our civilisation3 it reminds him of the way young gentlemen go to work in the ,east when they would engage in correspondence with the object of their affection4 ,the enamoured one cannot write a sentence himself3 he is the specialist in passion 7for the moment72 but thought and words are two things to him1 and for words he must go to another specialist1 the professional letter-writer4 ,thus there is a division of labour4 ,the man of words1 duly instructed1 dips the pen of desire in the ink of devotedness and proceeds to spread it over the page of desolation4 ,then the nightingale of affection is heard to warble to the rose of loveliness1 while the breeze of anxiety plays around the brow of expectation4 ,that is what the ,easterns are said to consider fine writing2 and it seems pretty much the idea of the school of critics to which ,i have been referring4 ,now hear this fine passage3-- ,thought and speech are inseparable from each other4 ,matter and expression are parts of one2 style is a thinking out into language4 ,that is what ,i have been laying down1 and this is literature2 not things1 but the verbal symbols of things2 not on the other hand mere words2 but thoughts expressed in language4 ,call to mind1 gentlemen1 the meaning of the ,greek word which expresses this special prerogative of man over the feeble intelligence of the lower animals4 ,it is called ,logos2 what does ,logos mean8 it stands both for reason and for speech1 and it is difficult to say which it means more properly4 ,it means both at once3 why8 because really they cannot be divided4444 ,when we can separate light and illumination1 life and motion1 the convex and the concave of a curve1 then will it be possible for thought to tread speech under foot and to hope to do without it--then will it be conceivable that the vigorous and fertile intellect should renounce its own double1 its instrument of expression and the channel of its speculations and emotions4 ',as if1' he exclaims finely1 'language were the hired servant1 the mere mistress of reason1 and not the lawful wife in her own house6' ,if you need further argument 7but what serves it to slay the slain87 let me remind you that you cannot use the briefest1 the humblest process of thought1 cannot so much as resolve to take your bath hot or cold1 or decide what to order for breakfast1 without forecasting it to yourself in some form of words4 ,words are1 in fine1 the only currency in which we can exchange thought even with ourselves4 ,does it not follow1 then1 that the more accurately we use words the closer definition we shall give to our thoughts8 ,does it not follow that by drilling ourselves to write perspicuously we train our minds to clarify their thought8 ,does it not follow that some practice in the deft use of words1 with its correspondent defining of thought1 may well be ancillary even to the study of ,natural ,science in a ,university8 ,but ,i have another word for our men of science4 ,it was inevitable1 perhaps1 that ,latin--so long the ,universal ,language--should cease in time to be that in which scientific works were written4 ,it was impossible1 perhaps1 to substitute1 by consent1 some equally neat and austere modern language1 such as ,french4 ,but when it became an accepted custom for each nation to use its own language in scientific treatises1 it certainly was not foreseen that men of science would soon be making discoveries at a rate which left their skill in words outstripped2 that having to invent their terms as they went along1 yet being careless and contemptuous of a science in which they have no training1 they would bombast out our dictionaries with monstrously invented words that not only would have made ,quintilian stare and gasp1 but would affront the decently literate of any age4 ,after all1 and though we must sigh and acquiesce in the building of ,babel1 we have some right to examine the bricks4 ,i was waiting1 the other day1 in a doctor's anteroom1 and picked up one of those books--it was a work on pathology--so thoughtfully left lying in such places2 to persuade us1 no doubt1 to bear the ills we have rather than fly to others capable of being illustrated4 ,i found myself engaged in following the manoeuvres of certain well-meaning bacilli generically described as ',antibodies4' ,i do not accuse the author 7who seemed to be a learned man7 of having invented this abominable term3 apparently it passed current among physiologists and he had accepted it for honest coin4 ,i found it1 later on1 in ,webster's invaluable dictionary3 ,etymology1 'anti' up against 'body'1 some noxious 'foreign body' inside your body or mine4 ,now gin a body meet a body for our protection and in this gallant spirit1 need a body reward him with this hybrid label8 ,gratitude apart1 ,i say that for our own self-respect1 whilst we retain any sense of intellectual pedigree1 'antibody' is no word to throw at a friendly bacillus4 ,is it consonant with the high dignity of science to make her talk like a cheap showman advertising a 'picture-drome'8 ,the man who eats peas with his knife can at least claim a historical throwback to the days when forks had but two prongs and the spoons had been removed with the soup4 ,but 'antibody' has no such respectable derivation4 ,it is1 in fact1 a barbarism1 and a mongrel at that4 ,the man who uses it debases the currency of learning3 and ,i suggest to you that it is one of the many functions of a great ,university to maintain the standard of that currency1 to guard the jus et norma loquendi1 to protect us from such hasty fellows or1 rather1 to suppeditate them in their haste4 ,let me revert to our list of the qualities necessary to good writing1 and come to the last--,persuasiveness2 of which you may say1 indeed1 that it embraces the whole--not only the qualities of propriety1 perspicuity1 accuracy1 we have been considering1 but many another1 such as harmony1 order1 sublimity1 beauty of diction2 all in short that--writing being an art1 not a science1 and therefore so personal a thing--may be summed up under the word ,charm4 ,who1 at any rate1 does not seek after ,persuasion8 ,it is the aim of all the arts and1 ,i suppose1 of all exposition of the sciences2 nay1 of all useful exchange of converse in our daily life4 ,it is what ,velasquez attempts in a picture1 ,euclid in a proposition1 the ,prime ,minister at the ,treasury box1 the journalist in a leading article1 our ,vicar in his sermon4 ,persuasion1 as ,matthew ,arnold once said1 is the only true intellectual process4 ,the mere cult of it occupied many of the best intellects of the ancients1 such as ,longinus and ,quintilian1 whose writings have been preserved to us just because they were prized4 ,nor can ,i imagine an earthly gift more covetable by you1 ,gentlemen1 than that of persuading your fellows to listen to your views and attend to what you have at heart4 ,suppose1 sir1 that you wish to become a journalist8 ,well1 and why not8 ,is it a small thing to desire the power of influencing day by day to better citizenship an unguessed number of men1 using the best thought and applying it in the best language at your command8444 ,or are you1 perhaps1 overawed by the printed book8 ,on that1 too1 ,i might have a good deal to say2 but for the moment would keep the question as practical as ,i can4 ,well1 it is sometimes said that ,oxford men make better journalists than ,cambridge men1 and some attribute this to the discipline of their great ,school of ,literae ,humaniores1 which obliges them to bring up a weekly essay to their tutor1 who discusses it4 ,cambridge men retort that all ,oxford men are journalists1 and throw1 of course1 some accent of scorn on the word4 ,but may ,i urge--and remember please that my credit is pledged to you now--may ,i urge that this is not a wholly convincing answer8 ,for1 to begin with1 ,oxford men have not changed their natures since leaving school1 but are1 by process upon lines not widely divergent from your own1 much the same pleasant sensible fellows you remember4 ,and1 next1 if you truly despise journalism1 why then despise it1 have done with it and leave it alone4 ,but ,i pray you1 do not despise it if you mean to practise it1 though it be but as a step to something better4 ,for while the ways of art are hard at the best1 they will break you if you go unsustained by belief in what you are trying to do4 ,in asking you to practise the written word1 ,i began with such low but necessary things as propriety1 perspicuity1 accuracy4 ,but persuasion--the highest form of persuasion at any rate--cannot be achieved without a sense of beauty4 ,and now ,i shoot a second rapid--,i want you to practise verse1 and to practise it assiduously4444 ,i am quite serious4 ,let me remind you that1 if there ever was an ancient state of which we of ,great ,britain have great right and should have greater ambition to claim ourselves the spiritual heirs1 that state was ,imperial ,rome4 ,and of the ,romans 7whom you will allow to have been a practical people7 nothing is more certain than the value they set upon acquiring verse4 ,to them it was not only 7as ,dr ,johnson said of ,greek7 'like old lace--you can never have too much of it4' ,they cultivated it with a straight eye to national improvement4 ,among them1 as a scholar reminded us the other day1 you find 'an educational system deliberately and steadily directed towards the development of poetical talent4 ,they were not a people of whom we can say1 as we can of the ,greeks1 that they were born to art and literature4444 ,the characteristic ,roman triumphs are the triumphs of a material civilisation4' ,rome's role in the world was 'the absorption of outlying genius4' ,themselves an unimaginative race with a language not too tractable to poetry1 they made great poetry1 and they made it of patient set purpose1 of hard practice4 ,i shall revert to this and maybe amplify reasons in another lecture4 ,for the moment ,i content myself with stating the fact that no nation ever believed in poetry so deeply as the ,romans4 ,perpend this then1 and do not too hastily deride my plea that you should practise verse-writing4 ,i know most of the objections1 though ,i may not remember all4 ,mediocribus esse poetis1 etc4--that summarises most of them3 yet of an infliction of much bad verse from you1 if ,i am prepared to endure it1 why should anyone else complain8 ,i say that the youth of a ,university ought to practise verse-writing2 and will try to bring this home to you by an argument convincing to me1 though ,i have never seen it in print4 ,what are the great poetical names of the last hundred years or so8 ,coleridge1 ,wordsworth1 ,byron1 ,shelley1 ,landor1 ,keats1 ,tennyson1 ,browning1 ,arnold1 ,morris1 ,rossetti1 ,swinburne--we may stop there4 ,of these all but ,keats1 ,browning1 ,rossetti were ,university men2 and of these three ,keats1 who died young1 cut off in his prime1 was the only one not fairly well-to-do4 ,it may seem a brutal thing to say1 and it is a sad thing to say3 but1 as a matter of hard fact1 the theory that poetical genius bloweth where it listeth1 and equally in poor and rich1 holds little truth4 ,as a matter of hard fact1 nine out of those twelve were ,university men3 which means that somehow or other they procured the means to get the best education ,england can give4 ,as a matter of hard fact1 of the remaining three you know that ,browning was well-to-do1 and ,i challenge you that1 if he had not been well-to-do1 he would no more have attained to writing ,saul or ,the ,ring and the ,book than ,ruskin would have attained to writing ,modern ,painters if his father had not dealt prosperously in business4 ,rossetti had a small private income2 and1 moreover1 he painted4 ,there remains but ,keats2 whom ,atropos slew young1 as she slew ,john ,clare in a madhouse1 and ,james ,thomson by the laudanum he took to drug disappointment4 ,these are dreadful facts1 but let us face them4 ,it is--however dishonouring to us as a nation--certain that1 by some fault in our commonwealth1 the poor poet has not in these days1 nor has had for two hundred years1 a dog's chance4 ,believe me--and ,i have spent a great part of the last ten years in watching some #cbj ,elementary ,schools--we may prate of democracy1 but actually a poor child in ,england has little more hope than had the son of an ,athenian slave to be emancipated into that intellectual freedom of which great writings are born4 ,what do ,i argue from this8 ,i argue that until we can bring more intellectual freedom into our ,state1 more 'joy in widest commonalty spread1' upon you1 a few favoured ones1 rests an obligation to see that the springs of ,english poetry do not fail4 ,i put it to you that of this glory of our birth and state you are the temporary stewards4 ,i put it to the ,university1 considered as a dispenser of intellectual light1 that to treat ,english poetry as though it had died with ,tennyson and your lecturers had but to compose the features of a corpse1 is to abnegate high hope for the sake of a barren convenience4 ,i put it to the ,colleges1 considered as disciplinary bodies1 that the old way of letting ,coleridge slip1 chasing forth ,shelley1 is1 after all1 not the wisest way4 ,recollect that in ,poesy as in every other human business1 the more there are who practise it the greater will be the chance of someone's reaching perfection4 ,it is the impetus of the undistinguished host that flings forward a ,diomed or a ,hector4 ,and when you point with pride to ,milton's and those other mulberry trees in your ,academe1 bethink you ',what poets are they shading to-day8 ,or are their leaves but feeding worms to spin gowns to drape ,doctors of ,letters8' ,in the life of ,benvenuto ,cellini you will find this passage worth your pondering4--,he is telling how1 while giving the last touches to his ,perseus in the great square of ,florence1 he and his workmen inhabited a shed built around the statue4 ,he goes on3-- ,the folk kept on attaching sonnets to the posts of the door4444,i believe that1 on the day when ,i opened it for a few hours to the public1 more than twenty were nailed up1 all of them overflowing with the highest panegyrics4 ,afterwards1 when ,i once more shut it off from view1 everyone brought sonnets1 with ,latin and ,greek verses3 for the ,university of ,pisa was then in vacation1 and all the doctors and scholars kept vying with each other who could produce the best4 ,i may not live to see the doctors and scholars of this ,university thus employing the ,long ,vacation2 as perhaps we shall wait some time for another ,perseus to excite them to it4 ,but ,i do ask you to consider that the ,perseus was not entirely cause nor the sonnets entirely effect2 that the age when men are eager about great work is the age when great work gets itself done2 nor need it disturb us that most of the sonnets were1 likely enough1 very bad ones--in ,charles ,lamb's phrase1 very like what ,petrarch might have written if ,petrarch had been born a fool4 ,it is the impetus that ,i ask of you3 the will to try4 ,lastly1 ,gentlemen1 do not set me down as one who girds at your preoccupation1 up here1 with bodily games2 for1 indeed1 ,i hold 'gymnastic' to be necessary as 'music' 7using both words in the ,greek sense7 for the training of such youths as we desire to send forth from ,cambridge4 ,but ,i plead that they should be balanced1 as they were in the perfect young knight with whose words ,i will conclude to-day3-- ,having this day my horse1 my hand1 my lance ,guided so well that ,i obtained the prize1 ,both by the judgment of the ,english eyes ,and of some sent by that sweet enemy ,france2 ,horsemen my skill in horsemanship advance1 ,town-folk my strength1 a daintier judge applies ,his praise to sleight which from good use doth rise2 ,some lucky wits impute it but to chance2 ,others1 because of both sides ,i do take ,my blood from them who did excel in this1 ,think ,nature me a man-at-arms did make4 ,how far they shot awry6 the true cause is1 ,stella looked on2 and from her heavenly face ,sent forth the beams which made so fair my race4 ',untrue1' you say8 ,well1 there is truth of emotion as well as of fact2 and who is there among you but would fain be able not only to win such a guerdon but to lay it in such wise at your lady's feet8 ,that then was ,philip ,sidney1 called the peerless one of his age2 and perhaps no ,englishman ever lived more graciously or1 having used life1 made a better end4 ,but you have seen this morning's newspaper3 you have read of ,captain ,scott and his comrades1 and in particular of the death of ,captain ,oates2 and you know that the breed of ,sidney is not extinct4 ,gentlemen1 let us keep our language noble3 for we still have heroes to commemorate6#a ,footnote #a3 ,the date of the above lecture was ,wednesday1 ,february #abth1 #aiac1 the date on which our morning newspapers printed the first telegrams giving particulars of the fate of ,captain ,scott's heroic conquest of the ,south ,pole1 and still more glorious1 though defeated1 return4 ,the first brief message concerning ,captain ,oates1 ran as follows3-- ',from the records found in the tent where the bodies were discovered it appeared that ,captain ,oates's feet and hands were badly frost-bitten1 and1 although he struggled on heroically1 his comrades knew on ,march #af that his end was approaching4 ,he had borne intense suffering for weeks without complaint1 and he did not give up hope to the very end4 ,he was a brave soul4 ,he slept through the night hoping not to wake2 but he awoke in the morning4 ,it was blowing a blizzard4 ,oates said3 ',i am just going outside1 and ,i may be some time4' ,he went out into the blizzard1 and we have not seen him since4 ,we knew that ,oates was walking to his death1 but though we tried to dissuade him1 we knew it was the act of a brave man and an ,english gentleman4' ,,lecture ,,iii4 ,,on ,,the ,,difference ,,between ,,verse ,,and ,,prose ,wednesday1 ,february #bf ,you will forgive me1 ,gentlemen1 that having in my second lecture encouraged you to the practice of verse as well as of prose1 ,i seize the very next opportunity to warn you against confusing the two1 which differ on some points essentially1 and always so as to demand separate rules--or rather 7since ,i am shy of the word 'rules'7 a different concept of what the writer should aim at and what avoid4 ,but you must1 pray1 understand that what follows will be more useful to the tiro in prose than to the tiro in verse2 for while even a lecturer may help you to avoid writing prose in the manner of ,milton1 only the gods--and they hardly--can cure a versifier of being prosaic4 ,we started upon a promise to do without scientific definitions2 and in drawing some distinctions to-day between verse and prose ,i shall use only a few rough ones2 good1 as ,i hope1 so far as they go2 not to be found contrary to your scientific ones1 if ever1 under another teacher you attain to them2 yet for the moment used only as guides to practice1 and pretending to be no more4 ,thus ,i go some way--though by no means all the way--towards defining literature when ,i remind you that its very name 7litterae--letters7 implies the written rather than the spoken word2 that1 for example1 however closely they approximate one to the other as we trace them back1 and even though we trace them back to identical beginnings1 the ,writer--the ,man of ,letters--does to-day differ from the ,orator4 ,there was a time1 as you know1 when the poet and the historian had no less than the orator1 and in the most literal sense1 to 'get a hearing4' ,nay1 he got it with more pains3 for the orator had his senate-house or his law-court provided1 whereas ,thespis jogged to fairs in a cart1 and the ,muse of ,history1 like any street acrobat1 had to collect her own crowd4 ,herodotus in search of a public packed his history in a portmanteau1 carted it to ,olympia1 found a favourable 'pitch1' as we should say1 and wooed an audience to him much as on a racecourse nowadays do those philanthropic gentlemen who ply a dubious trade with three half-crowns and a gold chain4 ,it would cost us an effort to imagine the late ,bishop ,stubbs thus trying his fortune with a bag full of select ,charters at ,queen's ,club or at ,kempton ,park1 and exerting his lungs to retrieve a crowd that showed some disposition to edge off towards the ring or the rails4 ,the historian's conditions have improved2 and like any other sensible man he has advanced his claim with them1 and revised his method4 ,he writes nowadays with his eye on the printed book4 ,he may or may not be a dull fellow3 being a dull fellow1 he may or may not be aware of it2 but at least he knows that1 if you lay him upside down on your knee1 you can on awaking pick him up1 resume your absorption1 and even turn back some pages to discover just where or why your interest flagged3 whereas a ,hellene who deserted ,herodotus1 having a bet on the ,pentathlon1 not only missed what he missed but missed it for life4 ,the invention of print1 of course1 has made all1 or almost all1 the difference4 ,i do not forget that the printed book--the written word--presupposes a speaking voice1 and must ever have at its back some sense in us of the speaking voice4 ,but in writing prose nowadays1 while always recollecting that prose has its origin in speech--even as it behoves us to recollect that ,homer intoned the ,iliad to the harp and ,sappho plucked her passion from the lyre--we have to take things as they are4 ,except ,burns1 ,heine1 ,beranger 7with ,moore1 if you will71 and you will find it hard to compile in all the lyrical poetry of the last #aej years a list of half a dozen first-class or even second-class bards who wrote primarily to be sung4 ,it may help you to estimate how far lyrical verse has travelled from its origins if you will but remind yourselves that a sonnet and a sonata were once the same thing1 and that a ballad meant a song accompanied by dancing--the word ballata having been specialised down1 on the one line to the ballet1 in which ,mademoiselle ,genee or the ,russian performers will dance for our delight1 using no words at all2 on the other to ,sir ,patrick ,spens or ,clerk ,saunders1 'ballads' to which no one in his senses would dream of pointing a toe4 ,thus with ,verse the written 7or printed7 word has pretty thoroughly ousted the speaking voice and its auxiliaries--the pipe1 the lute1 the tabor1 the chorus with its dance movements and swaying of the body2 and in a quieter way much the same thing is happening to prose4 ,in the ,drama1 to be sure1 we still write 7or we should7 for the actors1 reckon upon their intonations1 their gestures1 lay account with the tears in the heroine's eyes and her visible beauty3 though even in the ,drama to-day you may detect a tendency to substitute dialectic for action and paragraphs for the ,greek3 ,stichomuthia1 the sharp outcries of passion in its give-and-take4 ,again we still--some of us--deliver sermons from pulpits and orations in ,parliament or upon public platforms4 ,yet ,i am told that the vogue of the sermon is passing2 and 7by journalists7 that the leading article has largely superseded it4 ,on that point ,i can offer you no personal evidence2 but of civil oratory ,i am very sure that the whole pitch has been sensibly lowered since the day of ,chatham1 ,burke1 ,sheridan2 since the day of ,brougham and ,canning2 nay1 ever since the day of ,bright1 ,gladstone1 ,disraeli4 ,burke1 as everyone knows1 once brought down a ,brummagem dagger and cast it on the floor of the ,house4 ,lord ,chancellor ,brougham in a peroration once knelt to the assembled peers1 ',here the noble lord inclined his knee to the ,woolsack' is1 if ,i remember1 the stage direction in ,hansard4 ,gentlemen1 though in the course of destiny one or another of you may be called upon to speak daggers to the ,treasury ,bench1 ,i feel sure you will use none2 while1 as for ,lord ,brougham's genuflexions1 we may agree that to emulate them would cost ,lord ,haldane an effort4 ,these and even far less flagrant or flamboyant tricks of virtuosity have gone quite out of fashion4 ,you could hardly revive them to-day and keep that propriety to which ,i exhorted you a fortnight ago4 ,they would be out of tune2 they would grate upon the nerves2 they would offend against the whole style of modern oratory1 which steadily tends to lower its key1 to use the note of quiet business-like exposition1 to adopt more and more the style of written prose4 ,let me help your sense of this change1 by a further illustration4 ,burke1 as we know1 was never shy of declaiming--even of declaiming in a torrent--when he stood up to speak3 but almost as little was he shy of it when he sat down to write4 ,if you turn to his ,letters on the ,regicide ,peace --no raw compositions1 but penned in his latter days and closing1 or almost closing1 upon that tenderest of farewells to his country-- ,in this good old ,house1 where everything at least is well aired1 ,i shall be content to put up my fatigued horses and here take a bed for the long night that begins to darken upon me-- if1 ,i say1 you turn to these ,letters on the ,regicide ,peace and consult the title-page1 you will find them ostensibly addressed to 'a ,member of the present ,parliament'2 and the opening paragraphs assume that ,burke and his correspondent are in general agreement4 ,but skim the pages and your eyes will be arrested again and again by sentences like these3-- ,the calculation of profit in all such wars is false4 ,on balancing the account of such wars1 ten thousand hogsheads of sugar are purchased at ten thousand times their price--the blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man4 ,it is well shed for our family1 for our friends1 for our ,god1 for our country1 for our kind4 ,the rest is vanity2 the rest is crime4 ,magnificent1 truly6 ,but your ear has doubtless detected the blank verse--three iambic lines3-- ,are purchased at ten thousand times their price444 ,be shed but to redeem the blood of man444 ,the rest is vanity2 the rest is crime4 ,again ,burke catches your eye by rhetorical inversions3-- ,but too often different is rational conjecture from melancholy fact1 ,well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar1 by repetitions3-- ,never1 no never1 did ,nature say one thing and ,wisdom say another 444 ,algiers is not near2 ,algiers is not powerful2 ,algiers is not our neighbour2 ,algiers is not infectious4 ,algiers1 whatever it may be1 is an old creation2 and we have good data to calculate all the mischief to be apprehended from it4 ,when ,i find ,algiers transferred to ,calais1 ,i will tell you what ,i think of that point-- by quick staccato utterances1 such as3-- ,and is this example nothing8 ,it is everything4 ,example is the school of mankind1 and they will learn at no other-- or ,our dignity8 ,that is gone4 ,i shall say no more about it4 ,light lie the earth on the ashes of ,english pride6 ,i say that the eye or ear1 caught by such tropes1 must 7if it be critical7 recognise them at once as rhetoric1 as the spoken word masquerading under guise of the written4 ,burke may pretend to be seated1 penning a letter to a worthy man who will read it in his slippers3 but actually ,burke is up and pacing his library at ,beaconsfield1 now striding from fire-place to window with hands clasped under his coat tails1 anon pausing to fling out an arm with some familiar accustomed gesture in a ,house of ,commons that knows him no more1 towards a ,front ,bench peopled by shades4 ,in fine the pretence is ,cicero writing to ,atticus1 but the style is ,cicero denouncing ,catiline4 ,as such it is not for your imitation4 ,burke happened to be a genius1 with a swoop and range of mind1 as of language to interpret it1 with a gift to enchant1 a power to strike and astound1 which together make him1 to my thinking1 the man in our literature most nearly comparable with ,shakespeare4 ,others may be more to your taste2 you may love others better3 but no other two leave you so hopeless of discovering how it is done4 ,yet not for this reason only would ,i warn you against imitating either4 ,for like all great artists they accepted their conditions and wrought for them1 and those conditions have changed4 ,when ,jacques wished to recite to an ,elizabethan audience that ,all the world's a stage1 ,and all the men and women merely players-- or ,hamlet to soliloquise ,to be1 or not to be3 that is the question-- the one did not stretch himself under a property oak1 nor did the other cast himself back in a chair and dangle his legs4 ,they both advanced boldly from the stage1 down a narrow platform provided for such recitations and for that purpose built boldly forward into the auditorium1 struck an attitude1 declaimed the purple passage1 and returned1 covered with applause1 to continue the action of the play4 ,this was the theatrical convention2 this the audience expected and understood2 for this ,shakespeare wrote4 ,similarly1 though the device must have been wearing thin even in #agie-f1 ,burke cast a familiar epistle into language proper to be addressed to ,mr ,speaker of the ,house of ,commons4 ,shakespeare wrote1 as ,burke wrote1 for his audience2 and their glory is that they have outlasted the conditions they observed4 ,yet it was by observing them that they gained the world's ear4 ,let us1 who are less than they1 beware of scorning to belong to our own time4 ,for my part ,i have a great hankering to see ,english ,literature feeling back through these old modes to its origins4 ,i think1 for example1 that if we studied to write verse that could really be sung1 or if we were more studious to write prose that could be read aloud with pleasure to the ear1 we should be opening the pores to the ancient sap2 since the roots are always the roots1 and we can only reinvigorate our growth through them4 ,unhappily1 however1 ,i cannot preach this just yet2 for we are aiming at practice1 and at ,cambridge 7they tell me7 while you speak well1 you write less expertly4 ,a contributor to ,the ,cambridge ,review1 a fortnight ago1 lamented this at length3 so you will not set the aspersion down to me1 nor blame me if these early lectures too officiously offer a kind of ',first ,aid'3 that1 while all the time eager to descant on the affinities of speech and writing1 ,i dwell first on their differences2 or that1 in speaking of ,burke1 an author ,i adore only 'on this side idolatry1' ,i first present him in some aspects for your avoidance4 ,similarly ,i adore the prose of ,sir ,thomas ,browne1 yet should no more commend it to you for instant imitation than ,i could encourage you to walk with a feather in your cap and a sword under your gown4 ,let us observe proprieties4 ,to return to ,burke4--,at his most flagrant1 in these ,letters on the ,regicide ,peace1 he boldly raids ,shakespeare4 ,you are all1 ,i doubt not1 conversant with the ,prologue to ,henry the ,fifth3-- ,o for a ,muse of fire1 that would ascend ,the brightest heaven of invention6 ,a kingdom for a stage1 princes to act ,and monarchs to behold the swelling scene6 ,then should the warlike ,harry1 like himself1 ,assume the port of ,mars3 and at his heels1 ,leash'd in like hounds1 should ,famine1 ,sword and ,fire ,crouch for employment4 ,well1 this passage ,burke1 assuming his correspondent to be familiar with it1 boldly claps into prose and inserts into a long diatribe against ,pitt for having tamely submitted to the rebuffs of the ,french ,directory4 ,thus it becomes3-- ,on that day it was thought he would have assumed the port of ,mars3 that he would bid to be brought forth from their hideous ,kennel 7where his scrupulous tenderness had too long immured them7 those impatient dogs of ,war1 whose fierce regards affright even the minister of vengeance that feeds them2 that he would let them loose in ,famine1 ,plagues and ,death1 upon a guilty race to whose frame and to all whose habit1 ,order1 ,peace1 ,religion and ,virtue1 are alien and abhorrent4 ,now ,shakespeare is but apologising for the shortcomings of his' play-house1 whereas ,burke is denouncing his country's shame and prophesying disaster to ,europe4 ,yet do you not feel with me that while ,shakespeare1 using great words on the lowlier subject1 contrives to make them appropriate1 with ,burke1 writing on the loftier subject1 the same or similar words have become tumid1 turgid8 ,why8 ,i am sure that the difference lies not in the two men3 nor is it all the secret1 or even half the secret1 that ,burke is mixing up the spoken with the written word1 using the one while pretending to use the other4 ,that has carried us some way2 but now let us take an important step farther4 ,the root of the matter lies in certain essential differences between verse and prose4 ,we will keep1 if you please1 to our rough practical definitions4 ,literature--the written word--is a permanent record of memorable speech2 a record1 at any rate1 intended to be permanent4 ,we set a thing down in ink--we print it in a book--because we feel it to be memorable1 to be worth preserving4 ,but to set this memorable speech down we must choose one of two forms1 verse or prose2 and ,i define verse to be a record in metre and rhythm1 prose to be a record which1 dispensing with metre 7abhorring it indeed71 uses rhythm laxly1 preferring it to be various and unconstrained1 so always that it convey a certain pleasure to the ear4 ,you observe that ,i avoid the term ,poetry1 over which the critics have waged1 and still are waging1 a war that promises to be endless4 ,is ,walt ,whitman a poet8 ,is the ,song of ,songs 7which is not ,solomon's7--is the ,book of ,job--are the ,psalms--all of these as rendered in our ,authorised ,version of ,holy ,writ--are all of these poetry8 ,well 'yes1' if you want my opinion2 and again 'yes1' ,i am sure4 ,but truly on this field1 though scores of great men have fought across it--,sidney1 ,shelley1 ,coleridge1 ,scaliger 7,i pour the names on you at random71 ,johnson1 ,wordsworth1 the two ,schlegels1 ,aristotle with ,twining his translator1 ,corneille1 ,goethe1 ,warton1 ,whately1 ,hazlitt1 ,emerson1 ,hegel1 ,gummere--but our axles grow hot4 ,let us put on the brake3 for in practice the dispute comes to very little3 since literature is an art and treats scientific definitions as ,j4 ,k4 ,stephen recommended4 ,from them ,it finds out what it cannot do1 ,and then it goes and does it4 ,i am journeying1 say1 in the ,west of ,england4 ,i cross a bridge over a stream dividing ,devon from ,cornwall4 ,these two counties1 each beautiful in its way1 are quite unlike in their beauty3 yet nothing happened as ,i stepped across the brook1 and for a mile or two or even ten ,i am aware of no change4 ,sooner or later that change will break upon the mind and ,i shall be startled1 awaking suddenly to a land of altered features4 ,but at what turn of the road this will happen1 just how long the small multiplied impressions will take to break into surmise1 into conviction--that nobody can tell4 ,so it is with poetry and prose4 ,they are different realms1 but between them lies a debatable land which a ,de ,quincey or a ,whitman or a ,paul ,fort or a ,marinetti may attempt4 ,i advise you who are beginners to keep well one side or other of the frontier1 remembering that there is plenty of room and what happened to ,tupper4 ,if we restrict ourselves to the terms 'verse' and 'prose1' we shall find the line much easier to draw4 ,verse is memorable speech set down in metre with strict rhythms2 prose is memorable speech set down without constraint of metre and in rhythms both lax and various--so lax1 so various1 that until quite recently no real attempt has been made to reduce them to rule4 ,i doubt1 for my part1 if they can ever be reduced to rule2 and after a perusal of ,professor ,saintsbury's latest work1 ,a ,history of ,english ,prose ,rhythm1 ,i am left doubting4 ,i commend this book to you as one that clears up large patches of forest4 ,no one has yet so well explained what our prose writers1 generation after generation1 have tried to do with prose3 and he has1 by the way1 furnished us with a capital anthology--or1 as he puts it1 with 'divers delectable draughts of example4' ,but the road still waits to be driven4 ,seeking practical guidance--help for our present purpose--,i note first that many a passage he scans in one way may as readily be scanned in another2 that when he has finished with one and can say proudly with ,wordsworth3-- ,i've measured it from side to side1 ',tis three feet long and two feet wide1 we still have a sensation of coming out 7our good master with us7 by that same door wherein we went2 and ,i cannot as yet after arduous trial discover much profit in his table of feet--,paeons1 ,dochmiacs1 ,antispasts1 ,proceleusmatics and the rest--an ,antispast being but an iamb followed by a trochee1 and ,proceleusmatic but two pyrrhics1 or four consecutive short syllables--when ,i reflect that1 your possible number of syllables being as many as five to a foot1 you may label them 7as ,aristotle would say7 until you come to infinity1 where desire fails1 without getting nearer any rule of application4 ,let us respect a genuine effort of learning1 though we may not detect its immediate profit4 ,in particular let us respect whatever ,professor ,saintsbury writes1 who has done such splendid work upon ,english verse-prosody4 ,i daresay he would retort upon my impatience grandly enough1 quoting ,walt ,whitman3-- ,i am the teacher of athletes2 ,he that by me spreads a wider breast than my own proves the width of my own2 ,he most honours my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher4 ,his speculations may lead to much in time2 though for the present they yield us small instruction in the path we seek4 ,it is time we harked back to our own sign-posts4 ,verse is written in metre and strict rhythm2 prose1 without metre and with the freest possible rhythm4 ,that distinction seems simple enough1 but it carries consequences very far from simple4 ,let me give you an illustration taken almost at hazard from ,milton1 from the ,second ,book of ,paradise ,regained3-- ,up to a hill anon his steps he reared ,from whose high top to ken the prospect round1 ,if cottage were in view1 sheep-cote or herd2 ,but cottage1 herd1 or sheep-cote1 none he saw4 ,these few lines are verse1 are obviously verse with the accent of poetry2 while as obviously they are mere narrative and tell us of the simplest possible incident--how ,christ climbed a hill to learn what could be seen from the top4 ,yet observe1 line for line and almost word for word1 how strangely they differ from prose4 ,mark the inversions3 ',up to a hill anon his steps he reared1' ',but cottage1 herd1 or sheep-cote1 none he saw4' ,mark next the diction--'his steps he reared4' ,in prose we should not rear our steps up the ,gog-magog hills1 or even more ,alpine fastnesses2 nor1 arrived at the top1 should we 'ken' the prospect round2 we might 'con1' but should more probably 'survey' it4 ,even 'anon' is a tricky word in prose1 though ,i deliberately palmed it off on you a few minutes ago4 ,mark thirdly the varied repetition1 'if cottage were in view1 sheep-cote or herd--but cottage1 herd1 or sheep-cote1 none he saw4' ,lastly compare the whole with such an account as you or ,i or ,cluvienus would write in plain prose3-- ,thereupon he climbed a hill on the chance that the view from its summit might disclose some sign of human habitation--a herd1 a sheep-cote1 a cottage perhaps4 ,but he could see nothing of the sort4 ,but you will ask1 ',why should verse and prose employ diction so different8 ,why should the one invert the order of words in a fashion not permitted to the other8' and ,i shall endeavour to answer these questions together with a third which1 ,i dare say1 you have sometimes been minded to put when you have been told--and truthfully told--by your manuals and histories1 that when a nation of men starts making literature it invariably starts on the difficult emprise of verse1 and goes on to prose as by an afterthought4 ,why should men start upon the more difficult form and proceed to the easier8 ,it is not their usual way4 ,in learning to skate1 for instance1 they do not cut figures before practising loose and easy propulsion4 ,the answer is fairly simple4 ,literature 7once more7 is a record of memorable speech2 it preserves in words a record of such thoughts or of such deeds as we deem worth preserving4 ,now if you will imagine yourself a very primitive man1 lacking paper or parchment2 or a slightly less primitive1 but very poor1 man to whom the price of parchment and ink is prohibitive2 you have two ways of going to work4 ,you can carve your words upon trees or stones 7a laborious process7 or you can commit them to memory and carry them about in your head2 which is cheaper and handier4 ,for an illustration1 you find it useful1 anticipating the tax-collector1 to know how many days there are in the current month4 ,but further you find it a nuisance and a ruinous waste of time to run off to the tribal tree or monolith whenever the calculation comes up2 so you invent a formula1 and you cast that formula into verse for the simple reason that verse1 with its tags1 alliterations1 beat of syllables1 jingle of rhymes 7however your tribe has chosen to invent it71 has a knack1 not possessed by prose1 of sticking in your head4 ,you do not say1 ',quick thy tablets1 memory6 ,let me see--,january has #ca days1 ,february #bh days1 ,march #ca days1 ,april #cj days4' ,you invent a verse3-- ,thirty days hath ,september1 ,april1 ,june and ,november444 ,nay1 it has been whispered to me1 ,gentlemen1 that in this ,university some such process of memorising in verse has been applied by bold bad irreverently-minded men even to the ,evidences of our cherished ,paley4 ,this1 you will say1 is mere verse1 and not yet within measurable distance of poetry4 ,but wait6 ,the men who said the more memorable things1 or sang them--the men who recounted deeds and genealogies of heroes1 plagues and famines1 assassinations1 escapes from captivity1 wanderings and conquests of the clan1 all the 'old1 unhappy1 far-off things and battles long ago'--the men who sang these things for their living1 for a supper1 a bed in the great hall1 and something in their wallet to carry them on to the next lordship--these were gentlemen1 scops1 bards1 minstrels 7call them how you will71 a professional class who had great need of a full repertory in a land swarming with petty chieftains1 and to adapt their strains to the particular hall of entertainment4 ,it would never do1 for example1 to flatter the prowess of the ,billings in the house of the ,hoppings1 their hereditary foes1 or to bore the ,wokings 7who lived where the crematorium now is7 with the complicated genealogy of the ,tootings3 for this would have been to miss that appropriateness which ,i preached to you in my second lecture as a preliminary rule of good writing4 ,nay1 when the ,billings intermarried with the ,tootings--when the ,billings took to cooing1 so to speak--a hasty blend of excerpts would be required for the ,epithalamium4 ,so it was all a highly difficult business1 needing adaptability1 a quick wit1 a goodly stock of songs1 a retentive memory and every artifice to assist it4 ,take ,widsith1 for example1 the 'far-travelled man4' ,he begins3-- ,widsith spake3 he unlocked his word-hoard4 ,so he had a hoard of words1 you see3 and he must have needed them1 for he goes on3-- ,forthon ic maeg singan and secgan spell1 ,maenan fore mengo in meoduhealle1 ,hu me cynegode cystum dohten4 ,ic waes mid ,hunum and mid ,hreth-gotum1 ,mid ,sweom and mid ,geatum1 and mid ,suth-,denum4 ,mid ,wenlum ic waes and mid ,waernum and mid ,wicingum4 ,mid ,gefthum ic waes and mid ,winedum4444 7,therefore ,i can sing and tell a tale1 recount in the ,mead ,hall1 how men of high race gave rich gifts to me4 ,i was with ,huns and with ,hreth ,goths1 with the ,swedes1 and with the ,geats1 and with the ,south ,danes2 ,i was with the ,wenlas1 and with the ,waernas1 and with the ,vikings2 ,i was with the ,gefthas and with the ,winedae44447 and so on for a full dozen lines4 ,i say that the memory of such men must have needed every artifice to help it3 and the chief artifice to their hand was one which also delighted the ears of their listeners4 ,they sang or intoned to the harp4 ,there you get it1 ,gentlemen4 ,i have purposely1 skimming a wide subject1 discarded much ballast2 but you may read and scan and read again1 and always you must come back to this1 that the first poets sang their words to the harp or to some such instrument3 and just there lies the secret why poetry differs from prose4 ,the moment you introduce music you let in emotion with all its sway upon speech4 ,from that moment you change everything1 down to the order of the words--the natural order of the words3 and 7remember this7 though the harp be superseded1 the voice never forgets it4 ,you may take up a ,barrack ,room ,ballad of ,kipling's1 and it is there1 though you affect to despise it for a banjo or concertina3-- ,ford--ford--ford of ,kabul river444 ',bang1 whang1 whang goes the drum1 tootle-te-tootle the fife4' ,from the moment men introduced music they made verse a thing essentially separate from prose1 from its natural key of emotion to its natural ordering of words4 ,do not for one moment imagine that when ,milton writes3-- ,but cottage1 herd1 or sheep-cote1 none he saw4 or ,of man's first disobedience and the fruit ,of that forbidden tree444 --where you must seek down five lines before you come to the verb1 and then find it in the imperative mood--do not suppose for a moment that he is here fantastically shifting words1 inverting phrases out of their natural order4 ,for1 as ,st ,paul might say1 there is a natural order of prose and there is a natural order of verse4 ,the natural order of prose is3-- ,i was born in the year #afcb1 in the ,city of ,york1 of a good family1 though not of that county2 my father being a foreigner of ,bremen1 who settled first in ,hull4--,defoe4 or ,further ,i avow to your ,highness that with these eyes ,i have beheld the person of ,william ,wooton1 ,b4,d41 who has written a good sizeable volume against a friend of your ,governor 7from whom1 alas6 he must therefore look for little favour7 in a most gentlemanly style1 adorned with the utmost politeness and civility4--,swift4 ,the natural order of poetry is3-- ,thus with the year ,seasons return1 but not to me returns ,day1 or the sweet approach of ,ev'n or ,morn1 ,or sight of vernal bloom1 or ,summer's ,rose1 ,or flocks1 or herds1 or human face divine4 or ,but cottage1 herd1 or sheep-cote1 none he saw4 and this basal difference you must have clear in your minds before1 in dealing with prose or verse1 you can practise either with profit or read either with intelligent delight4 ,,lecture ,,iv4 ,,on ,,the ,,capital ,,difficulty ,,of ,,verse ,thursday1 ,april #ag ,in our last lecture1 ,gentlemen1 we discussed the difference between verse1 or metrical writing1 and prose4 ,we traced that difference 7as you will remember7 to ,music--to the harp1 the lyre1 the dance1 the chorus1 all those first necessary accompaniments which verse never quite forgets2 and we concluded that1 as ,music ever introduces emotion1 which is indeed her proper and only means of persuading1 so the natural language of verse will be keyed higher than the natural language of prose2 will be keyed higher throughout and even for its most ordinary purposes--as for example1 to tell us that ,so-and-so sailed to ,troy with so many ships4 ,i grant you that our steps to this conclusion were lightly and rapidly taken3 yet the stepping-stones are historically firm4 ,verse does precede prose in literature2 verse does start with musical accompaniment2 musical accompaniment does introduce emotion2 and emotion does introduce an order of its own into speech4 ,i grant you that we have travelled far from the days when a prose-writer1 ,herodotus1 labelled the books of his history by the names of the nine ,muses4 ,i grant you that if you go to the ,vatican and there study the statues of the ,muses 7noble1 but of no early date7 you may note that ,calliope1 ,muse of the ,epic--unlike her sisters ,euterpe1 ,erato1 ,thalia--holds for symbol no instrument of music1 but a stylus and a tablet4 ,yet the earlier ,calliope1 the ,calliope of ,homer1 was a ,muse of ,song4 ,greek3 ,menin aeide1 ,thea-- ',had ,i a thousand tongues1 a thousand hands4'--,for what purpose does the poet wish for a thousand tongues1 but to sing8 for what purpose a thousand hands1 but to pluck the wires8 not to dip a thousand pens in a thousand inkpots4 ,i doubt1 in fine1 if your most learned studies will discover much amiss with the frontier we drew between verse and prose1 cursorily though we ran its line4 ,nor am ,i daunted on comparing it with ,coleridge's more philosophical one1 which you will find in the ,biographia ,literaria 7c4 ,,xviii7-- ,and first for the origin of metre4 ,this ,i would trace to the balance in the mind effected by that spontaneous effort which strives to hold in check the workings of passion4 ,it might be easily explained likewise in what manner this salutary antagonism is assisted by the very state which it counteracts1 and how this balance of antagonism becomes organised into metre 7in the usual acceptation of that term7 by a supervening act of the will and judgment consciously and for the foreseen purpose of pleasure4 ,i will not swear to understand precisely what ,coleridge means here1 though ,i believe that ,i do4 ,but at any rate1 and on the principle that of two hypotheses1 each in itself adequate1 we should choose the simpler1 ,i suggest in all modesty that we shall do better with our own than with ,coleridge's1 which has the further disadvantage of being scarcely amenable to positive evidence4 ,we can say with historical warrant that ,sappho struck the lyre1 and argue therefrom1 still within close range of correction1 that her singing responded to the instrument3 whereas to assert that ,sappho's mind 'was balanced by a spontaneous effort which strove to hold in check the workings of passion' is to say something for which positive evidence will be less handily found1 whether to contradict or to support4 ,yet if you choose to prefer ,coleridge's explanation1 no great harm will be done3 since ,coleridge1 who may be presumed to have understood it1 promptly goes on to deduce that1 as the elements of metre owe their existence to a state of increased excitement1 so the metre itself should be accompanied by the natural language of excitement4 which is precisely where we found ourselves1 save that where ,coleridge uses the word 'excitement' we used the word 'emotion4' ,shall we employ an illustration before proceeding8--some sentence easily handled1 some commonplace of the moralist1 some copybook maxim1 ,i care not what4 ',contentment breeds ,happiness'--,that is a proposition with which you can hardly quarrel2 sententious1 sedate1 obviously true2 provoking delirious advocacy as little as controversial heat2 in short a very fair touchstone4 ,now hear how the lyric treats it1 in these lines of ,dekker-- ,art thou poor1 yet hast thou golden slumbers8 ,o sweet content6 ,art thou rich1 yet is thy mind perplex'd8 ,o punishment6 ,dost thou laugh to see how fools are vex'd ,to add to golden numbers golden numbers8 ,o sweet content6 ,o sweet1 ,o sweet content6 ,work apace1 apace1 apace1 apace2 ,honest labour wears a lovely face2 ,then hey1 nonny nonny--hey1 nonny nonny6 ,canst drink the waters of the crystal spring8 ,o sweet content6 ,swim'st thou in wealth1 yet sink'st in thine own tears8 ,o punishment6 ,then he that patiently want's burden bears ,no burden bears1 but is a king1 a king6 ,o sweet content6 ,o sweet1 ,o sweet content6 ,work apace1 apace1 apace1 apace2 ,honest labour wears a lovely face2 ,then hey1 nonny nonny--hey1 nonny nonny6 ,there1 in lines obviously written for music1 you have our sedate sentence1 ',contentment breeds ,happiness1' converted to mere emotion4 ,note 7to use ,coleridge's word7 the 'excitement' of it4 ,there are but two plain indicative sentences in the two stanzas--7#a7 ',honest labour wears a lovely face' 7used as a refrain71 and 7#b7 ',then he that patiently want's burden bears no burden bears1 but is a king1 a king6' 7heightened emotionally by inversion and double repetition74 ,mark throughout how broken is the utterance2 antithetical question answered by exclamations3 both doubled and made more antithetical in the second stanza3 with cunning reduplicated inversions to follow1 and each stanza wound up by an outburst of emotional nonsense--'hey1 nonny nonny--hey1 nonny nonny6'--as a man might skip or whistle to himself for want of thought4 ,now 7still keeping to our same subject of ,contentment7 let us prosify the lyrical order of language down to the lowest pitch to which genius has been able to reduce it and still make noble verse4 ,you have all read ,wordsworth's famous ,introduction to the ,lyrical ,ballads1 and you know that ,wordsworth's was a genius working on a theory that the languages of verse and of prose are identical4 ,you know1 too1 ,i dare say1 into what banalities that theory over and over again betrayed him3 banalities such as-- ,his widowed mother1 for a second mate ,espoused the teacher of the village school3 ,who on her offspring zealously bestowed ,needful instruction4 --and the rest4 ,nevertheless ,wordsworth was a genius2 and genius working persistently on a narrow theory will now and again 'bring it off' 7as they say74 ,so he1 amid the flat waste of his later compositions1 did undoubtedly 'bring it off' in the following sonnet3-- ,these times strike monied worldlings with dismay3 ,ev'n rich men1 brave by nature1 taint the air ,with words of apprehension and despair2 ,while tens of thousands1 thinking on the affray1 ,men unto whom sufficient for the day ,and minds not stinted or untill'd are given1 ,sound healthy children of the ,god of ,heaven1 ,are cheerful as the rising sun in ,may4 ,what do we gather hence but firmer faith ,that every gift of noble origin ,is breath'd upon by ,hope's perpetual breath2 ,that ,virtue and the faculties within ,are vital2 and that riches are akin ,to fear1 to change1 to cowardice1 and death8 ,here1 ,i grant1 are no repetitions1 no inversions4 ,the sentences1 though metrical1 run straightforwardly1 verb following subject1 object verb1 as in strict prose4 ,in short here you have verse reduced to the order and structure of prose as nearly as a man of genius1 working on a set theory1 could reduce it while yet maintaining its proper emotional key4 ,but first let me say that you will find very few like instances of success even in ,wordsworth2 and few indeed to set against innumerable passages wherein either his verse defies his theory and triumphs1 or succumbs to it and1 succumbing1 either drops sheer to bathos or spreads itself over dead flats of commonplace4 ,let me tell you next that the instances you will find in other poets are so few and so far between as to be negligible2 and lastly that even such verse as the above has only to be compared with a passage of prose and its emotional pitch is at once betrayed4 ,take this1 for example1 from ,jeremy ,taylor3-- ,since all the evil in the world consists in the disagreeing between the object and the appetite1 as when a man hath what he desires not1 or desires what he hath not1 or desires amiss1 he that compares his spirit to the present accident hath variety of instance for his virtue1 but none to trouble him1 because his desires enlarge not beyond his present fortune3 and a wise man is placed in a variety of chances1 like the nave or centre of a wheel in the midst of all the circumvolutions and changes of posture1 without violence or change1 save that it turns gently in compliance with its changed parts1 and is indifferent which part is up1 and which is down2 for there is some virtue or other to be exercised whatever happens--either patience or thanksgiving1 love or fear1 moderation or humility1 charity or contentedness4 ,or1 take this from ,samuel ,johnson3-- ,the fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind2 and he who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition1 will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove4 ,now1 to be frank1 ,i do not call that first passage very good prose4 ,like much of ,jeremy ,taylor's writing it is prose tricked out with the trappings and odds-and-ends of verse4 ,it starts off1 for example1 with a brace of heroics--',since all the evil in the world consists'444'between the object and the appetite4' ,you may say1 further1 that the simile of the wheel1 though proper enough to prose1 is poetical too3 that ,homer might have used it 7',as in a wheel the rim turns violently1 while the nave1 though it turns also1 yet seems to be at rest'--something of that sort74 ,nevertheless you will agree with me that1 in exchanging ,wordsworth for ,taylor and ,johnson1 we have relaxed something with the metre1 something that the metre kept taut2 and this something we discover to be the emotional pitch4 ,but let me give you another illustration1 supplied 7,i dare say quite unconsciously7 by one who combined a genuine love of verse--in which1 however1 he was no adept--with a sure instinct for beautiful prose4 ,contentment was a favourite theme with ,isaak ,walton3 ,the ,compleat ,angler is packed with praise of it3 and in ,the ,compleat ,angler occurs this well-known passage3-- ,but1 master1 first let me tell you1 that very hour which you were absent from me1 ,i sat down under a willow tree by the waterside1 and considered what you had told me of the owner of that pleasant meadow in which you then had left me2 that he had a plentiful estate1 and not a heart to think so2 that he had at this time many law-suits depending1 and that they both damped his mirth and took up so much of his time and thoughts that he had no leisure to take the sweet content that ,i1 who pretended no title to them1 took in his fields3 for ,i could there sit quietly2 and looking on the water1 see some fishes sport themselves in the silver streams1 others leaping at flies of several shapes and colours2 looking on the hills1 ,i could behold them spotted with woods and groves2 looking down the meadows1 could see1 here a boy gathering lilies and lady-smocks1 and there a girl cropping culverlocks and cowslips1 all to make garlands suitable to this present month of ,may4 ,these and many other field-flowers so perfumed the air that ,i thought that very meadow like that field in ,sicily of which ,diodorus speaks1 where the perfumes arising from the place make all dogs that hunt in it to fall off and lose their hottest scent4 ,i say1 as ,i thus sat1 joying in my own happy condition1 and pitying this poor rich man that owned this and many other pleasant groves and meadows about me1 ,i did thankfully remember what my ,saviour said1 that the meek possess the earth2 or rather they enjoy what the others possess and enjoy not2 for ,anglers and meek quiet-spirited men are free from those high1 those restless thoughts which corrode the sweets of life2 and they1 and they only can say as the poet has happily exprest it3 ',hail1 blest estate of lowliness6 ,happy enjoyments of such minds ,as1 rich in self-contentedness1 ,can1 like the reeds in roughest winds1 ,by yielding make that blow but small ,at which proud oaks and cedars fall4' ,there you have a passage of felicitous prose culminating in a stanza of trite and fifth-rate verse4 ,yes1 ,walton's instinct is sound2 for he is keying up the pitch2 and verse1 even when mediocre in quality1 has its pitch naturally set above that of prose4 ,so1 if you will turn to your ,walton and read the page following this passage1 you will see that1 still by a sure instinct1 he proceeds from this scrap of reflective verse to a mere rollicking 'catch'3 ,man's life is but vain1 for 'tis subject to pain ,and sorrow1 and short as a bubble2 ',tis a hodge-podge of business and money and care1 ,and care1 and money and trouble444 --which is even worse rubbish1 and yet a step upwards in emotion because ,venator actually sings it to music4 ',ay marry1 sir1 this is music indeed1' approves ,brother ,peter2 'this cheers the heart4' ,in this and the preceding lecture1 ,gentlemen1 ,i have enforced at some length the opinion that to understand the many essential differences between verse and prose we must constantly bear in mind that verse1 being metrical1 keeps the character originally imposed on it by musical accompaniment and must always1 however far the remove1 be referred back to its origin and to the emotion which music excites4 ,mr ,george ,bernard ,shaw having to commit his novel ,cashel ,byron's ,profession to paper in a hurry1 chose to cast it in blank verse as being more easily and readily written so3 a performance which brilliantly illuminates a half-truth4 ,verse--or at any rate1 unrhymed iambic verse--is easier to write than prose1 if you care to leave out the emotion which makes verse characteristic and worth writing4 ,i have little doubt that1 had he chosen to attempt it1 ,mr ,shaw would have found his story still more ductile in the metre of ,hiawatha4 ,but the experiment proves nothing3 or no more than that1 all fine art costing labour1 it may cost less if burlesqued in a category not its own4 ,let me take an example from a work with which you are all familiar--,the ,student's ,handbook to the ,university and ,colleges of ,cambridge4 ,on p4 #dje we read3-- ,the ,medieval and ,modern ,languages ,tripos is divided into ten sections1 ,a1 ,a#b1 ,b1 ,c1 ,d1 ,e1 ,f1 ,g1 ,h and ,i4 ,a student may take either one or two sections at the end of his second year of residence1 and either one or two more sections at the end of his third or fourth year of residence2 or he may take two sections at the end of his third year only4 ,thus this ,tripos can be treated either as a divided or as an undivided ,tripos at the option of the candidate4 ,now ,i do not hold that up to you for a model of prose4 ,still1 lucidity rather than emotion being its aim1 ,i doubt not that the composer spent pains on it2 more pains than it would have cost him to convey his information metrically1 thus3-- ,there is a ,tripos that aspires to blend ,the ,medieval and the ,modern tongues ,in one red burial 7,sing ,heavenly ,muse67 ,divided into sections ,a1 ,a#b1 ,b1 ,c1 ,d1 ,e1 ,f1 ,g and ,h and ,i4 ,a student may take either one or two 7,with some restrictions mention'd in a footnote7 ,at th' expiration of his second year3 ,or of his third1 or of his fourth again ,take one or two2 or of his third alone ,take two together4 ,thus this tripos is 7,like nothing in the ,athanasian ,creed7 ,divisible or indivisible ,at the option of the candidate--,gadzooks6 ,this method has even some advantage over the method of prose in that it is more easily memorised2 but it has1 as you will admit1 the one fatal flaw that it imports emotion into a theme which does not properly admit of emotion1 and that so it offends against our first rule of writing--that it should be appropriate4 ,now if you accept the argument so far as we have led it--that verse is by nature more emotional than prose--certain consequences would seem to follow3 of which the first is that while the capital difficulty of verse consists in saying ordinary things the capital difficulty of prose consists in saying extraordinary things2 that while with verse1 keyed for high moments1 the trouble is to manage the intervals1 with prose the trouble is to manage the high moments4 ,let us dwell awhile on this difference1 for it is important4 ,you remember my quoting to you in my last lecture these lines of ,milton's3-- ,up to a hill anon his steps he reared ,from whose high top to ken the prospect round1 ,if cottage were in view1 sheep-cote or herd2 ,but cottage1 herd1 or sheep-cote1 none he saw4 ,we agreed that these were good lines1 with the accent of poetry3 but we allowed it to be a highly exalted way of telling how ,so-and-so climbed a hill for a better view but found none4 ,now obviously this exaltation does not arise immediately out of the action described 7which is as ordinary as it well could be71 but is derivative4 ,it borrows its wings1 its impetus1 from a previous high moment1 from the emotion proper to that moment1 from the speech proper to that emotion3 and these sustain us across to the next height as with the glide of an aeroplane4 ,your own sense will tell you at once that the passage would be merely bombastic if the poet were starting to set forth how ,so-and-so climbed a hill for the view--just that1 and nothing else3 as your own sense tells you that the swoop is from one height to another4 ,for if bathos lay ahead1 if ,milton had but to relate how the ,duke of ,york1 with twenty thousand men1 'marched up a hill and then marched down again1' he certainly would not use diction such as3-- ,up to a hill anon his steps he reared4 ,even as it is1 ,i think we must all detect a certain artificiality in the passage1 and confess to some relief when ,satan is introduced to us1 ten lines lower down1 to revivify the story4 ,for let us note that1 in the nature of things1 the more adorned and involved our style 7and ,milton's is both ornate and involved7 the more difficulty we must find with these flat pedestrian intervals4 ,milton may 'bring it off1' largely through knowing how to dodge the interval and contrive that it shall at any rate be brief3 but1 as ,bagehot noted1 when we come to ,tennyson and find ,tennyson in ,enoch ,arden informing us of a fish-jowter1 that3-- ,enoch's white horse1 and ,enoch's ocean-spoil ,in ocean-smelling osier-- 7i4e4 in a fish-basket7 --and his face ,rough-reddened with a thousand winter gales1 ,not only to the market town were known1 ,but in the leafy lanes beyond the down ,far as the portal-warding lion-whelp ,and peacock yewtree of the lonely ,hall ,whose ,friday fare was ,enoch's ministering1 why1 then we feel that the vehicle is altogether too pompous for its load1 and those who make speech too pompous for its content commit1 albeit in varying degrees1 the error of ,defoe's religious lady who1 seeing a bottle of over-ripe beer explode and cork and froth fly up to the ceiling1 cried out1 ',o1 the wonders of ,omnipotent ,power6' ,the poet who commends fresh fish to us as 'ocean-spoil' can cast no stone at his brother who writes of them as 'the finny denizens of the deep1' or even at his cousin the journalist1 who exalts the oyster into a 'succulent bivalve'-- ,the feathered tribes on pinions cleave the air2 ,not so the mackerel1 and1 still less1 the bear6 ,i believe this difficulty1 which verse1 by nature and origin emotional1 encounters in dealing with ordinary unemotional narrative1 to lie as a technical reason at the bottom of ,horace's advice to the writer of ,epic to plunge in medias res1 thus avoiding flat preparative and catching at once a high wind which shall carry him hereafter across dull levels and intervals4 ,i believe that it lay--though whether consciously or not he scarcely tells us--at the bottom of ,matthew ,arnold's mind when1 selecting certain qualities for which to praise ,homer1 he chose1 for the very first1 ,homer's rapidity4 ',first1' he says1 ',homer is eminently rapid2 and1' he adds justly1 'to this rapidity the elaborate movement of ,miltonic blank verse is alien4' ,now until one studies writing as an art1 trying to discover what this or that form of it accomplishes with ease and what with difficulty1 and why verse can do one thing and prose another1 ,arnold's choice of rapidity to put in the forefront of ,homer's merits may seem merely capricious4 ',homer 7we say7 has other great qualities4 ,arnold himself indicates ,homer's simplicity1 directness1 nobility4 ,surely either one of these should be mentioned before rapidity1 in itself not comparable as a virtue with either8' ,but when we see that the difficulty of verse-narrative lies just here2 that the epic poet who is rapid has met1 and has overcome1 the capital difficulty of his form1 then we begin to do justice not only to ,arnold as a critic but 7which is of far higher moment7 to ,homer as a craftsman4 ,the genius of ,homer in this matter is in fact something daemonic4 ,he seems to shirk nothing3 and the effect of this upon critics is bewildering4 ,the acutest of them are left wondering how on earth an ordinary tale--say of how some mariners beached ship1 stowed sail1 walked ashore and cooked their dinner--can be made so poetical4 ,they are inclined to divide the credit between the poet and his fortunate age--'a time' suggests ,pater 'in which one could hardly have spoken at all without ideal effect1 or the sailors pulled down their boat without making a picture in the great style against a sky charged with marvels4' ,well1 the object of these lectures is not to explain genius4 ,just here it is rather to state a difficulty2 to admit that1 once in history1 genius overcame it2 yet warn you how rare in the tale of poetical achievement is such a success4 ,homer1 indeed1 stands first1 if not unmatched1 among poets in this technical triumph over the capital disability of annihilating flat passages4 ,i omit ,shakespeare and the dramatists2 because they have only to give a stage direction ',enter ,cassius1 looking lean1' and ,cassius comes in looking leaner than nature2 whereas ,homer has in his narrative to walk ,hector or ,thersites on to the scene1 describe him1 walk him off4 ,i grant the rapidity of ,dante4 ,it is amazing2 and we may yield him all the credit for choosing 7it was his genius that chose it7 a subject which allowed of the very highest rapidity2 since ,hell1 ,purgatory and ,paradise1 though they differ in other respects1 have this in common1 that they are populous and the inhabitants of each so compendiously shepherded together that the visitor can turn from one person to another without loss of time4 ,but ,homer does not escort us around a menagerie in which we can move expeditiously from one cage to another4 ,he proposes at least1 both in the ,iliad and in the ,odyssey1 to unfold a story2 and he seems to unfold it so artlessly that we linger on the most pedestrian intervals while he tells us1 for example1 what the heroes ate and how they cooked it4 ,a modern writer would serve us a far better dinner4 ,homer brings us to his with our appetite all the keener for having waited and watched the spitting and roasting4 ,i would point out to you what art this genius conceals2 how cunning is this apparent simplicity3 and for this purpose let me take ,homer at the extreme of his difficulty--when he has to describe a long sea-voyage4 ,some years ago1 in his last ,oxford lectures1 ,mr ,froude lamented that no poet in this country had arisen to write a national epic of the great ,elizabethan seamen1 to culminate 7,i suppose7 as his ,history culminated1 in the defeat of the ,armada3 and one of our younger poets2 ,mr ,alfred ,noyes1 acting on this hint has since given us an epic poem on ,drake1 in twelve books4 ,but ,froude probably overlooked1 as ,mr ,noyes has not overcome1 this difficulty of the flat interval which1 while ever the bugbear of ,epic1 is magnified tenfold when our action takes place on the sea4 ,for whereas the verse should be rapid and the high moments frequent1 the business of seafaring is undeniably monotonous1 as the intervals between port and port1 sea-fight and sea-fight1 must be long and lazy4 ,matters move more briskly in an occasional gale2 but even a gale lasts1 and must be ridden out2 and the process of riding to a gale of wind3-- ,for ever climbing up the climbing wave --your ship taking one wave much as she takes another--is in its nature monotonous4 ,nay1 you have only to read ,falconer's ,shipwreck to discover how much of dulness may lie enwrapped1 to discharge itself1 even in a first-class tempest4 ,courses1 reckonings1 trimmings of canvas--these occur in real life and amuse the simple mariner at the time4 ,but to the reader1 if he be a landsman1 their repetition in narrative may easily become intolerable2 and when we get down to the 'trades1' even the seaman sets his sail for a long spell of weather and goes to sleep4 ,in short you cannot upon the wide ,atlantic push action and reaction to and fro as upon the plains of windy ,troy3 nor could any but a superhuman genius make sustained poetry 7say7 out of ,nelson's untiring pursuit of ,villeneuve1 which none the less was one of the most heroic feats in history4 ,this difficulty1 inherent in navigation as a subject for the ,epic ,muse1 has1 ,i think1 been very shrewdly detected and hit off in a parody of ,mr ,noyes' poem by a young friend of mine1 ,mr ,wilfred ,blair3-- ,meanwhile the wind had changed1 and ,francis ,drake ,put down the helm and drove against the seas-- ,once more the wind changed1 and the simple seaman1 ,full fraught with weather wisdom1 once again ,put down the helm and so drove on--et cetera4 ,now ,homer actually has performed this feat which we declare to be next to impossible4 ,he actually does convey ,odysseus from ,troy to ,ithaca1 by a ten years' voyage too2 he actually has narrated that voyage to us in plain straightforward words2 and1 what is more1 he actually has made a superb epic of it4 ,yes1 but when you come to dissect the ,odyssey1 what amazing artifice is found under that apparently straightforward tale6--eight years of the ten sliced out1 to start with1 and magnificently presented to ,circe ,where that ,aeaean isle forgets the main --and 7one may add71 so forgetting1 avoids the technical difficulties connected therewith4 ,note the space given to ,telemachus and his active search for the lost hero3 note too how the mass of ,odysseus' seafaring adventures is condensed into a reported speech--a traveller's tale at the court of ,alcinoues4 ,virgil borrowed this trick1 you remember2 and ,i dare to swear that had it fallen to ,homer to attempt the impossible saga of ,nelson's pursuit after ,villeneuve he would have achieved it triumphantly--by means of a tale told in the first person by a survivor to ,lady ,hamilton4 ,note1 again1 how boldly 7being free to deal with an itinerary of which his audience knew nothing but surmised that it comprehended a vast deal of the marvellous1 spaced at irregular distances7 ,homer works in a shipwreck or a miracle wherever the action threatens to flag4 ,lessing1 as you know1 devoted several pages of the ,laokoeon to the shield of ,achilles2 to ,homer's craft in depicting it as it grew under ,hephaestus' hammer3 so that we are intrigued by the process of manufacture instead of being wearied by a description of the ready-made article2 so also 7if one may presume to add anything to ,lessing7 that we are cunningly flattered in a sense that the shield is being made for us4 ,well1 that is one artifice out of many3 but if you would gauge at all ,homer's resource and subtlety in technique ,i recommend you to analyse the first twelve books of the ,odyssey and count for yourselves the device by which the poet--,greek3 polutropos as was never his hero--evades or hurries over each flat interval as he happens upon it4 ,these things1 ,ulysses1 ,the wise bards also ,behold and sing4 ,but ,o1 what labour6 ,o ,prince1 what pain6 ,you may be thinking1 ,gentlemen1 that ,i take up a disproportionate amount of your time on such technical matters at these4 ,but literature being an art 7forgive the reiteration67 and therefore to be practised1 ,i want us to be seeking all the time how it is done2 to hunt out the principles on which the great artists wrought2 to face1 to rationalise1 the difficulties by which they were confronted1 and learn how they overcame the particular obstacle4 ,surely even for mere criticism1 apart from practice1 we shall equip ourselves better by seeking1 so far as we may1 how the thing is done than by standing at gaze before this or that masterpiece and murmuring ',isn't that beautiful6 ,how in the world1 now4446' ,i am told that these lectures are criticised as tending to make you conceited3 to encourage in you a belief that you can do things1 when it were better that you merely admired4 ,well ,i would not dishearten you by telling to what a shred of conceit1 even of hope1 a man can be reduced after twenty-odd years of the discipline4 ,but ,i can1 and do1 affirm that the farther you penetrate in these discoveries the more sacred the ultimate mystery will become for you3 that the better you understand the great authors as exemplars of practice1 the more certainly you will realise what is the condescension of the gods4 ,next time1 then1 we will attempt an enquiry into the capital difficulty of ,prose4 ,,lecture ,v4 ,,interlude3 ,,on ,,jargon ,thursday1 ,may #a ,we parted1 ,gentlemen1 upon a promise to discuss the capital difficulty of ,prose1 as we have discussed the capital difficulty of ,verse4 ,but1 although we shall come to it1 on second thoughts ,i ask leave to break the order of my argument and to interpose some words upon a kind of writing which1 from a superficial likeness1 commonly passes for prose in these days1 and by lazy folk is commonly written for prose1 yet actually is not prose at all2 my excuse being the simple practical one that1 by first clearing this sham prose out of the way1 we shall the better deal with honest prose when we come to it4 ,the proper difficulties of prose will remain3 but we shall be agreed in understanding what it is1 or at any rate what it is not1 that we talk about4 ,i remember to have heard somewhere of a religious body in the ,united ,states of ,america which had reason to suspect one of its churches of accepting ,spiritual consolation from a coloured preacher--an offence against the laws of the ,synod--and despatched a ,disciplinary ,committee with power to act2 and of the ,committee's returning to report itself unable to take any action under its terms of reference1 for that while a person undoubtedly coloured had undoubtedly occupied the pulpit and had audibly spoken from it in the ,committee's presence1 the performance could be brought within no definition of preaching known or discoverable4 ,so it is with that infirmity of speech--that flux1 that determination of words to the mouth1 or to the pen--which1 though it be familiar to you in parliamentary debates1 in newspapers1 and as the staple language of ,blue ,books1 ,committees1 ,official ,reports1 ,i take leave to introduce to you as prose which is not prose and under its real name of ,jargon4 ,you must not confuse this ,jargon with what is called ,journalese4 ,the two overlap1 indeed1 and have a knack of assimilating each other's vices4 ,but ,jargon finds1 maybe1 the most of its votaries among good douce people who have never written to or for a newspaper in their life1 who would never talk of 'adverse climatic conditions' when they mean 'bad weather'2 who have never trifled with verbs such as 'obsess1' 'recrudesce1' 'envisage1' 'adumbrate1' or with phrases such as 'the psychological moment1' 'the true inwardness1' 'it gives furiously to think4' ,it dallies with ,latinity--'sub silentio1' 'de die in diem1' 'cui bono8' 7always in the sense1 unsuspected by ,cicero1 of ',what is the profit8'7--but not for the sake of style4 ,your journalist at the worst is an artist in his way3 he daubs paint of this kind upon the lily with a professional zeal2 the more flagrant 7or1 to use his own word1 arresting7 the pigment1 the happier is his soul4 ,like the ,babu he is trying all the while to embellish our poor language1 to make it more floriferous1 more poetical--like the ,babu for example who1 reporting his mother's death1 wrote1 ',regret to inform you1 the hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket4' ,there is metaphor3 there is ornament3 there is a sense of poetry1 though as yet groping in a world unrealised4 ,no such gusto marks--no such zeal1 artistic or professional1 animates--the practitioners of ,jargon1 who are1 most of them 7,i repeat71 douce respectable persons4 ,caution is its father3 the instinct to save everything and especially trouble3 its mother1 ,indolence4 ,it looks precise1 but it is not4 ,it is1 in these times1 safe3 a thousand men have said it before and not one to your knowledge had been prosecuted for it4 ,and so1 like respectability in ,chicago1 ,jargon stalks unchecked in our midst4 ,it is becoming the language of ,parliament3 it has become the medium through which ,boards of ,government1 ,county ,councils1 ,syndicates1 ,committees1 ,commercial ,firms1 express the processes as well as the conclusions of their thought and so voice the reason of their being4 ,has a ,minister to say ',no' in the ,house of ,commons8 ,some men are constitutionally incapable of saying no3 but the ,minister conveys it thus--',the answer to the question is in the negative4' ,that means 'no4' ,can you discover it to mean anything less1 or anything more except that the speaker is a pompous person8--which was no part of the information demanded4 ,that is ,jargon1 and it happens to be accurate4 ,but as a rule ,jargon is by no means accurate1 its method being to walk circumspectly around its target2 and its faith1 that having done so it has either hit the bull's-eye or at least achieved something equivalent1 and safer4 ,thus the ,clerk of a ,board of ,guardians will minute that-- ,in the case of ,john ,jenkins deceased the coffin provided was of the usual character4 ,now this is not accurate4 ',in the case of ,john ,jenkins deceased1' for whom a coffin was supplied1 it is wholly superfluous to tell us that he is deceased4 ,but actually ,john ,jenkins never had more than one case1 and that was the coffin4 ,the ,clerk says he had two1--a coffin in a case3 but ,i suspect the ,clerk to be mistaken1 and ,i am sure he errs in telling us that the coffin was of the usual character3 for coffins have no character1 usual or unusual4 ,for another example 7,i shall not tell you whence derived7-- ,in the case of every candidate who is placed in the first class ,so you see the lucky fellow gets a case as well as a first-class4 ,he might be a stuffed animal3 perhaps he is ,in the case of every candidate who is placed in the first class the class-list will show by some convenient mark 7#a7 the ,section or ,sections for proficiency in which he is placed in the first class and 7#b7 the ,section or ,sections 7if any7 in which he has passed with special distinction4 ',the ,section or ,sections 7if any7'--,but1 how1 if they are not any1 could they be indicated by a mark however convenient8 ,the ,examiners will have regard to the style and method of the candidate's answers1 and will give credit for excellence in these respects4 ,have you begun to detect the two main vices of ,jargon8 ,the first is that it uses circumlocution rather than short straight speech4 ,it says ',in the case of ,john ,jenkins deceased1 the coffin' when it means ',john ,jenkins's coffin'3 and its yea is not yea1 neither is its nay nay3 but its answer is in the affirmative or in the negative1 as the foolish and superfluous 'case' may be4 ,the second vice is that it habitually chooses vague woolly abstract nouns rather than concrete ones4 ,i shall have something to say by-and-by about the concrete noun1 and how you should ever be struggling for it whether in prose or in verse4 ,for the moment ,i content myself with advising you1 if you would write masculine ,english1 never to forget the old tag of your ,latin ,grammar-- ,masculine will only be ,things that you can touch and see4 ,but since these lectures are meant to be a course in ,first ,aid to writing1 ,i will content myself with one or two extremely rough rules3 yet ,i shall be disappointed if you do not find them serviceable4 ,the first is3--,whenever in your reading you come across one of these words1 case1 instance1 character1 nature1 condition1 persuasion1 degree--whenever in writing your pen betrays you to one or another of them--pull yourself up and take thought4 ,if it be 'case' 7,i choose it as ,jargon's dearest child--'in ,heaven yclept ,metonomy'7 turn to the dictionary1 if you will1 and seek out what meaning can be derived from casus1 its ,latin ancestor3 then try how1 with a little trouble1 you can extricate yourself from that case4 ,the odds are1 you will feel like a butterfly who has discarded his chrysalis4 ,here are some specimens to try your hand on-- 7#a7 ,all those tears which inundated ,lord ,hugh ,cecil's head were dry in the case of ,mr ,harold ,cox4 ,poor ,mr ,cox6 left gasping in his aquarium6 7#b7 ,from a cigar-merchant ,in any case1 let us send you a case on approval4 7#c7 ,it is contended that ,consols have fallen in consequence3 but such is by no means the case4 ',such1' by the way1 is another spoilt child of ,jargon1 especially in ,committee's ,rules--',co-opted members may be eligible as such2 such members to continue to serve for such time as'--and so on4 7#d7 ,even in the purely ,celtic areas1 only in two or three cases do the ,bishops bear ,celtic names4 ,for 'cases' read 'dioceses4' ,instance4 ,in most instances the players were below their form4 ,but what were they playing at8 ,instances8 ,character--,nature4 ,there can be no doubt that the accident was caused through the dangerous nature of the spot1 the hidden character of the by-road1 and the utter absence of any warning or danger signal4 ,mark the foggy wording of it all6 ,and yet the man hit something and broke his neck6 ,contrast that explanation with the verdict of a coroner's jury in the ,west of ,england on a drowned postman--',we find that deceased met his death by an act of ,god1 caused by sudden overflowing of the river ,walkhan and helped out by the scandalous neglect of the way-wardens4' ,the ,aintree course is notoriously of a trying nature4 ,on account of its light character1 purity and age1 ,usher's whiskey is a whiskey that will agree with you4 ,order4 ,the mesalliance was of a pronounced order4 ,condition4 ,he was conveyed to his place of residence in an intoxicated condition4 ',he was carried home drunk4' ,quality and ,section4 ,mr ----1 exhibiting no less than five works1 all of a superior quality1 figures prominently in the oil section4 ,this was written of an exhibition of pictures4 ,degree4 ,a singular degree of rarity prevails in the earlier editions of this romance4 ,that is ,jargon4 ,in prose it runs simply ',the earlier editions of this romance are rare'--or 'are very rare'--or even 7if you believe what ,i take leave to doubt71 'are singularly rare'2 which should mean that they are rarer than the editions of any other work in the world4 ,now what ,i ask you to consider about these quotations is that in each the writer was using ,jargon to shirk prose1 palming off periphrases upon us when with a little trouble he could have gone straight to the point4 ',a singular degree of rarity prevails1' 'the accident was caused through the dangerous nature of the spot1' 'but such is by no means the case4' ,we may not be capable of much2 but we can all write better than that1 if we take a little trouble4 ,in place of1 'the ,aintree course is of a trying nature' we can surely say ',aintree is a trying course' or 'the ,aintree course is a trying one'--just that and nothing more4 ,next1 having trained yourself to keep a look-out for these worst offenders 7and you will be surprised to find how quickly you get into the way of it71 proceed to push your suspicions out among the whole cloudy host of abstract terms4 ',how excellent a thing is sleep1' sighed ,sancho ,panza2 'it wraps a man round like a cloak'--an excellent example1 by the way1 of how to say a thing concretely3 a ,jargoneer would have said that 'among the beneficent qualities of sleep its capacity for withdrawing the human consciousness from the contemplation of immediate circumstances may perhaps be accounted not the least remarkable4' ,how vile a thing--shall we say8--is the abstract noun6 ,it wraps a man's thoughts round like cotton wool4 ,here is a pretty little nest of specimens1 found in ,the ,times newspaper by ,messrs4 ,h4 ,w4 and ,f4 ,g4 ,fowler1 authors of that capital little book ,the ,king's ,english3-- ,one of the most important reforms mentioned in the rescript is the unification of the organisation of judicial institutions and the guarantee for all the tribunals of the independence necessary for securing to all classes of the community equality before the law4 ,i do not dwell on the cacophony2 but1 to convey a straightforward piece of news1 might not the ,editor of ,the ,times as well employ a man to write3-- ,one of the most important reforms is that of the ,courts1 which need a uniform system and to be made independent4 ,in this way only can men be assured that all are equal before the law4 ,i think he might4 ,a day or two ago the musical critic of the ,standard wrote this3-- ,,mr ,,lamond ,,in ,,beethoven ,mr ,frederick ,lamond1 the ,scottish pianist1 as an interpreter of ,beethoven has few rivals4 ,at his second recital of the composer's works at ,bechstein ,hall on ,saturday afternoon he again displayed a complete sympathy and understanding of his material that extracted the very essence of aesthetic and musical value from each selection he undertook4 ,the delightful intimacy of his playing and his unusual force of individual expression are invaluable assets1 which1 allied to his technical brilliancy1 enable him to achieve an artistic triumph4 ,the two lengthy ,variations in ,e flat major 7,op4 #ce7 and in ,d major1 the latter on the ,turkish ,march from ',the ,ruins of ,athens1' when included in the same programme1 require a master hand to provide continuity of interest4 ,to say that ,mr ,lamond successfully avoided moments that might at times1 in these works1 have inclined to comparative disinterestedness1 would be but a moderate way of expressing the remarkable fascination with which his versatile playing endowed them1 but at the same time two of the sonatas given included a similar form of composition1 and no matter how intellectually brilliant may be the interpretation1 the extravagant use of a certain mode is bound in time to become somewhat ineffective4 ,in the ,three ,sonatas1 the ,e major 7,op4 #aji71 the ,a major 7,op4 #b71 ,no4 #b1 and the ,c minor 7,op4 #aaa71 ,mr ,lamond signalised his perfect insight into the composer's varying moods4 ,will you not agree with me that here is no writing1 here is no prose1 here is not even ,english1 but merely a flux of words to the pen8 ,here again is a string1 a concatenation--say1 rather1 a tiara--of gems of purest ray serene from the dark unfathomed caves of a ,scottish newspaper3-- ,the ,chinese viewpoint1 as indicated in this letter1 may not be without interest to your readers1 because it evidently is suggestive of more than an academic attempt to explain an unpleasant aspect of things which1 if allowed to materialise1 might suddenly culminate in disaster resembling the ,chang-,sha riots4 ,it also ventures to illustrate incidents having their inception in recent premature endeavours to accelerate the development of ,protestant missions in ,china2 but we would hope for the sake of the interests involved that what my correspondent describes as 'the irresponsible ruffian element' may be known by their various religious designations only within very restricted areas4 ,well1 the ,chinese have given it up1 poor fellows6 and are asking the ,christians--as to-day's newspapers inform us--to pray for them4 ,do you wonder8 ,but that is1 or was1 the ,chinese 'viewpoint1'--and what a willow-pattern viewpoint6 ,observe its delicacy4 ,it does not venture to interest or be interesting2 merely 'to be not without interest4' ,but it does 'venture to illustrate incidents'--which1 for a viewpoint1 is brave enough3 and this illustration 'is suggestive of something more than an academic attempt to explain an unpleasant aspect of things which1 if allowed to materialise1 might suddenly culminate4' ,what materialises8 ,the unpleasant aspect8 or the things8 ,grammar says the 'things1' 'things which if allowed to materialise4' ,but things are materialised already1 and as a condition of their being things4 ,it must be the aspect1 then1 that materialises4 ,but1 if so1 it is also the aspect that culminates1 and an aspect1 however unpleasant1 can hardly do that1 or at worst cannot culminate in anything resembling the ,chang-,sha riots4444 ,i give it up4 ,let us turn to another trick of ,jargon3 the trick of ,elegant ,variation1 so rampant in the ,sporting ,press that there1 without needing to attend these lectures1 the ,undergraduate detects it for laughter3-- ,hayward and ,c4 ,b4 ,fry now faced the bowling2 which apparently had no terrors for the ,surrey crack4 ,the old ,oxonian1 however1 took some time in settling to work4444 ,yes1 you all recognise it and laugh at it4 ,but why do you practise it in your ,essays8 ,an undergraduate brings me an essay on ,byron4 ,in an essay on ,byron1 ,byron is 7or ought to be7 mentioned many times4 ,i expect1 nay exact1 that ,bryon shall be mentioned again and again4 ,but my undergraduate has a blushing sense that to call ,byron ,byron twice on one page is indelicate4 ,so ,byron1 after starting bravely as ,byron1 in the second sentence turns into 'that great but unequal poet' and thenceforward ,i have as much trouble with ,byron as ever ,telemachus with ,proteus to hold and pin him back to his proper self4 ,half-way down the page he becomes 'the gloomy master of ,newstead'3 overleaf he is reincarnated into 'the meteoric darling of society'3 and so proceeds through successive avatars--'this arch-rebel1' 'the author of ,childe ,harold1' 'the apostle of scorn1' 'the ex-,harrovian1 proud1 but abnormally sensitive of his club-foot1' 'the martyr of ,missolonghi1' 'the pageant-monger of a bleeding heart4' ,now this again is ,jargon4 ,it does not1 as most ,jargon does1 come of laziness2 but it comes of timidity1 which is worse4 ,in literature as in life he makes himself felt who not only calls a spade a spade but has the pluck to double spades and re-double4 ,for another rule--just as rough and ready1 but just as useful3 ,train your suspicions to bristle up whenever you come upon 'as regards1' 'with regard to1' 'in respect of1' 'in connection with1' 'according as to whether1' and the like4 ,they are all dodges of ,jargon1 circumlocutions for evading this or that simple statement3 and ,i say that it is not enough to avoid them nine times out of ten1 or nine-and-ninety times out of a hundred4 ,you should never use them4 ,that is positive enough1 ,i hope8 ,though ,i cannot admire his style1 ,i admire the man who wrote to me1 ',re ,tennyson--your remarks anent his ,in ,memoriam make me sick'3 for though re is not a preposition of the first water1 and 'anent' has enjoyed its day1 the finish crowned the work4 ,but here are a few specimens far1 very far1 worse3-- ,the special difficulty in ,professor ,minocelsi's case our old friend 'case' again arose in connexion with the view he holds relative to the historical value of the opening pages of ,genesis4 ,that is ,jargon4 ,in prose1 even taking the miserable sentence as it stands constructed1 we should write 'the difficulty arose over the views he holds about the historical value1' etc4 ,from a popular novelist3-- ,i was entirely indifferent as to the results of the game1 caring nothing at all as to whether ,i had losses or gains-- ,cut out the first 'as' in 'as to1' and the second 'as to' altogether1 and the sentence begins to be prose--',i was indifferent to the results of the game1 caring nothing whether ,i had losses or gains4' ,but why1 like ,dogberry1 have 'had losses'8 ,why not simply 'lose4' ,let us try again4 ',i was entirely indifferent to the results of the game1 caring nothing at all whether ,i won or lost4' ,still the sentence remains absurd3 for the second clause but repeats the first without adding one jot4 ,for if you care not at all whether you win or lose1 you must be entirely indifferent to the results of the game4 ,so why not say ',i was careless if ,i won or lost1' and have done with it8 ,a man of simple and charming character1 he was fitly associated with the distinction of the ,order of ,merit4 ,i take this gem with some others from a collection made three years ago1 by the ,oxford ,magazine2 and ,i hope you admire it as one beyond price4 ',he was associated with the distinction of the ,order of ,merit' means 'he was given the ,order of ,merit4' ,if the members of that ,order make a society then he was associated with them2 but you cannot associate a man with a distinction4 ,the inventor of such fine writing would doubtless have answered ,canning's ,needy ,knife-grinder with3-- ,i associate thee with sixpence6 ,i will see thee in another association first6 ,but let us close our florilegium and attempt to illustrate ,jargon by the converse method of taking a famous piece of ,english 7say ,hamlet's soliloquy7 and remoulding a few lines of it in this fashion3-- ,to be1 or the contrary8 ,whether the former or the latter be preferable would seem to admit of some difference of opinion2 the answer in the present case being of an affirmative or of a negative character according as to whether one elects on the one hand to mentally suffer the disfavour of fortune1 albeit in an extreme degree1 or on the other to boldly envisage adverse conditions in the prospect of eventually bringing them to a conclusion4 ,the condition of sleep is similar to1 if not indistinguishable from1 that of death2 and with the addition of finality the former might be considered identical with the latter3 so that in this connection it might be argued with regard to sleep that1 could the addition be effected1 a termination would be put to the endurance of a multiplicity of inconveniences1 not to mention a number of downright evils incidental to our fallen humanity1 and thus a consummation achieved of a most gratifying nature4 ,that is ,jargon3 and to write ,jargon is to be perpetually shuffling around in the fog and cotton-wool of abstract terms2 to be for ever hearkening1 like ,ibsen's ,peer ,gynt1 to the voice of the ,boyg exhorting you to circumvent the difficulty1 to beat the air because it is easier than to flesh your sword in the thing4 ,the first virtue1 the touchstone of a masculine style1 is its use of the active verb and the concrete noun4 ,when you write in the active voice1 ',they gave him a silver teapot1' you write as a man4 ,when you write ',he was made the recipient of a silver teapot1' you write jargon4 ,but at the beginning set even higher store on the concrete noun4 ,somebody--,i think it was ,fitz,gerald--once posited the question ',what would have become of ,christianity if ,jeremy ,bentham had had the writing of the ,parables8' ,without pursuing that dreadful enquiry ,i ask you to note how carefully the ,parables--those exquisite short stories--speak only of 'things which you can touch and see'--',a sower went forth to sow1' ',the kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven1 which a woman took1'--and not the ,parables only1 but the ,sermon on the ,mount and almost every verse of the ,gospel4 ,the ,gospel does not1 like my young essayist1 fear to repeat a word1 if the word be good4 ,the ,gospel says ',render unto ,caesar the things that are ,caesar's'--not ',render unto ,caesar the things that appertain to that potentate4' ,the ,gospel does not say ',consider the growth of the lilies1' or even ',consider how the lilies grow4' ,it says1 ',consider the lilies1 how they grow4' ,or take ,shakespeare4 ,i wager you that no writer of ,english so constantly chooses the concrete word1 in phrase after phrase forcing you to touch and see4 ,no writer so insistently teaches the general through the particular4 ,he does it even in ,venus and ,adonis 7as ,professor ,wendell1 of ,harvard1 pointed out in a brilliant little monograph on ,shakespeare1 published some ten years ago74 ,read any page of ,venus and ,adonis side by side with any page of ,marlowe's ,hero and ,leander and you cannot but mark the contrast3 in ,shakespeare the definite1 particular1 visualised image1 in ,marlowe the beautiful generalisation1 the abstract term1 the thing seen at a literary remove4 ,take the two openings1 both of which start out with the sunrise4 ,marlowe begins3-- ,now had the ,morn espied her lover's steeds3 ,whereat she starts1 puts on her purple weeds1 ,and1 red for anger that he stay'd so long1 ,all headlong throws herself the clouds among4 ,shakespeare wastes no words on ,aurora and her feelings1 but gets to his hero and to business without ado3-- ,even as the sun with purple-colour'd face-- 7,you have the sun visualised at once71 ,even as the sun with purple-colour'd face ,had ta'en his last leave of the weeping morn1 ,rose-cheek'd ,adonis hied him to the chase2 ,hunting he loved1 but love he laugh'd to scorn4 ,when ,shakespeare has to describe a horse1 mark how definite he is3-- ,round-hoof'd1 short-jointed1 fetlocks shag and long1 ,broad breast1 full eye1 small head and nostril wide1 ,high crest1 short ears1 straight legs and passing strong2 ,thin mane1 thick tail1 broad buttock1 tender hide4 ,or again1 in a casual simile1 how definite3-- ,upon this promise did he raise his chin1 ,like a dive-dipper peering through a wave1 ,which1 being look'd on1 ducks as quickly in4 ,or take1 if you will1 ,marlowe's description of ,hero's first meeting ,leander3-- ,it lies not in our power to love or hate1 ,for will in us is over-ruled by fate4441 and set against it ,shakespeare's description of ,venus' last meeting with ,adonis1 as she came on him lying in his blood3-- ,or as a snail whose tender horns being hit ,shrinks backward in his shelly cave with pain1 ,and there1 all smother'd up1 in shade doth sit1 ,long after fearing to creep forth again2 ,so1 at his bloody view-- ,i do not deny ,marlowe's lines 7if you will study the whole passage7 to be lovely4 ,you may even judge ,shakespeare's to be crude by comparison4 ,but you cannot help noting that whereas ,marlowe steadily deals in abstract1 nebulous terms1 ,shakespeare constantly uses concrete ones1 which later on he learned to pack into verse1 such as3-- ,sleep that knits up the ravell'd sleeve of care4 ,is it unfair to instance ,marlowe1 who died young8 ,then let us take ,webster for the comparison2 ,webster1 a man of genius or of something very like it1 and commonly praised by the critics for his mastery over definite1 detailed1 and what ,i may call solidified sensation4 ,let us take this admired passage from his ,duchess of ,malfy3-- ,ferdinand4 ,how doth our sister ,duchess bear herself ,in her imprisonment8 ,basola4 ,nobly3 ,i'll describe her4 ,she's sad as one long used to 't1 and she seems ,rather to welcome the end of misery ,than shun it3 a behaviour so noble ,as gives a majesty to adversity 7,note the abstract terms47 ,you may discern the shape of loveliness ,more perfect in her tears than in her smiles2 ,she will muse for hours together2 and her silence 7,here we first come on the concrete3 and beautiful it is47 ,methinks expresseth more than if she spake4 ,now set against this the well-known passage from ,twelfth ,night where the ,duke asks and ,viola answers a question about someone unknown to him and invented by her--a mere phantasm1 in short3 yet note how much more definite is the language3-- ,viola4 ,my father had a daughter lov'd a man2 ,as it might be1 perhaps1 were ,i a woman1 ,i should your lordship4 ,duke4 ,and what's her history8 ,viola4 ,a blank1 my lord4 ,she never told her love1 ,but let concealment1 like a worm i' the bud1 ,feed on her damask cheek2 she pined in thought1 ,and with a green and yellow melancholy ,she sat like ,patience on a monument ,smiling at grief4 ,was not this love indeed8 ,observe 7apart from the dramatic skill of it7 how1 when ,shakespeare has to use the abstract noun 'concealment1' on an instant it turns into a visible worm 'feeding' on the visible rose2 how1 having to use a second abstract word 'patience1' at once he solidifies it in tangible stone4 ,turning to prose1 you may easily assure yourselves that men who have written learnedly on the art agree in treating our maxim--to prefer the concrete term to the abstract1 the particular to the general1 the definite to the vague--as a canon of rhetoric4 ,whately has much to say on it4 ,the late ,mr ,e4 ,j4 ,payne1 in one of his admirable prefaces to ,burke 7prefaces too little known and valued1 as too often happens to scholarship hidden away in a schoolbook71 illustrated the maxim by setting a passage from ,burke's speech ,on ,conciliation with ,america alongside a passage of like purport from ,lord ,brougham's ,inquiry into the ,policy of the ,european ,powers4 ,here is the deadly parallel3-- ,,burke4 ,in large bodies the circulation of power must be less vigorous at the extremities4 ,nature has said it4 ,the ,turk cannot govern ,a,egypt and ,arabia and ,curdistan as he governs ,thrace2 nor has he the same dominion in ,crimea and ,algiers which he has at ,brusa and ,smyrna4 ,despotism itself is obliged to truck and huckster4 ,the ,sultan gets such obedience as he can4 ,he governs with a loose rein1 that he may govern at all2 and the whole of the force and vigour of his authority in his centre is derived from a prudent relaxation in all his borders4 ,,brougham4 ,in all the despotisms of the ,east1 it has been observed that the further any part of the empire is removed from the capital1 the more do its inhabitants enjoy some sort of rights and privileges3 the more inefficacious is the power of the monarch2 and the more feeble and easily decayed is the organisation of the government4 ,you perceive that ,brougham has transferred ,burke's thought to his own page3 but will you not also perceive how pitiably1 by dissolving ,burke's vivid particulars into smooth generalities1 he has enervated its hold on the mind8 ',this particularising style1' comments ,mr ,payne1 'is the essence of ,poetry2 and in ,prose it is impossible not to be struck with the energy it produces4 ,brougham's passage is excellent in its way3 but it pales before the flashing lights of ,burke's sentences4 ,the best instances of this energy of style1 he adds1 are to be found in the classical writers of the seventeenth century4 ',when ,south says1 ,an ,aristotle was but the rubbish of an ,adam1 and ,athens but the rudiments of ,paradise1 he communicates more effectually the notion of the difference between the intellect of fallen and of unfallen humanity than in all the philosophy of his sermons put together4' ,you may agree with me1 or you may not1 that ,south in this passage is expounding trash2 but you will agree with ,mr ,payne and me that he uttered it vividly4 ,let me quote to you1 as a final example of this vivid style of writing1 a passage from ,dr ,john ,donne far beyond and above anything that ever lay within ,south's compass3-- ,the ashes of an ,oak in the ,chimney are no epitaph of that ,oak1 to tell me how high or how large that was2 it tells me not what flocks it sheltered while it stood1 nor what men it hurt when it fell4 ,the dust of great persons' graves is speechless1 too2 it says nothing1 it distinguishes nothing4 ,as soon the dust of a wretch whom thou wouldest not1 as of a prince whom thou couldest not look upon will trouble thine eyes if the wind blow it thither2 and when a whirle-wind hath blown the dust of the ,churchyard into the ,church1 and the man sweeps out the dust of the ,church into the ,churchyard1 who will undertake to sift those dusts again and to pronounce1 ,this is the ,patrician1 this is the noble flowre flour1 this the yeomanly1 this the ,plebeian bran8 ,so is the death of ,iesabel 7,iesabel was a ,queen7 expressed4 ,they shall not say ,this is ,iesabel2 not only not wonder that it is1 nor pity that it should be2 but they shall not say1 they shall not know1 ,this is ,iesabel4 ,carlyle noted of ,goethe1 'his emblematic intellect1 his never-failing tendency to transform into shape1 into life1 the feeling that may dwell in him4 ,everything has form1 has visual excellence3 the poet's imagination bodies forth the forms of things unseen1 and his pen turns them into shape4' ,perpend this1 ,gentlemen1 and maybe you will not hereafter set it down to my reproach that ,i wasted an hour of a ,may morning in a denunciation of ,jargon1 and in exhorting you upon a technical matter at first sight so trivial as the choice between abstract and definite words4 ,a lesson about writing your language may go deeper than language2 for language 7as in a former lecture ,i tried to preach to you7 is your reason1 your ,greek3 logos4 ,so long as you prefer abstract words1 which express other men's summarised concepts of things1 to concrete ones which as near as can be reached to things themselves and are the first-hand material for your thoughts1 you will remain1 at the best1 writers at second-hand4 ,if your language be ,jargon1 your intellect1 if not your whole character1 will almost certainly correspond4 ,where your mind should go straight1 it will dodge3 the difficulties it should approach with a fair front and grip with a firm hand it will be seeking to evade or circumvent4 ,for the ,style is the ,man1 and where a man's treasure is there his heart1 and his brain1 and his writing1 will be also4 ,,lecture ,,vi4 ,,on ,,the ,,capital ,,difficulty ,,of ,,prose ,thursday1 ,may #ae ,to-day1 ,gentlemen1 leaving the ,vanity ,fair of ,jargon behind us1 we have to essay a difficult country2 of which1 though fairly confident of his compass-bearings1 your guide confesses1 that wide tracts lie outside his knowledge--outside of anything that can properly be called his knowledge4 ,i feel indeed somewhat as ,gideon must have felt when he divided his host on the slopes of ,mount ,gilead1 warning back all who were afraid4 ,in asking the remnant to follow as attentively as they can1 ,i promise only that1 if ,heaven carry us safely across1 we shall have 'broken the back' of the desert4 ,in my last lecture but one1 then1--and before our small interlude with ,jargon--the argument had carried us1 more or less neatly1 up to this point3 that the capital difficulty of verse consisted in saying ordinary unemotional things1 of bridging the flat intervals between high moments4 ,this point1 ,i believe1 we made effectively enough4 ,now1 for logical neatness1 we should be able to oppose a corresponding point1 that the capital difficulty of prose consists in saying extraordinary things1 in running it up from its proper level to these high emotional1 musical1 moments4 ,and mightily convenient that would be1 ,gentlemen1 if ,i were here to help you to answer scientific questions about prose and verse instead of helping you1 in what small degree ,i can1 to write4 ,but in ,literature 7which1 let me remind you yet once again1 is an art7 you cannot classify as in a science4 ,pray attend while ,i impress on you this most necessary warning4 ,in studying literature1 and still more in studying to write it1 distrust all classification6 ,all classifying of literature intrudes 'science' upon an art1 and is artificially 'scientific'2 a trick of pedants1 that they may make it the easier to examine you on things with which no man should have any earthly concern1 as ,i am sure he will never have a heavenly one4 ,beetles1 minerals1 gases1 may be classified2 and to have them classified is not only convenient but a genuine advance of knowledge4 ,but if you had to make a beetle1 as men are making poetry1 how much would classification help8 ,to classify in a science is necessary for the purpose of that science3 to classify when you come to art is at the best an expedient1 useful to some critics and to a multitude of examiners4 ,it serves the art-critic to talk about ,tuscan1 ,flemish1 ,pre-,raphaelite1 schools of painting4 ,the expressions are handy1 and we know more or less what they intend4 ,just so handily it may serve us to talk about ',renaissance poets1' 'the ,elizabethans1' 'the ,augustan age4' ,but such terms at best cannot be scientific1 precise1 determinate1 as for examples the terms 'inorganic1' 'mammal1' 'univalve1' ',old ,red ,sandstone' are scientific1 precise1 determinate4 ,an animal is either a mammal or it is not3 you cannot say as assuredly that a man is or is not an ,elizabethan4 ,we call ,shakespeare an ,elizabethan and the greatest of ,elizabethans1 though as a fact he wrote his most famous plays when ,elizabeth was dead4 ,shirley was but seven years old when ,elizabeth died2 yet 7if ',elizabethan' have any meaning but a chronological one7 ,shirley belongs to the ,elizabethan firmament1 albeit but as a pale star low on the horizon3 whereas ,donne--a post-,elizabethan if ever there was one--had by #afjc reached his thirtieth year and written almost every line of those wonderful lyrics which for a good sixty years gave the dominant note to ,jacobean and ,caroline poetry4 ,in treating of an art we classify for handiness1 not for purposes of exact knowledge2 and man 7improbus homo7 with his wicked inventions is for ever making fools of our formulae4 ,be consoled--and1 if you are wise1 thank ,heaven--that genius uses our best-laid logic to explode it4 ,be consoled1 at any rate1 on finding that after deciding the capital difficulty of prose to lie in saying extraordinary things1 in running up to the high emotional moments1 the prose-writers explode and blow our admirable conclusions to ruins4 ,you see1 we gave them the chance to astonish us when we defined prose as 'a record of human thought1 dispensing with metre and using rhythm laxly4' ,when you give genius leave to use something laxly1 at its will1 genius will pretty surely get the better of you4 ,observe1 now1 following the story of ,english prose1 what has happened4 ,its difficulty--the inherent1 the native disability of prose--is to handle the high emotional moments which more properly belong to verse4 ,well1 we strike into the line of our prose-writers1 say as early as ,malory4 ,we come on this2 of the ,passing of ,arthur3-- ',my time hieth fast1' said the king4 ,therefore said ,arthur unto ,sir ,bedivere1 ',take thou ,excalibur my good sword1 and go with it to yonder water side2 and when thou comest there ,i charge thee throw my sword in that water and come again and tell me what there thou seest4' ',my lord1' said ,bedivere1 ',your commandment shall be done2 and lightly bring you word again4' ,so ,sir ,bedivere departed1 and by the way he beheld that noble sword1 that the pommel and the haft was all of precious stones1 and then he said to himself1 ',if ,i throw this rich sword in the water1 thereof shall never come good1 but harm and loss4' ,and then ,sir ,bedivere hid ,excaliber under a tree4 ,and so1 as soon as he might1 he came again unto the king1 and said he had been at the water and had thrown the sword into the water1 ',what saw thou there8' said the king1 ',sir1' he said1 ',i saw nothing but waves and winds4' ,now ,i might say a dozen things of this and of the whole passage that follows1 down to ,arthur's last words4 ,specially might ,i speak to you of the music of its monosyllables--',what sawest you there8 said the king444 ,do as well as thou mayest2 for in me is no trust for to trust in4 ,for ,i will into the ,vale of ,avilion1 to heal me of my grievous wound4 ,and if thou hear never more of me1 pray for my soul4' ,but1 before making comment at all1 ,i shall quote you another passage2 this from ,lord ,berners' translation of ,froissart1 of the death of ,robert ,bruce3-- ,it fortuned that ,king ,robert of ,scotland was right sore aged and feeble3 for he was greatly charged with the great sickness1 so that there was no way for him but death4 ,and when he felt that his end drew near1 he sent for such barons and lords of his realm as he trusted best1 and shewed them how there was no remedy with him1 but he must needs leave this transitory life4444 ,then he called to him the gentle knight1 ,sir ,william ,douglas1 and said before all the lords1 ',sir ,william1 my dear friend1 ye know well that ,i have had much ado in my days to uphold and sustain the right of this realm2 and when ,i had most ado ,i made a solemn vow1 the which as yet ,i have not accomplished1 whereof ,i am right sorry2 the which was1 if ,i might achieve and make an end of all my wars1 so that ,i might once have brought this realm in rest and peace1 then ,i promised in my mind to have gone and warred on ,christ's enemies1 adversaries to our holy ,christian faith4 ,to this purpose mine heart hath ever intended1 but our ,lord would not consent thereto444 ,and sith it is so that my body can not go1 nor achieve that my heart desireth1 ,i will send the heart instead of the body1 to accomplish mine avow444 ,i will1 that as soon as ,i am trespassed out of this world1 that ye take my heart out of my body1 and embalm it1 and take of my treasure as ye shall think sufficient for that enterprise1 both for yourself and such company as ye will take with you1 and present my heart to the ,holy ,sepulchre1 whereas our ,lord lay1 seeing my body can not come there4 ,and take with you such company and purveyance as shall be appertaining to your estate4 ,and1 wheresoever ye come1 let it be known how ye carry with you the heart of ,king ,robert of ,scotland1 at his instance and desire to be presented to the ,holy ,sepulchre4' ,then all the lords1 that heard these words1 wept for pity4 ,there1 in the fifteenth century and early in the sixteenth1 you have ,malory and ,berners writing beautiful ,english prose2 prose the emotion of which 7,i dare to say7 you must recognise if you have ears to hear4 ,so you see that already our ,english prose not only achieves the 'high moment1' but seems to obey it rather and be lifted by it1 until we ask ourselves1 ',who could help writing nobly1 having to tell how ,king ,arthur died or how the ,bruce8' ,yes1 but ,i bid you observe that ,malory and ,berners are both relating what1 however noble1 is quite simple1 quite straightforward4 ,it is when prose attempts to philosophise1 to express thoughts as well as to relate simple sayings and doings--it is then that the trouble begins4 ,when ,malory has to philosophise death1 to think about it1 this is as far as he attains3-- ',ah1 ,sir ,lancelot1' said he1 'thou wert head of all ,christian ,knights6 ,and now ,i dare say1' said ,sir ,ector1 'that1 ,sir ,lancelot1 there thou liest1 thou were never matched of none earthly hands2 and thou were the curtiest knight that ever bare shield3 and thou were the truest friend to thy lover that ever strood horse1 and thou were the truest lover of a sinful man that ever loved woman2 and thou were the kindest man that ever strooke with sword2 and thou were the goodliest person that ever came among press of knights2 and thou were the meekest man and gentlest that ever sat in hall among ladies2 and thou were the sternest ,knight to thy mortal foe that ever put spear in the rest4' ,beautiful again1 ,i grant6 ,but note you that1 eloquent as he can be on the virtues of his dead friend1 when ,sir ,ector comes to the thought of death itself all he can accomplish is1 ',and now ,i dare say that1 ,sir ,lancelot1 there thou liest4' ,let us make a leap in time and contrast this with ,tyndale and the translators of our ,bible1 how they are able to make ,st ,paul speak of death3-- ,so when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption1 and this mortal shall have put on immortality1 then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written1 ,death is swallowed up in victory4 ,o death1 where is thy sting8 ,o grave1 where is thy victory8 ,there you have something clean beyond what ,malory or ,berners could compass3 there you have a different kind of high moment--a high moment of philosophising3 there you have emotion impregnated with thought4 ,it was necessary that our ,english verse even after ,chaucer1 our ,english prose after ,malory and ,berners1 should overcome this most difficult gap 7which stands for a real intellectual difference7 if it aspired to be what to-day it is--a language of the first class1 comparable with ,greek and certainly no whit inferior to ,latin or ,french4 99 99 99 99 99 ,let us leave prose for a moment1 and see how ,verse threw its bridge over the gap4 ,if you would hear the note of ,chaucer at its deepest1 you will find it in the famous exquisite lines of the ,prioress' ,prologue3-- ,o moder mayde6 ,o mayde moder fre6 ,o bush unbrent1 brenning in ,moyses' sight6 in the complaint of ,troilus1 in the rapture of ,griselda restored to her children3-- ,o tendre1 ,o dere1 ,o yonge children myne1 ,your woful moder wende stedfastly ,that cruel houndes or some foul vermyne ,hadde eten you2 but ,god of his mercy ,and your benigne fader tendrely ,hath doon you kept444 ,you will find a note quite as sincere in many a carol1 many a ballad1 of that time3-- ,he came al so still ,there his mother was1 ,as dew in ,april ,that falleth on the grass4 ,he came al so still ,to his mother's bour1 ,as dew in ,april ,that falleth on the flour4 ,he came al so still ,there his mother lay1 ,as dew in ,april ,that falleth on the spray4 ,mother and maiden ,was never none but she2 ,well may such a lady ,goddes mother be4 ,you get the most emotional note of the ,ballad in such a stanza as this1 from ,the ,nut-,brown ,maid3-- ,though it be sung of old and young ,that ,i should be to blame1 ,their's be the charge that speak so large ,in hurting of my name2 ,for ,i will prove that faithful love ,it is devoid of shame2 ,in your distress and heaviness ,to part with you the same3 ,and sure all tho that do not so ,true lovers are they none3 ,for1 in my mind1 of all mankind ,i love but you alone4 ,all these notes1 again1 you will admit to be exquisite3 but they gush straight from the unsophisticated heart3 they are nowise deep save in innocent emotion3 they are not thoughtful4 ,so when ,barbour breaks out in praise of ,freedom1 he cries ,a6 ,fredome is a noble thing6 ,and that is really as far as he gets4 ,he goes on ,fredome mayse man to hafe liking4 7,freedom makes man to choose what he likes2 that is1 makes him free7 ,fredome all solace to man giffis1 ,he livis at ese that frely livis6 ,a noble hart may haif nane ese1 ,na ellys nocht that may him plese1 ,gif fredome fail'th3 for fre liking ,is yharnit ouer all othir thing444 --and so on for many lines2 all saying the same thing1 that man yearns for ,freedom and is glad when he gets it1 because then he is free2 all hammering out the same observed fact1 but all knocking vainly on the door of thought1 which never opens to explain what ,freedom is4 ,now let us take a leap as we did with prose1 and 'taking off' from the ,nut-,brown ,maid's artless confession1 in my mind1 of all mankind ,i love but you alone1 let us alight on a sonnet of ,shakespeare's-- ,thy bosom is endeared with all hearts ,which ,i by lacking have supposed dead3 ,and there reigns ,love1 and all ,love's loving parts1 ,and all those friends which ,i thought buried4 ,how many a holy and obsequious tear ,hath dear religious love stolen from mine eye ,as interest of the dead6--which now appear ,but things removed1 that hidden in thee lie4 ,thou art the grave where buried love doth live1 ,hung with the trophies of my lovers gone1 ,who all their parts of me to thee did give2 ,that due of many now is mine alone3 ,their images ,i loved ,i view in thee1 ,and thou1 all they1 hast all the all of me4 ,what a new way of talking about love6 ,not a happier way--there is less of heart's-ease in these doubts1 delicacies1 subtleties--but how much more thoughtful6 ,how has our ,nut-,brown ,maid eaten of the tree of knowledge6 ,well1 there happened a ,shakespeare1 to do this for ,english ,verse3 and ,shakespeare was a miracle which ,i cheerfully leave others to rationalise for you1 having1 for my own part and so far as ,i have fared in life1 found more profit in a capacity for simple wonder4 ,but ,i can tell you how the path was made straight to that miracle4 ,the shock of the ,new ,learning upon ,europe awoke men and unsealed men's eyes--unsealed the eyes of ,englishmen in particular--to discover a literature1 and the finest in the world1 which habitually philosophised life3 a literature which1 whether in a chorus of ,sophocles or a talk reported by ,plato1 or in a ribald page of ,aristophanes or in a knotty chapter of ,thucydides1 was in one guise or another for ever asking ,why8 ',what is man doing here1 and why is he doing it8' ',what is his purpose8 his destiny8' ',how stands he towards those unseen powers--call them the gods1 or whatever you will--that guide and thwart1 provoke1 madden1 control him so mysteriously8' ',what are these things we call good and evil1 life1 love1 death8' ,these are questions which1 once raised1 haunt ,man until he finds an answer--some sort of answer to satisfy him4 ,englishmen1 hitherto content with the ,church's answers but now aware of this great literature which answered so differently--and having other reasons to suspect what the ,church said and did--grew aware that their literature had been as a child at play4 ,it had never philosophised good and evil1 life1 love or death3 it had no literary forms for doing this2 it had not even the vocabulary4 ,so our ancestors saw that to catch up their lee-way--to make their report worthy of this wonderful1 alluring discovery--new literary forms had to be invented--new1 that is1 in ,english3 the sonnet1 the drama1 the verse in which the actors were to declaim1 the essay1 the invented tale4 ,then1 for the vocabulary1 obviously our fathers had either to go to ,greek1 which had invented the ,a4,b4,c4 of philosophising2 or to seek in the other languages which were already ahead of ,english in adapting that alphabet2 or to give our ,english ,words new contents1 new connotations1 new meanings2 or lastly1 to do all three together4 ,well1 it was done2 and in verse very fortunately done2 thanks of course to many men1 but thanks to two especially--to ,sir ,thomas ,wyat1 who led our poets to ,italy1 to study and adopt the forms in which ,italy had cast its classical heritage2 and to ,marlowe1 who impressed blank verse upon the drama4 ,of ,marlowe ,i shall say nothing2 for with what he achieved you are familiar enough4 ,of ,wyat ,i may speak at length to you1 one of these days2 but here1 to prepare you for what ,i hope to prove--that ,wyat is one of the heroes of our literature--,i will give you three brief reasons why we should honour his memory3-- 7#a7 ,he led the way4 ,on the value of that service ,i shall content myself with quoting a passage from ,newman3-- ,when a language has been cultivated in any particular department of thought1 and so far as it has been generally perfected1 an existing want has been supplied1 and there is no need for further workmen4 ,in its earliest times1 while it is yet unformed1 to write in it at all is almost a work of genius4 ,it is like crossing a country before roads are made communicating between place and place4 ,the authors of that age deserve to be ,classics both because of what they do and because they can do it4 ,it requires the courage and force of great talent to compose in the language at all2 and the composition1 when effected1 makes a permanent impression on it4 ,this ,wyat did4 ,he was a pioneer and opened up a new country to ,englishmen4 ,but he did more4 7#b7 ,secondly1 he had the instinct to perceive that the lyric1 if it would philosophise life1 love1 and the rest1 must boldly introduce the personal note3 since in fact when man asks questions about his fortune or destiny he asks them most effectively in the first person4 ',what am ,i doing8 ,why are we mortal8 ,why do ,i love thee8' ,this again ,wyat did3 and again he did more4 ,for 7#c7 thirdly--and because of this ,i am surest of his genius--again and again1 using new thoughts in unfamiliar forms1 he wrought out the result in language so direct1 economical1 natural1 easy1 that ,i know to this day no one who can better ,wyat's best in combining straight speech with melodious cadence4 ,take the lines ,is it possible8-- ,is it possible8 ,for to turn so oft2 ,to bring that lowest that was most aloft3 ,and to fall highest1 yet to light soft8 ,is it possible8 ,all is possible6 ,whoso list believe2 ,trust therefore first1 and after preve2 ,as men wed ladies by licence and leave1 ,all is possible6 or again-- ,forget not6 ,o forget not this6-- ,how long ago hath been1 and is1 ,the mind that never meant amiss3 ,forget not yet6 or again 7can personal note go straighter87-- ,and wilt thou leave me thus8 ,say nay1 say nay1 for shame6 ,to save thee from the blame --,of all my grief and grame4 ,and wilt thou leave me thus8 ,say nay6 say nay6 7,say 'nay1' say 'nay'2 and don't say1 'the answer is in the negative4'7 ,no3 ,i have yet to mention the straightest1 most natural of them all1 and will read it to you in full-- ,what should ,i say8 ,since ,faith is dead ,and ,truth away ,from you is fled8 ,should ,i be led ,with doubleness8 ,nay6 nay6 mistress4 ,i promised you ,and you promised me ,to be as true ,as ,i would be3 ,but since ,i see ,your double heart1 ,farewell my part6 ,thought for to take ,is not my mind2 ,but to forsake ,one so unkind2 ,and as ,i find1 ,so will ,i trust1 ,farewell1 unjust6 ,can ye say nay ,but that you said ,that ,i alway ,should be obeyed8 ,and--thus betrayed ,or that ,i wist6 ,farewell1 unkist6 ,i observe it noted on p4 #afi of ,volume iii of ,the ,cambridge ,history of ,english ,literature that ,wyat 'was a pioneer and perfection was not to be expected of him4 ,he has been described as a man stumbling over obstacles1 continually falling but always pressing forward4' ,i know not to what wiseacre we owe that pronouncement3 but what do you think of it1 after the lyric ,i have just quoted8 ,i observe1 further1 on p4 #bc of the same volume of the same work1 that the ,rev4 ,t4 ,m4 ,lindsay1 ,d4,d41 ,principal of the ,glasgow ,college of the ,united ,free ,church of ,scotland1 informs us of ,wilson's ,arte of ,rhetorique that there is little or no originality in the volume1 save1 perhaps1 the author's condemnation of the use of ,french and ,italian phrases and idioms1 which he complains are 'counterfeiting the kinges ,englishe4' ,the warnings of ,wilson will not seem untimely if to be remembered that the earlier ,english poets of the period--,sir ,thomas ,wyatt the elder1 and the ,earl of ,surrey--drew their inspiration from ,petrarch and ,ariosto1 that their earlier attempts at poetry were translations from ,italian sonnets1 and that their maturer efforts were imitations of the sweet and stately measures and style of ,italian poesie4 ,the polish which men like ,wyatt and ,surrey were praised for giving to our 'rude and homely manner of vulgar poesie' might have led to some degeneration4 ,might it1 indeed8 ,as another ,dominie would have said1 ',pro-digious4' 7,thought for to take ,is not my mind2 ,but to forsake ,this ,principal of the ,glasgow ,college of the ,united ,free ,church of ,scotland-- ,farewell unkiss'd67 ,but ,i have lingered too long with this favourite poet of mine and left myself room only to hand you the thread by following which you will come to the melodious philosophising of ,shakespeare's ,sonnets-- ,let me not to the marriage of true ,minds ,admit impediment4 ,love is not love ,which alters where it alteration finds ,or bends with the remover to remove4 ,note the ,latin words 'impediment1' 'alteration1' 'remove4' ,we are using the language of philosophy here or1 rather1 the 'universal language1' which had taken over the legacy of ,greek4 ,you may trace the use of it growing as1 for example1 you trace it through the ,elizabethan song-books3 and then 7as ,i said7 comes ,shakespeare1 and with ,shakespeare the miracle4 ,the education of ,prose was more difficult1 and went through more violent convulsions4 ,i suppose that the most of us--if1 after reading a quantity of ,elizabethan prose1 we had the courage to tell plain truth1 undaunted by the name of a great epoch--would confess to finding the mass of it clotted in sense as well as unmusical in sound1 a disappointment almost intolerable after the simple melodious clarity of ,malory and ,berners4 ,i1 at any rate1 must own that the most of ,elizabethan prose pleases me little2 and ,i speak not of ,elizabethan prose at its worst1 of such stuff as disgraced the already disgraceful ,martin ,marprelate ,controversy1 but of such as a really ingenious and ingenuous man like ,thomas ,nashe could write at his average4 ,for a sample3-- ,english ,seneca read by candle-light yields many good sentences such as ',blood is a beggar' and so forth2 and if you entreat him fair on a frosty morning1 he will afford you whole ,hamlets1 ,i should say handfuls of tragical speeches4444 ,sufficeth them that is1 modern followers of ,seneca to bodge up a blank verse with if's and and's1 and others1 while for recreation after their candle-stuff1 having starched their beards most curiously1 to make a peripatetical path into the inner parts of the city1 and spend two or three hours in turning over the ,french ,doudie1 where they attract more infection in one minute than they can do eloquence all the days of their life by conversing with any authors of like argument4 ,this may be worth studying historically1 to understand the difficulties our prose had to encounter and overcome4 ,but no one would seriously propose it as a model for those who would write well1 which is our present business4 ,i have called it 'clotted4' ,it is1 to use a word of the time1 'farced' with conceits2 it needs straining4 ,its one merit consists in this1 that it is struggling1 fumbling1 to say something3 that is1 to make something4 ,it is not1 like modern ,jargon1 trying to dodge something4 ,english prose1 in short1 just here is passing through a period of puberty1 of green sickness3 and1 looking at it historically1 we may own that its throes are commensurate with the stature of the grown man to be4 ,these throes tear it every way4 ,on the one hand we have ,ascham1 pendantically enough1 apologising that he writes in the ,english tongue 7yet with a sure instinct he does it73-- ,if any man would blame me1 either for taking such a matter in hand1 or else for writing it in the ,english tongue1 this answer ,i may make him1 that what the best of the realm think it honest for them to use1 ,i1 one of the meanest sort1 ought not to suppose it vile for me to write444 ,and as for the ,latin or ,greek tongue1 everything is so excellently done in them that none can do better4 ,in the ,english tongue1 contrary1 everything in a manner so meanly1 both for the matter and the handling1 that no man can do worse4 ,on the other hand you have ,euphuism with its antithetical tricks and poises1 taking all prose by storm for a time3 ,euphuism1 to be revived two hundred years later1 and find a new avatar in the ,johnsonian balance2 ,euphuism1 dead now1 yet alive enough in its day4 ,for all these writers were alive3 and ,i tell you it is an inspiriting thing to be alive and trying to write ,english4 ,all these authors were alive and trying to do something4 ,unconsciously for the most part they were striving to philosophise the vocabulary of ,english prose and find a rhythm for its periods4 ,and then1 as already had happened to our ,verse1 to our ,prose too there befel a miracle4 ,you will not ask me ',what miracle8' ,i mean1 of course1 the ,authorised ,version of the ,bible4 ,i grant you1 to be sure1 that the path to the ,authorised ,version was made straight by previous translators1 notably by ,william ,tyndale4 ,i grant you that ,tyndale was a man of genius1 and ,wyclif before him a man of genius4 ,i grant you that the forty-seven men who produced the ,authorised ,version worked in the main upon ,tyndale's version1 taking that for their basis4 ,nay1 if you choose to say that ,tyndale was a miracle in himself1 ,i cheerfully grant you that as well4 ,but1 in a lecture one must not multiply miracles praeter necessitatem2 and when ,tyndale has been granted you have yet to face the miracle that forty-seven men--not one of them known1 outside of this performance1 for any superlative talent--sat in committee and almost consistently1 over a vast extent of work--improved upon what ,genius had done4 ,i give you the word of an old committee-man that this is not the way of committees--that only by miracle is it the way of any committee4 ,doubtless the forty-seven were all good men and godly3 but doubtless also good and godly were the ,dean and ,chapter who dealt with ,alfred ,steven's tomb of the ,duke of ,wellington in ,st ,paul's ,cathedral2 and you know what they did4 ,individual genius such as ,tyndale's or even ,shakespeare's1 though we cannot explain it1 we may admit as occurring somehow1 and not incredibly1 in the course of nature4 ,but that a large committee of forty-seven should have gone steadily through the great mass of ,holy ,writ1 seldom interfering with genius1 yet1 when interfering1 seldom missing to improve3 that a committee of forty-seven should have captured 7or even1 let us say1 should have retained and improved7 a rhythm so personal1 so constant1 that our ,bible has the voice of one author speaking through its many mouths3 that1 ,gentlemen1 is a wonder before which ,i can only stand humble and aghast4 ,does it or does it not strike you as queer that the people who set you 'courses of study' in ,english ,literature never include the ,authorised ,version1 which not only intrinsically but historically is out and away the greatest book of ,english ,prose4 ,perhaps they can pay you the silent compliment of supposing that you are perfectly acquainted with it8444 ,i wonder4 ,it seems as if they thought the ,martin ,marprelate ,controversy1 for example1 more important somehow4 ',so when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption1 and this mortal shall have put on immortality444' ',many waters cannot quench love1 neither can the floods drown it3 if a man would give all the substance of his house for love1 it would utterly be contemned4' ',the king's daughter is all glorious within3 her clothing is of wrought gold4' ',thine eyes shall see the ,king in his beauty3 they shall behold the land that is very far off4' ',and a man shall be as an hiding-place from the wind1 and a covert from the tempest2 as rivers of water in a dry place1 as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land4' ,when a nation has achieved this manner of diction1 those rhythms for its dearest beliefs1 a literature is surely established4 ,just there ,i find the effective miracle1 making the blind to see1 the lame to leap4 ,wyclif1 ,tyndale1 ,coverdale and others before the forty-seven had wrought4 ,the ,authorised ,version1 setting a seal on all1 set a seal on our national style1 thinking and speaking4 ,it has cadences homely and sublime1 yet so harmonises them that the voice is always one4 ,simple men--holy and humble men of heart like ,isaak ,walton or ,bunyan--have their lips touched and speak to the homelier tune4 ,proud men1 scholars1--,milton1 ,sir ,thomas ,browne--practice the rolling ,latin sentence2 but upon the rhythms of our ,bible they1 too1 fall back4 ',the great mutations of the world are acted1 or time may be too short for our designs4' ',acquaint thyself with the ,choragium of the stars4' ',there is nothing immortal but immortality4' ,the precise man ,addison cannot excel one parable in brevity or in heavenly clarity3 the two parts of ,johnson's antithesis come to no more than this ',our ,lord has gone up to the sound of a trump3 with the sound of a trump our ,lord has gone up4' ,the ,bible controls its enemy ,gibbon as surely as it haunts the curious music of a light sentence of ,thackeray's4 ,it is in everything we see1 hear1 feel1 because it is in us1 in our blood4 ,what madman1 then1 will say ',thus or thus far shalt thou go' to a prose thus invented and thus with its free rhythms1 after three hundred years1 working on the imagination of ,englishmen8 ,or who shall determine its range1 whether of thought or of music8 ,you have received it by inheritance1 ,gentlemen3 it is yours1 freely yours--to direct your words through life as well as your hearts4 ,,lecture ,,vii ,,some ,,principles ,,reaffirmed ,thursday1 ,may #bi ,let me begin to-day1 ,gentlemen1 with a footnote to my last lecture4 ,it ended1 as you may remember1 upon an earnest appeal to you1 if you would write good ,english1 to study the ,authorised ,version of the ,scriptures2 to learn from it1 moreover1 how by mastering rhythm1 our ,prose overcame the capital difficulty of ,prose and attuned itself to rival its twin instrument1 ,verse2 compassing almost equally with ,verse man's thought however sublime1 his emotion however profound4 ,now in the course of my remarks ,i happened--maybe a little incautiously--to call the ,authorised ,version a 'miracle'2 using that word in a colloquial sense1 in which no doubt you accepted it2 meaning no more than that the thing passed my understanding4 ,i have allowed that the famous forty-seven owed an immense deal to earlier translators--to the ,bishops1 to ,tyndale1 to the ,wyclif ,version1 as themselves allowed it eagerly in their preface3-- ,truly 7good ,christian reader7 wee never thought from the beginning that we should needs to make a new ,translation1 nor yet to make of a bad one a good one 444 but to make a good one better1 or out of many good ones one principall good one1 not justly to be excepted against3 that hath bene our indeavour1 that our marke4 7,see ,footnote #a at the end of this lecture47 ,nevertheless the ,authorised ,version astounds me1 as ,i believe it will astound you when you compare it with earlier translations4 ,aristotle 7it has been said7 invented ,chance to cover the astonishing fact that there were certain phenomena for which he found himself wholly unable to account4 ,just so1 if one may compare very small things with very great1 ,i spoke of the ,authorised ,version as a 'miracle4' ,it was1 it remains1 marvellous to me4 ,should these deciduous discourses ever come to be pressed within the leaves of a book1 ,i believe their general meaning will be as clear to readers as ,i hope it is to you who give me so much pleasure by pursuing them--almost 7shall ,i say87 like ,wordsworth's ,kitten with those other falling leaves3-- ,that almost ,i could repine ,that your transports are not mine4 ,but meanwhile certain writers in the newspapers are assuming that by this word 'miracle' ,i meant to suggest to you a something like plenary inspiration at once supernatural and so authoritative that it were sacrilege now to alter their text by one jot or tittle4 ,believe me1 ,i intended nothing of the sort3 for that1 in my plain opinion1 would be to make a fetish of the book4 ,one of these days ,i hope to discuss with you what inspiration is3 with what accuracy--with what meaning1 if any--we can say of a poet that he is inspired2 questions which have puzzled many wise men from ,plato downwards4 ,but certainly ,i never dreamt of claiming plenary inspiration for the forty-seven4 ,nay1 if you will have it1 they now and again wrote stark nonsense4 ,remember that ,i used this very same word 'miracle' of ,shakespeare1 meaning again that the total ,shakespeare quite outpasses my comprehension2 yet ,shakespeare1 too1 on occasion talks stark nonsense1 or at any rate stark bombast4 ,he never blotted a line--',i would he had blotted a thousand' says ,ben ,jonson3 and ,ben ,jonson was right4 ,shakespeare could have blotted out two or three thousand lines3 he was great enough to afford it4 ,somewhere ,matthew ,arnold supposes us as challenging ,shakespeare over this and that weak or bombastic passage1 and ,shakespeare answering with his tolerant smile1 that no doubt we were right1 but after all1 ',did it greatly matter8' ,so we offer no real derogation to the forty-seven in asserting that here and there they wrote nonsense4 ,they could afford it4 ,but we do stultify criticism if1 adoring the grand total of wisdom and beauty1 we prostrate ourselves indiscriminately before what is good and what is bad1 what is sublime sense and what is nonsense1 and forbid any reviser to put forth a hand to the ark4 ,the most of us ,christians go to church on ,christmas ,day1 and there we listen to this from ,isaiah1 chapter ix1 verses #a-g3-- ,nevertheless the dimness shall not be such as was in her vexation1 when at the first he lightly afflicted the land of ,zebulun and the land of ,naphtali1 and afterwards did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea1 beyond ,jordan1 in ,galilee of the nations4 ,the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light3 they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death1 upon them hath the light shined4 ,thou hast multiplied the nation1 and not increased the joy3 they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest1 and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil4 ,for thou hast broken the yoke of his burden1 and the staff of his shoulder1 the rod of his oppressor1 as in the day of ,midian4 ,for every battle of the warrior is with confused noise1 and garments rolled in blood3 but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire4 ,for unto us a child is born1 unto us a son is given4 ,the forty-seven keep their majestic rhythm4 ,but have you ever1 sitting in church on a ,christmas morning1 asked yourself what it all means1 or if it mean anything more than a sing-song according somehow with the holly and ivy around the pillars8 ',thou hast multiplied the nation1 and not increased the joy3 they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest1' ,but why--if the joy be not increased8 ',for every battle of the warrior is with confused noise1 and garments rolled in blood3 but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire4' ,granted the rhythmical antithesis1 where is the real antithesis1 the difference1 the improvement8 ,if a battle there must be1 how is burning better than garments rolled in blood8 ,and1 in fine1 what is it all about8 ,now let us turn to the ,revised ,version3-- ,but there shall be no gloom to her that was in anguish4 ,in the former time he brought into contempt the land of ,zebulun and the land of ,naphtali1 but in the latter time hath he made it glorious1 by the way of the sea1 beyond ,jordan1 ,galilee of the nations4 ,the people that walked in darkness have seen a great light3 they that dwelt in the land of the shadow of death1 upon them hath the light shined4 ,thou hast multiplied the nation1 thou hast increased their joy3 they joy before thee according to the joy in harvest1 as men rejoice when they divide the spoil4 ,for the yoke of his burden1 and the staff of his shoulder1 the rod of his oppressor1 thou hast broken as in the day of ,midian4 ,for all the armour of the armed man in the tumult1 and the garments rolled in blood1 shall even be for burning1 for fuel of fire4 ,for unto us a child is born1 unto us a son is given2 and the government shall be upon his shoulder3 and his name shall be called ,wonderful1 ,counsellor1 ,mighty ,god1 ,everlasting ,father1 ,prince of ,peace4 ,i say 7knowing no ,hebrew1 merely assuming our ,revisers to be at least no worse scholars than the forty-seven7 that here1 with the old cadences kept so far as possible1 we are given sense in place of nonsense3 and ,i ask you to come to the ,revised ,version with a fair mind4 ,i myself came to it with some prejudice2 in complete ignorance of ,hebrew1 and with no more than the usual amount of ,hellenistic ,greek4 ,i grant at once that the ,revised ,new ,testament was a literary fiasco2 largely due 7if gossip may be trusted7 to trouble with the ,greek ,aorist1 and an unwise decision--in my opinion the most gratuitously unwise a translator can take--to use one and the same ,english word1 always and in every connotation1 as representing one and the same ,greek word3 for in any two languages few words are precisely equivalent4 ,a fiasco at any rate the ,revised ,new ,testament was1 deserving in a dozen ways and in a thousand passages the scorn which ,professor ,saintsbury has recently heaped on it4 ,but ,i protest against the injustice of treating the two ,revisions--of the ,new ,testament and of the ,old--as a single work1 and saddling the whole with the sins of a part4 ,for two years ,i spent half-an-hour daily in reading the ,authorised and ,revised ,versions side by side1 marking as ,i went1 and in this way worked through the whole--,old ,testament1 ,apocrypha1 ,new ,testament4 ,i came to it 7as ,i have said7 with some prejudice2 but ,i closed the books on a conviction1 which my notes sustain for me1 that the ,revisers of the ,old ,testament performed their task delicately1 scrupulously1 on the whole with great good judgment2 that the critic does a wrong who brings them under his indiscriminate censure2 that on the whole they have clarified the sense of the ,authorised ,version while respecting its consecrated rhythms2 and that--to name an example1 that you may test my words and judge for yourselves--the solemn splendour of that most wonderful poem1 the story of ,job1 ,greek3 dialampei1 'shines through' the new translation as it never shone through the old4 99 99 99 99 99 ,and now ,gentlemen 7as ,george ,herbert said on a famous occasion71 let us tune our instruments4 ,before discussing with you another and highly important question of style in writing1 ,i will ask you to look back for a few moments on the road we have travelled4 ,we have agreed that our writing should be appropriate3 that it should fit the occasion2 that it should rise and fall with the subject1 be grave where that is serious1 where it is light not afraid of what ,stevenson in ,the ,wrong ,box calls 'a little judicious levity4' ,if your writing observe these precepts1 it will be well-mannered writing4 ,to be sure1 much in addition will depend on yourself--on what you are or have made yourself1 since in writing the style can never be separated from the man4 ,but neither can it in the practice of virtue3 yet1 though men differ in character1 ,i do not observe that moralists forbear from laying down general rules of excellence4 ,now if you will recall our further conclusion1 that writing to be good must be persuasive 7since persuasion is the only true intellectual process71 and will test this by a passage of ,newman's ,i am presently to quote to you1 from his famous 'definition of a gentleman1' ,i think you will guess pretty accurately the general law of excellence ,i would have you1 as ,cambridge men1 tribally and particularly obey4 ,newman says of a gentleman that among other things3 ,he is never mean or little in his disputes1 never takes unfair advantage1 never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments1 or insinuates evil which he dare not say out4444 ,if he engages in controversy of any kind1 his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blundering discourtesy of better perhaps1 but less educated minds2 who1 like blunt weapons1 tear and hack instead of cutting clean1 who mistake the point in argument1 waste their strength on trifles1 misconceive their adversary1 and leave the question more involved than they found it4 ,he may be right or wrong in his opinion3 but he is too clear-sighted to be unjust4 ,he is simple as he is forcible1 and as brief as he is decisive4 ,enough for the moment on this subject3 but commit these words to your hearts1 and you will not only triumph in newspaper controversy4 ,you will do better3 you will avoid it4 ,to proceed4--,we found further that our writing should be accurate3 because language expresses thought--is1 indeed1 the only expression of thought--and if we lack the skill to speak precisely1 our thought will remain confused1 ill-defined4 ,the editor of a mining paper in ,denver1 ,u4,s4,a41 boldly the other day laid down this law1 that niceties of language were mere 'frills'3 all a man needed was to 'get there1' that is1 to say what he wished in his own way4 ,but just here1 we found1 lies the mischief4 ,you will not get there by hammering away on your own untutored impulse4 ,you must first be your own reader1 chiselling out the thought definitely for yourself3 and1 after that1 must carve out the intaglio yet more sharply and neatly1 if you would impress its image accurately upon the wax of other men's minds4 ,we found that even for ,men of ,science this neat clean carving of words was a very necessary accomplishment4 ,as ,sir ,james ,barrie once observed1 ',the ,man of ,science appears to be the only man who has something to say1 just now--and the only man who does not know how to say it4' ,but the trouble by no means ends with ,science4 ,our poets--those gifted strangely prehensile men who1 as ,i said in my first lecture1 seem to be born with filaments by which they apprehend1 and along which they conduct1 the half-secrets of life to us ordinary mortals--our poets would appear to be scamping artistic labour1 neglecting to reduce the vague impressions to the clearly cut image which is1 after all1 what helps4 ,it may be a triumph that they have taught modern ,french poetry to be suggestive4 ,i think it would be more profitable could they learn from ,france--that nation of fine workmen--to be definite4 ,but about 'getting there'--,i ask you to remember ,wolfe1 with the seal of his fate on him1 stepping into his bateau on the dark ,st4 ,lawrence ,river and quoting as they tided him over3-- ,the boast of heraldry1 the pomp of power1 ,and all that beauty1 all that wealth e'er gave1 ,await alike th' inevitable hour2 ,the paths of glory lead but to the grave4 ',i had rather have written those lines1' said ,wolfe1 'than conquer ,canada4' ,that is how our forefathers valued noble writing4 ,the ,denver editor holds that you may write as you please so long as you get there4 ,well1 ,wolfe got there3 and so1 in ,wolfe's opinion1 did ,gray3 but perhaps to ,wolfe and ,gray1 and to the ,denver editor1 'there' happened to mean two different places4 ,wolfe got to the ,heights of ,abraham4 ,further1 it was against this loose adaptation of words to thought and to things that we protested in our interpolated lecture on ,jargon1 which is not so much bad writing as the avoidance of writing4 ,the man who employs ,jargon does not get 'there' at all1 even in a raw rough pioneering fashion3 he just walks around 'there' in the ambient tracks of others4 ,let me fly as high as ,i can and quote you two recent achievements by ,cabinet ,ministers1 as reported in the ,press3--7#a7 ',mr ,mc,kenna's reasons for releasing from ,holloway ,prison ,miss ,lenton while on remand charged in connexion with 7sweet phrase67 the firing of the tea pavilion in ,kew ,gardens are given in a letter which he has caused to be forwarded to a correspondent who inquired as to the circumstances of the release4 ,the letter says ,i am desired by the ,home ,secretary to say that ,lilian ,lenton was reported by the medical officer at ,holloway ,prison to be in a state of collapse and in imminent danger of death consequent upon her refusal to take food4 ,three courses were open--7#a7 ,to leave her to die2 7#b7 ,to attempt to feed her forcibly1 which the medical officer advised would probably entail death in her existing condition3 7#c7 ,to release her4 ,the ,home ,secretary adopted the last course4' ',would probably entail death in her existing condition'6 ,will anyone tell me how ,mr ,mc,kenna or anyone else could kill1 or 7as he prefers to put it7 entail death upon1 ,miss ,lenton in a non-existing condition8 7#b7 ,next take the ,chancellor of the ,exchequer4 ,as we know1 the ,chancellor of the ,exchequer can use incisive speech when he chooses4 ,on ,may #hth as reported in next day's ,morning ,post1 ,mr ,lloyd ,george1 answering a question1 delivered himself of this to an attentive ,senate3-- ,with regard to ,mr ,noel ,buxton's questions1 ,i cannot answer for an enquiry which is of a private and confidential character1 for although ,i am associated with it ,i am not associated with it as a ,minister of the ,crown4444 ,those enquiries are of a very careful systematic and scientific character1 and are being conducted by the ablest investigators in this country1 some of whom have reputations of international character4 ,i am glad to think that the investigation is of a most impartial character4 ,it must be a comforting thought1 that an inquiry of a private and confidential character is also of a very systematic and scientific character1 and besides being of a most impartial character1 is conducted by men of international character--whatever that may happen to mean4 ,what is an international character1 and what would you give for one8 ,we found that this way of talking1 while pretending to be something pontifical1 is really not prose at all1 nor reputable speech at all1 but ,jargon2 nor is the offence to be excused by pleading1 as ,i have heard it pleaded1 that ,mr ,lloyd ,george was not using his own phraseology but quoting from a paper supplied him by some permanent official of the ,treasury3 since we select our civil servants among men of decent education and their salaries warrant our stipulating that they shall be able1 at least1 to speak and write their mother tongue4 ,we laid down certain rules to help us in the way of straight ,prose3-- 7#a7 ,always always prefer the concrete word to the abstract4 7#b7 ,almost always prefer the direct word to the circumlocution4 7#c7 ,generally1 use transitive verbs1 that strike their object2 and use them in the active voice1 eschewing the stationary passive1 with its little auxiliary its's and was's1 and its participles getting into the light of your adjectives1 which should be few4 ,for1 as a rough law1 by his use of the straight verb and by his economy of adjectives you can tell a man's style1 if it be masculine or neuter1 writing or 'composition4' ,the authors of that capital handbook ,the ,king's ,english1 which ,i have already recommended to you1 add two rules3-- 7#d7 ,prefer the short word to the long4 7#e7 ,prefer the ,saxon word to the ,romance4 ,but these two precepts you would have to modify by so long a string of exceptions that ,i do not commend them to you4 ,in fact ,i think them false in theory and likely to be fatal in practice4 ,for1 as my last lecture tried to show1 you no sooner begin to philosophise things instead of merely telling a tale of them than you must go to the ,mediterranean languages3 because in these man first learnt to discuss his 'why' and 'how1' and these languages yet guard the vocabulary4 ,lastly1 we saw how1 by experimenting with rhythm1 our prose 'broke its birth's invidious bar' and learnt to scale the forbidden heights4 ,now by attending to the few plain rules given above you may train yourselves to write sound1 straightforward1 work-a-day ,english4 ,but if you would write melodious ,english1 ,i fear the gods will require of you what they ought to have given you at birth--something of an ear4 ,yet the most of us have ears1 of sorts2 and ,i believe that1 though we can only acquire it by assiduous practice1 the most of us can wonderfully improve our talent of the ear4 ,if you will possess yourselves of a copy of ,quintilian or borrow one from any library 7,bohn's translation will do7 and turn to his #ith book1 you will find a hundred ways indicated1 illustrated1 classified1 in which a writer or speaker can vary his ,style1 modulate it1 lift or depress it1 regulate its balance4 ,all these rules1 separately worth studying1 if taken together may easily bewilder and dishearten you4 ,let me choose just two1 and try to hearten you by showing that1 even with these two only1 you can go a long way4 ,take the use of right emphasis4 ,what ,quintilian says of right emphasis--or the most important thing he says--is this3-- ,there is sometimes an extraordinary force in some particular word1 which1 if it be placed in no very conspicuous position in the middle part of a sentence1 is likely to escape the attention of the hearer and to be obscured by the words surrounding it2 but if it be put at the end of the sentence is urged upon the reader's sense and imprinted on his mind4 ,that seems obvious enough1 for ,english use as well as for ,latin4 ',the wages of sin is ,death'--anyone can see how much more emphatic that is than ',death is the wages of sin4' ,but let your minds work on this matter of emphasis1 and discover how emphasis has always its right point somewhere1 though it be not at all necessarily at the end of the sentence4 ,take a sentence in which the strong words actually repeat themselves for emphasis3-- ,babylon is fallen1 is fallen1 that great city4 ,our first impulse would be to place the emphasis at the end3-- ,babylon1 that great city1 is fallen1 is fallen4 ,the ,latin puts it at the beginning3-- ,cecidit1 cecidit1 ,babylonia illa magna4 ,fallen1 fallen1 is ,babylon1 that great city4 ,the forty-seven preserved the 'falling close' so exquisite in the ,latin2 the emphasis1 already secured by repetition1 they accentuated by lengthening the pause4 ,i would urge on you that in every sentence there is just a right point of emphasis which you must train your ears to detect4 ,so your writing will acquire not only emphasis1 but balance1 and you will instinctively avoid such an ill-emphasised sentence as this1 which1 not naming the author1 ,i will quote for your delectation3-- ',are ,japanese ,aprils always as lovely as this8' asked the man in the light tweed suit of two others in immaculate flannels with crimson sashes round their waists and puggarees folded in cunning plaits round their broad ,terai hats4 ,explore1 next1 what 7though critics have strangely neglected it7 to my mind stands the first1 or almost the first1 secret of beautiful writing in ,english1 whether in prose or in verse2 ,i mean that inter-play of vowel-sounds in which no language can match us4 ,we have so many vowel sounds indeed1 and so few vowels to express them1 that the foreigner1 mistaking our modesty1 complains against ,god's plenty4 ,we alone1 for example1 sound by a natural vowel that noble ,i1 which other nations can only compass by diphthongs4 ,let us consider that vowel for a moment or two and mark how it leads off the dance of the ,graces1 its sisters3-- ,arise1 shine2 for thy light is come1 and the glory of the ,lord is risen upon thee4 ,mark how expressively it drops to the solemn vowel ',o1' and anon how expressively it reasserts itself to express rearisen delight3-- ,arise1 shine1 for thy light is come1 and the glory of the ,lord is risen upon thee4 ,for behold the darkness shall cover the earth1 and gross darkness the people3 but the ,lord shall arise upon thee1 and his glory shall be seen upon thee4 ,and the ,gentiles shall come to thy light1 and ,kings to the brightness of thy rising4 ,take another passage in which the first lift of this ,i vowel yields to its graver sisters as though the sound sank into the very heart of the sense4 ,i will arise and go to my father1 and will say unto him1 ',father1 ,i have sinned against heaven1 and before thee1 and am no more worthy to be called thy son4' ',and am no more worthy to be called thy son4' ,mark the deep ,o's4 ',for this my son was dead and is alive again2 he was lost and is found4' ',o my son1 my son ,absalom'--observe the ,i and ,o how they interchime1 until the ,o of sorrow tolls the lighter note down3-- ,o my son ,absalom1 my son1 my son ,absalom6 ,would ,god ,i had died for thee1 ,o ,absolom1 my son1 my son6 ,or take this lyric1 by admission one of the loveliest written in this present age1 and mark here too how the vowels play and ring and chime and toll4 ,i will arise and go now1 and go to ,innisfree1 ,and a small cabin build there1 of clay and wattles made2 ,nine bean rows will ,i have there1 a hive for the honey bee1 ,and live alone in the bee-loud glade4#b ,and ,i shall have some peace there1 for peace comes dropping slow1 ,dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings2 ,there midnight's all a glimmer1 and noon a purple glow1 ,and evening full of the linnet's wings4 ,i will arise and go now1 for always night and day ,i hear lake-water lapping1 with low sounds by the shore2 ,while ,i stand on the roadway1 or on the pavements grey1 ,i hear it in the deep heart's core4 ,i think if you will but open your ears to this beautiful vowel-play which runs through all the best of our prose and poetry1 whether you ever learn to master it or not1 you will have acquired a new delight1 and one various enough to last you though you live to a very old age4 ,all this of which ,i am speaking is ,art3 and ,literature being an ,art1 do you not see how personal a thing it is--how it cannot escape being personal8 ,no two men 7unless they talk ,jargon7 say the same thing in the same way4 ,as is a man's imagination1 as is his character1 as is the harmony in himself1 as is his ear1 as is his skill1 so and not otherwise he will speak1 so and not otherwise than they can respond to that imagination1 that character1 that order of his intellect1 that harmony of his soul1 his hearers will hear him4 ,let me conclude with this great passage from ,newman which ,i beg you1 having heard it1 to ponder3-- ,if then the power of speech is as great as any that can be named1 --if the origin of language is by many philosophers considered nothing short of divine--if by means of words the secrets of the heart are brought to light1 pain of soul is relieved1 hidden grief is carried off1 sympathy conveyed1 experience recorded1 and wisdom perpetuated1--if by great authors the many are drawn up into unity1 national character is fixed1 a people speaks1 the past and the future1 the ,east and the ,west are brought into communication with each other1--if such men are1 in a word1 the spokesmen and the prophets of the human family--it will not answer to make light of ,literature or to neglect its study3 rather we may be sure that1 in proportion as we master it in whatever language1 and imbibe its spirit1 we shall ourselves become in our own measure the ministers of like benefits to others--be they many or few1 be they in the obscurer or the more distinguished walks of life--who are united to us by social ties1 and are within the sphere of our personal influence4 ,footnote #a3 ,i append the following specimen translations of the famous passage in ,st ,paul's ,first ,epistle to the ,corinthians xv4 #ea sqq4 ,i choose this because 7#a7 it is an important passage2 7#b7 it touches a high moment of philosophising2 7#c7 the comparison seems to me to represent with great fairness to ,tyndale the extent of the forty-seven's debt to him2 7#d7 it shows that they meant exactly what they said in their ,preface2 and 7#e7 it illustrates1 towards the close1 their genius for improvement4 ,from the ,greek1 ,wyclif translates3-- ,lo1 ,i seie to you pryvyte of holi thingis and alle we schulen rise agen but not alle we schuln be chaungid in a moment in the twynkelynge of an ye1 in the last trumpe for the trumpe schal sowne3 and deed men schulen rise agen with out corrupcion1 and we schuln be changid for it bihoveth this corruptible thing to clothe uncorropcion and this deedly thing to putte aweye undeedlynesse4 ,but whanne this deedli thing schal clothe undeedlynesse thanne schal the word be don that is written deeth is sopun up in victorie deeth1 where is thi victorie8 deeth1 where is thi pricke8 ,tyndale3-- ,beholde ,i shewe you a mystery4 ,we shall not all slepe3 but we shall all be chaunged and that in a moment and in the twinclinge of an eye at the sounde of the last trompe4 ,for the trompe shall blowe1 and the deed shall ryse incorruptible and we shalbe chaunged4 ,for this corruptible must put on incorruptibilite3 and this mortall must put on immortalite4 ,when this corruptible hath put on incorruptibilite and this mortall hath put on immortalite3 than shalbe brought to pass the saying that is written1 ',deeth is consumed in to victory4' ,deeth1 where is thy stynge8 ,hell1 where is thy victory8 ,the ,authorised ,version3-- ,behold1 ,i shew you a mystery2 we shall not all sleepe1 but wee shall all be changed1 in a moment1 in the twinckling of an eye1 at the last trumpe1 7for the trumpet shall sound1 and the dead shall be raised incorruptible1 and we shall be changed74 ,for this corruptible must put on incorruption1 and this mortall must put on immortalitie4 ,so when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption1 and this mortall shall have put on immortality1 then shall be brought to passe the saying that is written1 ',death is swallowed up in victory4' ,o ,death1 where is thy sting8 ,o grave1 where is thy victory8 ,footnote #b3 ,i ,e ,o 3 ,i ,o ,e ,i ,o 3 ,e ,,ou ,a ',as musing slow1 ,i hail 7'as musing slow ,i hail7 ,thy genial loved return4' 7,thy genial loved return4'7 ,,collins1 ,ode to ,evening4 ,,lecture ,,viii4 ,,on ,,the ,,lineage ,,of ,,english ,,literature 7,i7 ,wednesday1 ,october #bb ,you may think it strange1 ,gentlemen1 that of a course of ten lectures which aim to treat ,english ,literature as an affair of practice1 ,i should propose to spend two in discussing our literary lineage3 a man's lineage and geniture being reckoned1 as a rule1 among the things he cannot be reasonably asked to amend4 ,but since of high breeding is begotten 7as most of us believe7 a disposition to high thoughts1 high deeds2 since to have it and be modestly conscious of it is to carry within us a faithful monitor persuading us to whatsoever in conduct is gentle1 honourable1 of good repute1 and so silently dissuading us from base thoughts1 low ends1 ignoble gains2 seeing1 moreover1 that a man will often do more to match his father's virtue than he would to improve himself2 ,i shall endeavour1 in this and my next lecture1 to scour that spur of ancestry and present it to you as so bright and sharp an incentive that you1 who read ,english ,literature and practise writing here in ,cambridge1 shall not pass out from her insensible of the dignity of your studies1 or without pride or remorse according as you have interpreted in practice the motto1 ,noblesse oblige4 ',tis wisdom1 and that high1 ,for men to use their fortune reverently ,even in youth4 ,let me add that1 just as a knowledge of his family failings will help one man in economising his estate1 or warn another to shun for his health the pleasures of the table1 so some knowledge of our lineage in letters may put us1 as ,englishmen1 on the watch for certain national defects 7for such we have71 on our guard against certain sins which too easily beset us4 ,nay1 this watchfulness may well reach down from matters of great moment to seeming trifles4 ,it is good for us to recognise with ,wordsworth that ,we must be free or die1 who speak the tongue ,that ,shakespeare spake2 the faith and morals hold ,which ,milton held4 ,in everything we are sprung ,of ,earth's first blood1 have titles manifold4 ,but1 though less important1 it is good also to recognise that1 as sons of ,cambridge1 we equally offend against her breeding when in our scientific writings we allow ourselves to talk of a microbe as an 'antibody4' ,now1 because a great deal of what ,i have to say this morning1 if not heretical1 will yet run contrary to the vogue and practice of the ,schools for these thirty years1 ,i will take the leap into my subject over a greater man's back and ask you to listen with particular attention to the following long passage from a writer whose opinion you may challenge1 but whose authority to speak as a master of ,english prose no one in this room will deny4 ,when 7says ,cardinal ,newman7 we survey the stream of human affairs for the last three thousand years1 we find it to run thus3--,at first sight there is so much fluctuation1 agitation1 ebbing and flowing1 that we may despair to discern any law in its movements1 taking the earth as its bed and mankind as its contents2 but on looking more closely and attentively we shall discern1 in spite of the heterogeneous materials and the various histories and fortunes which are found in the race of man during the long period ,i have mentioned1 a certain formation amid the chaos--one and one only1--and extending1 though not over the whole earth1 yet through a very considerable portion of it4 ,man is a social being and can hardly exist without society1 and in matter of fact societies have ever existed all over the habitable earth4 ,the greater part of these associations have been political or religious1 and have been comparatively limited in extent and temporary4 ,they have been formed and dissolved by the force of accidents1 or by inevitable circumstances2 and when we have enumerated them one by one we have made of them all that can be made4 ,but there is one remarkable association which attracts the attention of the philosopher1 not political nor religious--or at least only partially and not essentially such--which began in the earliest times and grew with each succeeding age till it reached its complete development1 and then continued on1 vigorous and unwearied1 and still remains as definite and as firm as ever it was4 ,its bond is a common civilisation3 and though there are other civilisations in the world1 as there are other societies1 yet this civilisation1 together with the society which is its creation and its home1 is so distinctive and luminous in its character1 so imperial in its extent1 so imposing in its duration1 and so utterly without rival on the face of the earth1 that the association may fitly assume to itself the title of ',human ,society1' and its civilisation the abstract term ',civilisation4' ,there are indeed great outlying portions of mankind which are not1 perhaps never have been1 included in this ,human ,society2 still they are outlying portions and nothing else1 fragmentary1 unsociable1 solitary and unmeaning1 protesting and revolting against the grand central formation of which ,i am speaking1 but not uniting with each other into a second whole4 ,i am not denying1 of course1 the civilisation of the ,chinese1 for instance1 though it be not our civilisation2 but it is a huge1 stationary1 unattractive1 morose civilisation4 ,nor do ,i deny a civilisation to the ,hindoos1 nor to the ancient ,mexicans1 nor to the ,saracens1 nor 7in a certain sense7 to the ,turks2 but each of these races has its own civilisation1 as separate from one another as from ours4 ,i do not see how they can be all brought under one idea4444 ,gentlemen1 let me here observe that ,i am not entering upon the question of races1 or upon their history4 ,i have nothing to do with ethnology2 ,i take things as ,i find them on the surface of history and am but classifying phenomena4 ,looking1 then1 at the countries which surround the ,mediterranean ,sea as a whole1 ,i see them to be from time immemorial1 the seat of an association of intellect and mind such as to deserve to be called the ,intellect and the ,mind of the ,human ,kind4 ,starting as it does1 and advancing from certain centres1 till their respective influences intersect and conflict1 and then at length intermingle and combine1 a common ,thought has been generated1 and a common ,civilisation defined and established4 ,egypt is one such starting point1 ,syria1 another1 ,greece a third1 ,italy a fourth and ,north ,africa a fifth--afterwards ,france and ,spain4 ,as time goes on1 and as colonisation and conquest work their changes1 we see a great association of nations formed1 of which the ,roman ,empire is the maturity and the most intelligible expression3 an association1 however1 not political but mental1 based on the same intellectual ideas and advancing by common intellectual methods4444 ,in its earliest age it included far more of the ,eastern world than it has since2 in these later times it has taken into its compass a new hemisphere2 in the ,middle ,ages it lost ,africa1 ,egypt and ,syria1 and extended itself to ,germany1 ,scandinavia and the ,british ,isles4 ,at one time its territory was flooded by strange and barbarous races1 but the existing civilisation was vigorous enough to vivify what threatened to stifle it1 and to assimilate to the old social forms what came to expel them3 and thus the civilisation of modern times remains what it was of old2 not ,chinese1 or ,hindoo1 or ,mexican1 or ,saracen 444 but the lineal descendant1 or rather the continuation--mutatis mutandis--of the civilisation which began in ,palestine and ,greece4 ,to omit1 then1 all minor debts such as what of arithmetic1 what of astronomy1 what of geography1 we owe to the ,saracen1 from ,palestine we derive the faith of ,europe shared 7in the language of the ,bidding ,prayer7 by all ,christian people dispersed throughout the world2 as to ,greece we owe the rudiments of our ,western art1 philosophy1 letters2 and not only the rudiments but the continuing inspiration1 so that--though entirely superseded in worship1 as even in the ,athens of ,pericles they were worshipped only by an easy1 urbane1 more than half humorous tolerance--,apollo and the ,muses1 ,zeus and the great ones of ,olympus1 ,hermes and ,hephaestus1 ,athene in her armour1 with her vanquisher the foam-born irresistible ,aphrodite1 these remain the authentic gods of our literature1 beside whom the gods of northern ,europe--,odin1 ,thor1 ,freya--are strangers1 unhomely1 uncanny as the shadows of unfamiliar furniture on the walls of an inn4 ,sprung though great numbers of us are from the loins of ,northmen1 it is in these gracious deities of the ,south that we find the familiar and the real1 as from the heroes of the sister-island1 ,cucullain and ,concobar1 we turn to ,hercules1 to ,perseus1 to ,bellerophon1 even to actual men of history1 saying ',give us ,leonidas1 give us ,horatius1 give us ,regulus4 ,these are the mighty ones we understand1 and from whom1 in a direct line of tradition1 we understand ,harry of ,agincourt1 ,philip ,sidney and our ,nelson4' ,now since1 of the ,mediterranean peoples1 the ,hebrews discovered the ,unseen ,god whom the body of ,western civilisation has learnt to worship2 since the ,greeks invented art1 philosophy1 letters2 since ,rome found and developed the idea of imperial government1 of imperial colonies as superseding merely fissiparous ones1 of settling where she conquered 7ubi ,romanus vicit ibi habitat7 and so extending with ,government that system of law which ,europe still obeys2 we cannot be surprised that ,israel1 ,greece1 ,rome--each in turn--set store on a pure ancestry4 ,though ,christ be the veritable ,son of ,god1 his ancestry must be traced back through his supposed father ,joseph to the stem of ,jesse1 and so to ,abraham1 father of the race4 ,again1 as jealously as the ,evangelist claimed ,jesus for a ,hebrew of the ,hebrews1 so1 if you will turn to the ,menexenus of ,plato in the ,oration of ,aspasia over the dead who perished in battle1 you hear her claim that ',no ,pelopes nor ,cadmians1 nor ,egyptians1 nor ,dauni1 nor the rest of the crowd of born foreigners dwell with us2 but ours is the land of pure ,hellenes1 free from admixture4' ,these proud ,athenians1 as you know1 wore brooches in the shape of golden grasshoppers1 to signify that they were ,greek3 autochthones1 children of ,attica1 sprung direct from her soil4 ,and so1 again1 the true ,roman1 while enlarging ,rome's citizenship over ,asia1 ,africa1 ,gaul1 to our remote ,britain1 insisted1 even in days of the later ,empire1 on his pure descent from ,a,eneas and ,romulus-- ,unde ,remnes et ,quirites proque prole posterum ,romuli matrem crearet et nepotem ,caesarem4 ,with the ,ramnes1 ,quirites1 together ancestrally proud as they drew ,from ,romulus down to our ,caesar-last1 best of that blood1 of that threw4 ,here is a boast that we ,english must be content to forgo4 ,we may wear a rose on ,st ,george's day1 if we are clever enough to grow one4 ,the ,welsh1 ,i dare say1 have less difficulty with the leek4 ,but ,april the #bcrd is not a time of roses that we can pluck them as we pass1 nor can we claim ,st ,george as a compatriot--,cappadocius nostras4 ,we have1 to be sure1 a few legendary heroes1 of whom ,king ,arthur and ,robin ,hood are 7,i suppose7 the greatest2 but1 save in some ,celtic corners of the land1 we have few fairies1 and these no great matter2 while1 as for tutelary gods1 our springs1 our wells1 our groves1 cliffs1 mountain-sides1 either never possessed them or possess them no longer4 ,not of our landscape did it happen that ,the lonely mountains o'er1 ,and the resounding shore1 ,a voice of weeping heard1 and loud lament2 ,from haunted spring and dale ,edg'd with poplar pale1 ,the parting ,genius is with sighing sent4 --for the sufficient reason that no tutelary gods of importance were ever here to be dispersed4 ,let me press this home upon you by an illustration which ,i choose with the double purpose of enforcing my argument and sending you to make acquaintance 7if you have not already made it7 with one of the loveliest poems written in our time4 ,in one of ,pliny's letters you will find a very pleasant description of the source of the ,clitumnus1 a small ,umbrian river which1 springing from a rock in a grove of cypresses1 descends into the ,tinia1 a tributary of the ,tiber4 ',have you ever1' writes ,pliny to his friend ,romanus-- ,have you ever seen the source of the ,clitumnus8 ,i suppose not1 as ,i never heard you mention it4 ,let me advise you to go there at once4 ,i have just visited it and am sorry that ,i put off my visit so long4 ,at the foot of a little hill1 covered with old and shady cypress trees1 a spring gushes and bursts into a number of streamlets of various size4 ,breaking1 so to speak1 forth from its imprisonment1 it expands into a broad basin1 so clear and transparent that you may count the pebbles and little pieces of money which are thrown into it4 ,from this point the force and weight of the water1 rather than the slope of the ground1 hurry it onward4 ,what was a mere spring becomes a noble river1 broad enough to allow vessels to pass each other as they sail with or against the stream4 ,the current is so strong1 though the ground is level1 that barges of beam1 as they go down1 require no assistance of oars2 while to go up is as much as can be done with oars and long poles4444 ,the banks are clothed with abundant ash and poplar1 so distinctly reflected in the transparent waters that they seem to be growing at the bottom of the river and can be counted with ease4 ,the water is as cold as snow and as pure in colour4 ,hard by the spring stands an ancient and venerable temple with a statue of the river-god ,clitumnus1 clothed in the customary robe of state4 ,the ,oracles here delivered attest the presence of the deity4 ,close in the precinct stand several little chapels dedicated to particular gods1 each of whom owns his distinctive name and special worship1 and is the tutelary deity of a runlet4 ,for beside the principal spring1 which is1 as it were1 the parent of all the rest1 there are several smaller ones which have their distinct sources but unite their waters with the ,clitumnus1 over which a bridge is thrown1 separating the sacred part of the river from that which is open to general use4 ,above the bridge you may only go in a boat2 below it1 you may swim4 ,the people of the town of ,hispallum1 to whom ,augustus gave this place1 furnish baths and lodgings at the public expense4 ,there are several small dwelling-houses on the banks1 in specially picturesque situations1 and they stand quite close to the waterside4 ,in short1 everything in the neighbourhood will give you pleasure4 ,you may also amuse yourself with numberless inscriptions on the pillars and walls1 celebrating the praises of the stream and of its tutelary god4 ,many of these you will admire1 and some will make you laugh4 ,but no6 ,you are too well cultivated to laugh at such things4 ,farewell4 ,clitumnus still gushes from its rocks among the cypresses1 as in ,pliny's day4 ,the god has gone from his temple1 on the frieze of which you may read this later inscription--',deus ,angelorum1 qui fecit ,resurrectionem4' ,after many centuries and almost in our day1 by the brain of ,cavour and the sword of ,garibaldi1 he has made a resurrection for ,italy4 ,as part of that resurrection 7for no nation can live and be great without its poet7 was born a true poet1 ,carducci4 ,he visited the bountiful1 everlasting source1 and of what did he sing8 ,possess yourselves1 as for a shilling you may1 of his ,ode ,alle fonte del ,clitumno1 and read3 for few nobler poems have adorned our time4 ,he sang of the weeping willow1 the ilex1 ivy1 cypress and the presence of the god still immanent among them4 ,he sang of ,umbria1 of the ensigns of ,rome1 of ,hannibal swooping down over the ,alps2 he sang of the nuptials of ,janus and ,comesena1 progenitors of the ,italian people2 of nymphs1 naiads1 and the moonlight dances of ,oreads2 of flocks descending to the river at dusk1 of the homestead1 the bare-footed mother1 the clinging child1 the father1 clad in goat-skins1 guiding the ox-wagon2 and he ends on the very note of ,virgil's famous apostrophe ,sed neque ,medorum silvae1 ditissima terra444 with an invocation of ,italy--,italy1 mother of bullocks for agriculture1 of wild colts for battle1 mother of corn and of the vine1 ,roman mother of enduring laws and mediaeval mother of illustrious arts4 ,the mountains1 woods and waters of green ,umbria applaud the song1 and across their applause is heard the whistle of the railway train bearing promise of new industries and a new national life4 ,e tu1 pia madre di giovenchi invitti a franger glebe e rintegrar maggesi e d' annitrenti in guerra aspri polledri1 ,italia madre1 madre di biade e viti e leggi eterne ed incliti arti a raddolcir la vita salve6 a te i canti de l' antica lode io rinovello4 ,plaudono i monti al carme e i boschi e l' acque de l' ,umbria verde3 in faccia a noi fumando ed anelando nuove industrie in corsa fischia il vapore4 ,and thou1 ,o pious mother of unvanquished ,bullocks to break glebe1 to restore the fallow1 ,and of fierce colts for neighing in the battle3 ,italy1 mother1 ,mother of corn and vines and of eternal ,laws and illustrious arts the life to sweeten1 ,hail1 hail1 all hail6 ,the song of ancient praises ,renew ,i to thee6 ,the mountains1 woods and waters of green ,umbria ,applaud the song3 and here before us fuming ,and longing for new industries1 a-racing ,whistles the white steam4 7,i quote from a translation by ,mr ,e4,j4 ,watson1 recently published by ,messrs ,j4,w4 ,arrowsmith1 of ,bristol47 ,i put it to you1 ,gentlemen1 that1 worthy as are the glories of ,england to be sung1 this note of ,carducci's we cannot decently or honestly strike4 ,great lives have been bled away into ,tweed and ,avon3 great spirits have been oared down the ,thames to ,traitor's ,gate and the ,tower4 ,deeds done on the ,cam have found their way into history4 ,but ,i once traced the ,avon to its source under ,naseby battlefield1 and found it issuing from the fragments of a stucco swan4 ,no god mounts guard over the head-water of the ,thames2 and the only ,englishman who boldly claims a divine descent is 7,i understand7 an impostor who runs an ,agapemone4 ,in short we are a mixed race1 and our literature is derivative4 ,let us confine our pride to those virtues1 not few1 which are honestly ours4 ,a ,roman noble1 even to-day1 has some excuse for reckoning a god in his ancestry1 or at least a wolf among its wet-nurses3 but of us ,english even those who came over with ,william the ,norman have the son of a tanner's daughter for escort4 ,i very well remember that1 the other day1 writers who vindicated our hereditary ,house of ,lords against a certain ,parliament ,act commonly did so on the ground that since the ,reform ,bill of #ahcb1 by inclusion of all that was eminent in politics1 war and commerce1 the ,peerage had been so changed as to know itself no longer for the same thing4 ,that is our practical way4 ,at all events1 the men who made our literature had never a doubt1 as they were careless to dissimulate1 that they were conquering our tongue to bring it into the great ,european comity1 the civilisation of ,greece and ,rome4 ,an ,elizabethan writer1 for example1 would begin almost as with a formula by begging to be forgiven that he has sought to render the divine accent of ,plato1 the sugared music of ,ovid1 into our uncouth and barbarous tongue4 ,there may have been some mock-modesty in this1 but it rested on a base of belief4 ,much of the glory of ,english ,literature was achieved by men who1 with the splendour of the ,renaissance in their eyes1 supposed themselves to be working all the while upon pale and borrowed shadows4 ,let us pass the enthusiasms of days when 'bliss was it in that dawn to be alive' and come down to ,alexander ,pope and the ,age of ,reason4 ,pope at one time proposed to write a ,history of ,english ,poetry1 and the draft scheme of that ,history has been preserved4 ,how does it begin8 ,why thus3-- ,,era ,i4 #a4 ,school of ,provence ,chaucer's ,visions4 ,romaunt of the ,rose4 ,piers ,plowman4 ,tales from ,boccace4 ,gower4 #b4 ,school of ,chaucer ,lydgate4 ,t4 ,occleve4 ,walt4 de ,mapes 7a bad error1 that674 ,skelton4 #c4 ,school of ,petrarch ,e4 of ,surrey4 ,sir ,thomas ,wyatt4 ,sir ,philip ,sidney4 ,g4 ,gascoyn4 #d4 ,school of ,dante ,lord ,buckhurst's ,induction4 ,gorboduc4 ,original of ,good ,tragedy4 ,seneca his model4 --and so on4 ,the scheme after ,pope's death came into the hands of ,gray1 who for a time was fired with the notion of writing the ,history in collaboration with his friend ,mason4 ,knowing ,gray's congenital self-distrust1 you will not be surprised that in the end he declined the task and handed it over to ,warton4 ,but1 says ,mant in his ,life of ,warton1 'their design'--that is1 ,gray's design with ,mason--'was to introduce specimens of the ,provecal poetry1 and of the ,scaldic1 ,british and ,saxon1 as preliminary to what first deserved to be called ,english poetry1 about the time of ,chaucer1 from whence their history properly so called was to commence4' ,a letter of ,gray's on the whole subject1 addressed to ,warton1 is extant1 and you may read it in ,dr ,courthope's ,history of ,english ,poetry4 ,few in this room are old enough to remember the shock of awed surmise which fell upon young minds presented1 in the late 'seventies or early 'eighties of the last century1 with ,freeman's ,norman ,conquest or ,green's ,short ,history of the ,english ,people2 in which as through paring clouds of darkness1 we beheld our ancestry1 literary as well as political1 radiantly legitimised2 though not1 to be sure1 in the ,england that we knew--but far away in ,sleswick1 happy ,sleswick6 ',its pleasant pastures1 its black-timbered homesteads1 its prim little townships looking down on inlets of purple water1 were then but a wild waste of heather and sand1 girt along the coast with sunless woodland1 broken here and there with meadows which crept down to the marshes and to the sea4' ,but what of that8 ,there--surely there1 in ,sleswick--had been discovered for us our august mother's marriage lines2 and if the most of that bright assurance came out of an old political skit1 the ,germania of ,tacitus1 who recked at the time8 ,for along followed ,mr ,stopford ,brooke with an admirable little ,primer published at one shilling1 to instruct the meanest of us in our common father's actual name--,beowulf4 ,beowulf is an old ,english ,epic4444 ,there is not one word about our ,england in the poem4444 ,the whole poem1 pagan as it is1 is ,english to its very root4 ,it is sacred to us2 our ,genesis1 the book of our origins4 ,now ,i am not only incompetent to discuss with you the more recondite beauties of ,beowulf but providentially forbidden the attempt by the conditions laid down for this ,chair4 ,i gather--and my own perusal of the poem and of much writing about it confirms the belief--that it has been largely over-praised by some critics1 who have thus naturally provoked others to underrate it4 ,such things happen4 ,i note1 but without subscribing to it1 the opinion of ,vigfusson and ,york ,powell1 the learned editors of the ,corpus ,poeticum ,boreale1 that in the ,beowulf we have 'an epic completely metamorphosed in form1 blown out with long-winded empty repetitions and comments by a book poet1 so that one must be careful not to take it as a type of the old poetry1' and ,i seem to hear as from the grave the very voice of my old friend the younger editor in that unfaltering pronouncement4 ,but on the whole ,i rather incline to accept the cautious surmise of ,professor ,w4 ,p4 ,ker that 'a reasonable view of the merit of ,beowulf is not impossible1 though rash enthusiasm may have made too much of it2 while a correct and sober taste may have too contemptuously refused to attend to ,grendel and the ,firedrake1' and to leave it at that4 ,i speak very cautiously because the manner of the late ,professor ,freeman1 in especial1 had a knack of provoking in gentle breasts a resentment which the mind in its frailty too easily converted to a prejudice against his matter3 while to men trained to admire ,thucydides and ,tacitus and acquainted with ,lucian's ',way to ,write ,history' 7,greek3 ,pos dei istorian suggraphein7 his loud insistence that the art was not an art but a science1 and moreover recently invented by ,bishop ,stubbs1 was a perpetual irritant4 ,but to return to ,beowulf--,you have just heard the opinions of scholars whose names you must respect4 ,i1 who construe ,anglo-,saxon with difficulty1 must admit the poem to contain many fine1 even noble1 passages4 ,take for example ,hrothgar's lament for ,a,eschere3-- ,hrothgar mathelode1 helm ,scyldinga3 ',ne frin thu aefter saelum2 sorh is geniwod ,denigea leodum2 dead is ,a,eschere1 ,yrmenlafes yldra brothor1 ,min run-wita1 ond min raed-bora2 ,eaxl-gestealla1 thonne we on orlege ,hafelan weredon1 thonne hniton fethan1 ,eoferas cnysedan3 swylc scolde eorl wesan ,a,etheling aer-god1 swylc ,a,eschere waes4' 7,hrothgar spake1 helm of the ,scyldings3 ',ask not after good tidings4 ,sorrow is renewed among the ,dane-folk4 ,dead is ,a,eschere1 ,yrmenlaf's elder brother1 who read me rune and bore me rede2 comrade at shoulder when we fended our heads in war and the boar-helms rang4 ,even so should we each be an atheling passing good1 as ,a,eschere was4'7 ,this is simple1 manly1 dignified4 ,it avoids the besetting sin of the ,anglo-,saxon gleeman--the pretentious trick of calling things 'out of their right names' for the sake of literary effect 7as if e4g4 the sea could be improved by being phrased into 'the seals' domain'74 ,its ,anglo-,saxon staccato1 so tiresome in sustained narrative1 here happens to suit the broken utterance of mourning4 ,in short1 it exhibits the ,anglo-,saxon ,muse at her best1 not at her customary4 ,but set beside it a passage in which ,homer tells of a fallen warrior--at haphazard1 as it were1 a single corpse chosen from the press of battle-- ,greek3 polla de chermadia megal aspidas estuphelixam marnamenon amph auton o d en strophaliggi konies keito megas megalosti1 lelasmenos ipposunaom4 ,can you--can anyone--compare the two passages and miss to see that they belong to two different kingdoms of poetry8 ,i lay no stress here on 'architectonics4' ,i waive that the ,iliad is a well-knit epic and the story of ,beowulf a shapeless monstrosity4 ,i ask you but to note the difference of note1 of accent1 of mere music4 ,and ,i have quoted you but a passage of the habitual ,homer4 ,to assure yourselves that he can rise even from this habitual height to express the extreme of majesty and of human anguish in poetry which betrays no false note1 no strain upon the store of emotion man may own with self-respect and exhibit without derogation of dignity1 turn to the last book of the ,iliad and read of ,priam raising to his lips the hand that has murdered his son4 ,i say confidently that no one unable to distinguish this1 as poetry1 from the very best of ,beowulf is fit to engage upon business as a literary critic4 ,in ,beowulf then1 as an imported poem1 let us allow much barbarian merit4 ,it came of dubious ancestry1 and it had no progeny4 ,the pretence that our glorious literature derives its lineage from ,beowulf is in vulgar phrase 'a put up job'2 a falsehood grafted upon our text-books by ,teutonic and ,teutonising professors who can bring less evidence for it than will cover a threepenny-piece4 ,its run for something like that money1 in small educational manuals1 has been in its way a triumph of pedagogic reclame4 ,our rude forefathers--the author of ,the ,rape of the ,lock and of the ,elegy written in a ,country ,churchyard--knew nothing of the ,exeter and ,vercelli ,books1 nothing of the ,ruthwell ,cross4 ,but they were poets1 practitioners of our literature in the true line of descent1 and they knew certain things which all such artists know by instinct4 ,so1 before our historians of thirty-odd years ago started to make ,chaucer and ,beowulf one1 these rude forefathers made them two4 ',nor am ,i confident they erred4' ,rather ,i am confident1 and hope in succeeding lectures to convince you1 that1 venerable as ,anglo-,saxon is1 and worthy to be studied as the mother of our vernacular speech 7as for a dozen other reasons which my friend ,professor ,chadwick will give you71 its value is historical rather than literary1 since from it our ,literature is not descended4 ,let me repeat it in words that admit of no misunderstanding--,from ,anglo-,saxon ,prose1 from ,anglo-,saxon ,poetry our living ,prose and ,poetry have1 save linguistically1 no derivation4 ,i shall attempt to demonstrate that1 whether or not ,anglo-,saxon literature1 such as it was1 died of inherent weakness1 die it did1 and of its collapse the ,vision of ,piers ,plowman may be regarded as the last dying spasm4 ,i shall attempt to convince you that ,chaucer did not inherit any secret from ,caedmon or ,cynewulf1 but deserves his old title1 ',father of ,english ,poetry1' because through ,dante1 through ,boccaccio1 through the lays and songs of ,provence1 he explored back to the ,mediterranean1 and opened for ,englishmen a commerce in the true intellectual mart of ,europe4 ,i shall attempt to heap proof on you that whatever the agency--whether through ,wyat or ,spenser1 ,marlowe or ,shakespeare1 or ,donne1 or ,milton1 or ,dryden1 or ,pope1 or ,johnson1 or even ,wordsworth--always our literature has obeyed1 however unconsciously1 the precept ,antiquam exquirite matrem1 ',seek back to the ancient mother'2 always it has recreated itself1 has kept itself pure and strong1 by harking back to bathe in those native--yes1 native--,mediterranean springs4 ,do not presume me to be right in this4 ,rather1 if you will1 presume me to be wrong until the evidence is laid out for your judgment4 ,but at least understand to-day how profoundly a man1 holding that view1 must deplore the whole course of academical literary study during these thirty years or so1 and how distrust what he holds to be its basal fallacies4 ,for1 literature being written in language1 yet being something quite distinct1 and the development of our language having been fairly continuous1 while the literature of our nation exhibits a false start--a break1 silence1 repentance1 then a renewal on right glorious lines--our students of literature have been drilled to follow the specious continuance while ignoring the actual break1 and so to commit the one most fatal error in any study2 that of mistaking the inessential for the essential4 ,as ,i tried to persuade you in my ,inaugural ,lecture1 our first duty to ,literature is to study it absolutely1 to understand1 in ,aristotelian phrase1 its ,greek3 to ti en einae2 what it is and what it means4 ,if that be our quest1 and the height of it be realised1 it is nothing to us--or almost nothing--to know of a certain alleged poet of the fifteenth century1 that he helped us over a local or temporary disturbance in our vowel-endings4 ,it is everything to have acquired and to possess such a norm of ,poetry within us that we know whether or not what he wrote was ,,poetry4 ,do not think this easy4 ,the study of right literary criticism is much more difficult than the false path usually trodden2 so difficult1 indeed1 that you may easily count the men who have attempted to grasp the great rules and apply them to writing as an art to be practised4 ,but the names include some very great ones--,aristotle1 ,horace1 ,quintilian1 ,corneille1 ,boileau1 ,dryden1 ,johnson1 ,lessing1 ,coleridge1 ,goethe1 ,sainte-,beuve1 ,arnold3 and the study1 though it may not find its pattern in our time1 is not unworthy to be proposed for another attempt before a great ,university4 ,,lecture ,,ix4 ,,on ,,the ,,lineage ,,of ,,english ,,literature 7,,ii7 ,wednesday1 ,november #e ,some of you whose avocations call them1 from time to time1 to ,newmarket may have noted1 at a little distance out from ,cambridge1 a by-road advertised as leading to ,quy and ,swaffham4 ,it also leads to the site of an old ,roman villa2 but you need not interrupt your business to visit this1 since the best thing discovered there--a piece of tessellated pavement--has been removed and deposited in the ,geological ,museum here in ,downing ,street1 where you may study it very conveniently4 ,it is not at all a first-class specimen of its kind3 not to be compared1 for example1 with the wonderful pavement at ,dorchester1 or with that 7measuring #ce feet by #bj7 of the great villa unearthed1 a hundred years ago1 at ,stonesfield in ,oxfordshire3 but ,i take it as the handiest1 and am going to build a small conjecture upon it1 or rather a small suggestion of a guess4 ,remember there is no harm in guessing so long as we do not pretend our guess-work to be something else4 ,i will ask you to consider first that in these pavements1 laid bare for us as 'the whistling rustic tends his plough1' we have work dating somewhere between the first and fifth centuries1 work of unchallengeable beauty1 work of a beauty certainly not rivalled until we come to the ,norman builders of five or six hundred years later4 ,i want you to let your minds dwell on these long stretches of time--four hundred years or so of ,roman occupation 7counting1 not from ,caesar's raids1 but from the serious invasion of #dc ,a4,d4 under ,aulus ,plautius1 say to some while after the famous letter of ,honorius1 calling home the legions74 ,you may safely put it at four hundred years1 and then count six hundred as the space before the ,normans arrive--a thousand years altogether1 or but a fraction--one short generation--less than the interval of time that separates us from ,king ,alfred4 ,in the great ,cathedral of ,winchester 7where sleep1 by the way1 two gentle writers specially beloved1 ,isaak ,walton and ,jane ,austen7 above the choir-screen to the south1 you may see a line of painted chests1 of which the inscription on one tells you that it holds what was mortal of ,king ,canute4 ,here are sands1 ignoble things1 ,dropp'd from the ruin'd sides of ,kings4 ,but if you walk around to the north of the altar you will find yourself treading on tiles not so very far short of twice that antiquity4 ,gentlemen1 do not think that ,i would ever speak lightly of our lineage3 only let us make as certain as we may what that lineage is4 ,i want you to-day to understand just what such a pavement as that preserved for your inspection in ,downing ,street meant to the man who saw it laid and owned it these fifteen hundred years--more or less--ago4 ,ubi ,romanus vicit1 ibi habitat--'where the ,roman has conquered1 there he settles'3 but whether he conquered or settled he carried these small tiles1 these tessellae1 as religiously as ever ,rachel stole her teraphin4 ',wherever his feet went there went the tessellated pavement for them to stand on4 ,even generals on foreign service carried in panniers on muleback the little coloured cubes or tessellae for laying down a pavement in each camping-place1 to be taken up again when they moved forward4 ,in ,england the same sweet emblems of the younger gods of poetic legend1 of love1 youth1 plenty1 and all their happy naturalism1 are found constantly repeated4'#a ,i am quoting these sentences from a local historian1 but you see how these relics have a knack of inspiring prose at once scholarly and imaginative1 as 7for a more famous instance7 the urns disinterred at ,walsingham once inspired ,sir ,thomas ,browne's4 ,to continue and adapt the quotation-- ,bacchus with his wild rout1 ,orpheus playing to a spell-bound audience1 ,apollo singing to the lyre1 ,venus in ,mars' embrace1 ,neptune with a host of seamen1 scollops1 and trumpets1 ,narcissus by the fountain1 ,jove and ,ganymede1 ,leda and the swan1 wood-nymphs and naiads1 satyrs and fauns1 masks1 hautboys1 cornucopiae1 flowers and baskets of golden fruit--what touches of home they must have seemed to these old dwellers in the ,cambridgeshire wilds6 ,yes1 touches of home6 ,for the owner of this villa 7you may conceive7 is the grandson or even great-great-grandson of the colonist who first built it1 following in the wake of the legionaries4 ,the family has prospered and our man is now a considerable landowner4 ,he was born in ,britain3 his children have been born here3 and here he lives a comfortable1 well-to-do1 out-of-door life1 in its essentials ,i daresay not so very unlike the life of an ,english country squire to-day4 ,instead of chasing foxes or hares he hunts the wolf and the wild boar2 but the sport is good and he returns with an appetite4 ,he has added a summer parlour to the house1 with a northern aspect and no heating-flues3 for the old parlour he has enlarged the praefurnium1 and through the long winter evenings sits far better warmed than many a master of a modern country-house4 ,a belt of trees on the brow of the rise protects him from the worst winds1 and to the south his daughters have planted violet-beds which will breathe odorously in the spring4 ,he has rebuilt and enlarged the slave-quarters and outhouses1 replaced the stucco pillars around the atrium with a colonnade of polished stone1 and1 where stucco remains1 has repainted it in fresh colours4 ,he knows that there are no gaps or weak spots in his stockade fence--wood is always cheap4 ,in a word he has improved the estate2 is modestly proud of it2 and will be content1 like the old ,athenian1 to leave his patrimony not worse but something better than he found it4 ,sensible men--and the ,romans were eminently that--as a rule contrive to live decently1 or1 at least1 tolerably4 ,what struck ,arthur ,young more than anything else in his travels through ,france on the very eve of the ,revolution seems to have been the general good-tempered happiness of the ,french gentry on their estates4 ,we may moralise of the ,roman colonists as of the ,french proprietors that 'unconscious of their doom the little victims played'2 but we have no right to throw back on them the shadow of what was to come or to cloud the picture of a useful1 peaceable1 maybe more than moderately happy life1 with our later knowledge of disaster mercifully hidden from it4 ,although our colonist and his family have all been born in ,britain1 are happy enough here on the whole1 and talk without more than half meaning it1 and to amuse themselves with speculations half-wistful1 of daring the tremendous journey and setting eyes on ,rome some day1 their pride is to belong to her1 to ,rome1 the imperial ,city1 the city afar3 their windows open back towards her as ,daniel's did towards ,jerusalem--,urbs quam dicunt ,roman--the ,city4 ,along the great road1 hard by1 her imperial writ runs4 ,they have never subscribed to the vow of ,ruth1 ',thy people shall be my people and thy ,god my ,god4' ,they dwell under the ,pax ,romana1 not merely protected by it but as citizens4 ,theirs are the ancestral deities portrayed on that unfading pavement in the very centre of the villa--,apollo and ,daphne1 ,bacchus and ,ariadne-- ,for ever warm and still to be enjoyed1 ,for ever panting1 and for ever young4 ,parcels come to them1 forwarded from the near military station2 come by those trade-routes1 mysterious to us1 concerning which a most illuminating book waits to be written by somebody4 ,there are parcels of seeds--useful vegetables and potherbs1 helichryse 7marigold as we call them now7 for the flower garden1 for the colonnade even roses with real ,italian earth damp about their roots4 ,there are parcels of books1 too--rolls rather1 or tablets--wherein the family reads about ,rome2 of its wealth1 the uproar of its traffic1 the innumerable chimneys smoking1 fumum et opes strepitumque4 ,for they are always reading of ,rome2 feeling themselves1 as they read1 to belong to it1 to be neither savage nor even rustic1 but by birthright of the city1 urbane2 and what these exiles read is of how ,horace met a bore on the ,sacred ,road 7which would correspond1 more or less1 with our ,piccadilly7-- ,along the ,sacred ,road ,i strolled one day ,deep in some bagatelle 7you know my way7 ,when up comes one whose face ,i scarcely knew-- ',the dearest of dear fellows6 how d'ye do8' --,he grasped my hand4 ',well1 thanks6 ,the same to you8' --or of how ,horace apologises for protracting a summer jaunt to his country seat3-- ,five days ,i told you at my farm ,i'd stay1 ,and lo6 the whole of ,august ,i'm away4 ,well but1 ,maecenas1 you would have me live1 ,and1 were ,i sick1 my absence you'd forgive4 ,so let me crave indulgence for the fear ,of falling ill at this bad time of year4 ,when1 thanks to early figs and sultry heat1 ,the undertaker figures with his suite2 ,when fathers all and fond mammas grow pale ,at what may happen to their young heirs male1 ,and courts and levees1 town-bred mortals' ills1 ,bring fevers on1 and break the seals of wills4 7,conington's translation47 ,consider those lines2 then consider how long it took the inhabitants of this island--the cultured ones who count as readers or writers--to recapture just that note of urbanity4 ,other things our forefathers --,britons1 ,saxons1 ,normans1 ,dutch or ,french refugees--discovered by the way2 worthier things if you will2 but not until the eighteenth century do you find just that note recaptured2 the note of easy confidence that our ,london had become what ,rome had been1 the ,capital city4 ,you begin to meet it in ,dryden2 with ,addison it is fairly established4 ,pass a few years1 and with ,samuel ,johnson it is taken for granted4 ,his ,london is ,juvenal's ,rome1 and the same satire applies to one as applied to the other4 ,but against the urbane lines written by one ,horace some while before ,juvenal let us set a passage from another ,horace--,horace ,walpole1 seventeen hundred years later and some little while ahead of ,johnson4 ,he1 like our ,roman colonist1 is a settler in a new country1 ,twickenham2 and like ,flaccus he loves to escape from town life4 ,,twickenham1 ,june #hth1 #agdg4 ,to the ,hon4 ,h4 ,s4 ,,conway4 ,you perceive by my date that ,i am got into a new camp1 and have left my tub at ,windsor4 ,it is a little plaything-house that ,i got out of ,mrs ,chevenix's shop1 and the prettiest bauble you ever saw4 ,it is set in enamelled meadows with filagree hedges3 ,a small ,euphrates through the place is roll'd1 ,and little finches wave their wings of gold4 ,two delightful roads2 that you would call dusty1 supply me continually with coaches and chaises3 barges as solemn as ,barons of the ,exchequer move under my window2 ,richmond ,hill and ,ham ,walks bound my prospect2 but1 thank ,god6 the ,thames is between me and the ,duchess of ,queensberry4 ,dowagers as plenty as flounders inhabit all around1 and ,pope's ghost is just now skimming under my window by the most poetical moonlight4444 ,the ,chevenixes had tricked it out for themselves2 up two pairs of stairs is what they call ,mr ,chevenix's library1 furnished with three maps1 one shelf1 a bust of ,sir ,isaac ,newton and a lame telescope without any glasses4 ,lord ,john ,sackville predeceased me here and instituted certain games called cricketalia1 which has been celebrated this very evening in honour of him in a neighbouring meadow4 ,you will think ,i have removed my philosophy from ,windsor with my tea-things hither2 for ,i am writing to you in all tranquility while a ,parliament is bursting about my ears4 ,you know it is going to be dissolved4444 ,they say the ,prince has taken up two hundred thousand pounds1 to carry elections which he won't carry--he had much better have saved it to buy the ,parliament after it is chosen4 ,there you have ,horatio ,walpole1 the man-about-town1 almost precisely echoing ,horatius ,flaccus1 the man-about-town2 and this 7if you will bring your minds to it7 is just the sort of passage a ,roman colonist in ,britain would open upon1 out of his parcel of new books1 and read1 and understand1 some eighteen hundred years ago4 ,what became of it all8--of that easy colonial life1 of the men and women who trod those tessellated pavements8 ',wiped out1' say the historians1 knowing nothing1 merely guessing3 for you may with small trouble assure yourselves that the fifth and sixth centuries in the story of this island are a blind spot1 concerning which one man's guess may be as good as another's4 ',wiped out1' they will commonly agree2 for while1 as ,i warned you in another lecture1 the pedantic mind1 faced with a difficulty1 tends to remove it conveniently into a category to which it does not belong1 still more prone is the pedantic mind to remove it out of existence altogether4 ,so 'wiped out' is the theory2 and upon it a sympathetic imagination can invent what sorrowful pictures it will of departing legions1 the last little cloud of dust down the highway1 the lovers by the gate watching it1 not comprehending2 the peaceful homestead in the background1 ripe for doom--and what-not4 ,or1 stay6 ,there is another theory to which the late ,professor ,freeman inclined 7if so sturdy a figure could be said to incline71 laying stress on a passage in ,gildas1 that the ,romans in ,britain1 faced by the ,saxon invader1 got together their money1 and bolted away into ,gaul4 ',the ,romans that were in ,britain gathered together their gold-hoard1 hid part in the ground and carried the rest over to ,gaul1' writes ,gildas4 ',the hiding in the ground1' says ,freeman1 'is of course a guess to explain the frequent finding of ,roman coins'--which indeed it does explain better than the guess that they were carried away1 and perhaps better than the schoolboy's suggestion that during their occupation of ,britain the ,romans spent most of their time in dropping money about4 ,likely enough1 large numbers of the colonists did gather up what they could and flee before the approaching storm2 but by no means all1 ,i think4 ,for 7since1 where all is uncertain1 we must reason from what is probable of human nature7 in the first place men with large estates do not behave in that way before a danger which creeps upon them little by little1 as this ,saxon danger did4 ,these colonists could not dig up their fields and carry them over to ,gaul4 ,they did not keep banking accounts2 and in the course of four hundred years their main wealth had certainly been sunk in the land4 ,they could not carry away their villas4 ,we know that many of them did not carry away the tessellae for which 7as we have seen7 they had so peculiar a veneration2 for these remain4 ,secondly1 if the colonists left ,britain in a mass1 when in the middle of the sixth century we find ,belisarius offering the ,goths to trade ,britain for ,sicily1 as being 'much larger and this long time subservient to ,roman rule1'#b we must suppose either 7as ,freeman appears to suppose7 that ,belisarius did not know what he was offering1 or that he was attempting a gigantic 'bluff1' or lastly that he really was offering an exchange not flatly derisory2 of which three possible suppositions ,i prefer the last as the likeliest4 ,nor am ,i the less inclined to choose it1 because these very ,english historians go on to clear the ground in a like convenient way of the ,celtic inhabitants1 exterminating them as they exterminated the ,romans1 with a wave of the hand1 quite in the fashion of ,mr ,podsnap4 ',this is un-,english3 therefore for me it merely ceases to exist4' ',probable extirpation of the ,celtic inhabitants' jots down ,freeman in his margin1 and proceeds to write3 ,in short1 though the literal extirpation of a nation is an impossibility1 there is every reason to believe that the ,celtic inhabitants of those parts of ,britain which had become ,english at the end of the sixth century had been as nearly extinguished as a nation could be4 ,the women doubtless would be largely spared1 but as far as the male sex is concerned we may feel sure that death1 emigration1 or personal slavery were the only alternatives which the vanquished found at the hands of our fathers4 ,upon this passage1 if brought to me in an undergraduate essay1 ,i should have much to say4 ,the style1 with its abstract nouns 7'the literal extirpation of a nation is an impossibility'71 its padding and periphrasis 7'there is every reason to believe' 444 'as far as the male sex is concerned we may feel sure'7 betrays the loose thought4 ,it begins with 'in short' and proceeds to be long-winded4 ,it commits what even schoolboys know to be a solecism by inviting us to consider three 'alternatives'2 and what can ,i say of 'the women doubtless would be largely spared1' save that besides scanning in iambics it says what ,freeman never meant and what no-one outside of an ,aristophanic comedy could ever suggest8 ',the women doubtless would be largely spared'6 ,it reminds me of the young lady in ,cornwall who1 asked by her vicar if she had been confirmed1 admitted blushingly that 'she had reason to believe1 partially so4' ',the women doubtless would be largely spared'6--,but ,i thank the ,professor for teaching me that phrase1 because it tries to convey just what ,i am driving at4 ,the ,jutes1 ,angles1 ,saxons1 did not extirpate the ,britons1 whatever you may hold concerning the ,romans4 ,for1 once again1 men do not behave in that way1 and certainly will not when a live slave is worth money4 ,secondly1 the very horror with which men spoke1 centuries after1 of ,anderida quite plainly indicates that such a wholesale massacre was exceptional1 monstrous4 ,if not exceptional1 monstrous1 why should this particular slaughter have lingered so ineffaceably in their memories8 ,finally1--and to be as curt as the question deserves--the ,celtic ,briton in the island was not exterminated and never came near to being exterminated3 but on the contrary1 remains equipollent with the ,saxon in our blood1 and perhaps equipollent with that mysterious race we call ,iberian1 which came before either and endures in this island to-day1 as anyone travelling it with eyes in his head can see4 ,pict1 ,dane1 ,norman1 ,frisian1 ,huguenot ,french--these and others come in4 ,if mixture of blood be a shame1 we have purchased at the price of that shame the glory of catholicism2 and ,i know of nothing more false in science or more actively poisonous in politics or in the arts than the assumption that we belong as a race to the ,teutonic family4 ,dane1 ,norman1 ,frisian1 ,french ,huguenot--they all come in4 ,and will you refuse a hearing when ,i claim that the ,roman came in too8 ,bethink you how deeply ,rome engraved itself on this island and its features4 ,bethink you that1 as human nature is1 no conquering race ever lived or could live--even in garrison--among a tributary one without begetting children on it4 ,bethink you yet further of ,freeman's admission that in the wholesale 7and quite hypothetical7 general massacre 'the women doubtless would be largely spared'2 and you advance nearer to my point4 ,i see a people which for four hundred years was permeated by ,rome4 ,if you insist on its being a ,teutonic people 7which ,i flatly deny7 then you have one which alone of ,teutonic peoples has inherited the ,roman gift of consolidating conquest1 of colonising in the wake of its armies2 of driving the road1 bridging the ford1 bringing the lawless under its sense of law4 ,i see that this nation of ours concurrently1 when it seeks back to what alone can inspire and glorify these activities1 seeks back1 not to any supposed native ,north1 but south to the ,middle ,sea of our civilisation and steadily to ,italy1 which we understand far more easily than ,france--though ,france has helped us times and again4 ,putting these things together1 ,i retort upon the ethnologists--for ,i come from the ,west of ,england1 where we suffer incredible things from them--',semper ego auditor tantum8' ,i hazard that the most important thing in our blood is that purple drop of the imperial murex we derive from ,rome4 ,you must1 of course1 take this for nothing more than it pretends to be--a conjecture1 a suggestion4 ,i will follow it up with two statements of fact1 neither doubtful nor disputable4 ,the first is1 that when ,english poetry awoke1 long after the ,conquest 7or1 as ,i should prefer to put it1 after the ,crusades7 it awoke a new thing2 in its vocabulary as much like ,anglo-,saxon poetry as ever you will1 but in metre1 rhythm1 lilt--and more1 in style1 feeling1 imaginative play--and yet more again1 in knowledge of what it aimed to be1 in the essentials1 in the qualities that make ,poetry ,poetry--as different from ,anglo-,saxon poetry as cheese is from chalk1 and as much more nutritious4 ,listen to this-- ,bytuene ,mershe ant ,averil ,when spray biginnith to spring1 ,the lutel foul hath hire wyl ,on hire lud to synge3 ,ich libbe in love-longinge ,for semlokest of alle thynge1 ,he may me blisse bringe1 ,icham in hire bandoun4 ,an hendy hap ichabbe y-hent1 ,ichot from hevene it is me sent1 ,from alle wymmen my love is lent1 ,and lyht on ,alisoun4 ,here you have alliteration in plenty2 you even have what some hold to be the pattern of ,anglo-,saxon alliterative verse 7though in practice disregarded1 may be1 as often as not71 the chosen initial used twice in the first line and once at least in the second3 ,from alle wymmen my love is lent1 ,and lyht on ,alisoun4 ,but if a man cannot see a difference infinitely deeper than any similarity between this song of ,alison and the old ,anglo-,saxon verse--a difference of nature--,i must despair of his literary sense4 ,what has happened8 ,well1 in ,normandy1 too1 and in another tongue1 men are singing much the same thing in the same way3 ,a la fontenelle ,qui sort seur l'araine1 ,trouvai pastorella ,qui n'iert pas vilaine444 ,merci1 merci1 douce ,marote1 ,n'ociez pas vostre ami doux1 and this ,norman and the ,englishman were singing to a new tune1 which was yet an old tune re-set to ,europe by the ,provence1 the ,roman ,province2 by the troubadours--,pons de ,capdeuil1 ,bernard de ,ventadour1 ,bertrand de ,born1 ,pierre ,vidal1 and the rest1 with ,william of ,poitou1 ,william of ,poitiers4 ,read and compare2 you will perceive that the note then set persists and has never perished4 ,take ,giraud de ,borneil-- ,bel companhos1 si dormetz o velhatz ,non dortmatz plus1 qu'el jorn es apropchatz-- and set it beside a lyric of our day1 written without a thought of ,giraud de ,borneil-- ,heigh6 ,brother mine1 art a-waking or a-sleeping3 ,mind'st thou the merry moon a many summers fled8 ,mind'st thou the green and the dancing and the leaping8 ,mind'st thou the haycocks and the moon above them creeping8444 ,or take ,bernard de ,ventadour's-- ,quand erba vertz1 e fuelha par ,e'l flor brotonon per verjan1 ,e'l rossinhols autet e clar ,leva sa votz e mov son chan1 ,joy ai de luy1 e joy ai de la flor1 ,joy ai de me1 e de me dons maior4 ,why1 it runs straight off into ,english verse-- ,when grass is green and leaves appear ,with flowers in bud the meads among1 ,and nightingale aloft and clear ,lifts up his voice and pricks his song1 ,joy1 joy have ,i in song and flower1 ,joy in myself1 and in my lady more4 ,and that may be doggerel2 yet what is it but ,it was a lover and his lass1 ,with a hey and a ho and a hey nonino1 ,that o'er the green cornfield did pass ,in the spring-time1 the only pretty ring-time-- or ,when daffodils begin to peer1 ,with heigh6 the doxy over the dale1 ,why then comes in the sweet o' the year2 ,for the red blood reigns in the winter's pale4 ,nay1 flatter the ,anglo-,saxon tradition by picking its very best--and ,i suppose it hard to find better than the much-admired opening of ,piers ,plowman1 in which that tradition shot up like the flame of a dying candle3 ,bote in a ,mayes ,morwnynge--on ,malverne hulles ,me bi-fel a ferly--a ,feyrie me thouhte2 ,i was weori of wandringe--and wente me to reste ,under a brod banke--bi a ,bourne syde1 ,and as ,i lay and leonede--and lokede on the watres1 ,i slumberde in a slepynge--hit sownede so murie4 ,this is good1 solid stuff1 no doubt3 but tame1 inert1 if not actually lifeless4 ,as ,m4 ,jusserand says of ,anglo-,saxon poetry in general1 it is like the river ,saone--one doubts which way it flows4 ,how tame in comparison with this1 for example6-- ,in somer1 when the shawes be sheyne1 ,and leves be large and long1 ,hit is full mery in feyre foreste ,to here the foulys song3 ,to se the dere draw to the dale ,and leve the hilles hee1 ,and shadow hem in the leves grene ,under the grene-wode tre4 ,hit befel on ,whitsontide1 ,erly in a ,may mornyng1 ,the ,son up feyre can shyne1 ,and the briddis mery can syng4 ',this is a mery mornyng1' said litell ,john1 ',be ,hym that dyed on tre2 ,a more mery man than ,i am one ,lyves not in ,cristiante4 ',pluk up thi hert1 my dere mayster1' ,litull ,john can sey1 ',and thynk hit is a full fayre tyme ,in a mornyng of ,may4' ,there is no doubting which way that flows6 ,and this vivacity1 this new beat of the heart of poetry1 is common to ,chaucer and the humblest ballad-maker2 it pulses through any book of lyrics printed yesterday1 and it came straight to us out of ,provence1 the ,roman ,province4 ,it was the ,provencal ,troubadour who1 like the ,prince in the fairy tale1 broke through the hedge of briers and kissed ,beauty awake again4 ,you will urge that he wakened ,poetry not in ,england alone but all over ,europe1 in ,dante before our ,chaucer1 in the trouveres and minnesingers as well as in our ballad-writers4 ,to that ,i might easily retort1 ',so much the better for ,europe1 and the more of it the merrier1 to win their way into the great comity4' ,but here ,i put in my second assertion1 that we ,english have had above all nations lying wide of the ,mediterranean1 the instinct to refresh and renew ourselves at ,mediterranean wells2 that again and again our writers--our poets especially--have sought them as the hart panteth after the water-brooks4 ,if you accept this assertion1 and if you believe as well that our literature1 surpassing ,rome's1 may vie with that of ,athens--if you believe that a literature which includes ,chaucer1 ,spenser1 ,shakespeare1 ,pope1 ,wordsworth1 ,shelley--the ,authorised ,version of ,holy ,writ1 with ,browne1 ,bunyan1 ,swift1 ,addison1 ,johnson1 ,arnold1 ,newman--has entered the circle to take its seat with the first-- why then1 heartily believing this with you1 ,i leave you to find some better explanation than mine if you can4 ,but what ,i content myself with asserting here you can scarcely deny4 ,chaucer's initial and enormous debt to ,dante and ,boccaccio stands in as little dispute as ,dunbar's to ,chaucer4 ,on that favourite poet of mine1 ,sir ,thomas ,wyat1 ,i descanted in a former lecture4 ,he is one of your glories here1 having entered ,st4 ,john's ,college at the age of twelve 7which must have been precocious even for those days47 ,anthony ,wood asserts that after finishing his course here1 he proceeded to ,cardinal ,wolsey's new ,college at ,oxford2 but1 as ,christchurch was not founded until #aebd1 and ,wyat1 still precocious1 had married a wife two years before that1 the statement 7to quote ,dr ,courthope7 'seems no better founded than many others advanced by that patriotic but not very scrupulous author4' ,it is more to the point that he went travelling1 and brought home from ,france1 ,italy1 afterwards ,spain--always from ,latin altars--the flame of lyrical poetry to ,england2 the flame of the ,petrarchists1 caught from the ,troubadours1 clarified 7so to speak7 by the salt of humane letters4 ,on what our ,elizabethan literature owes to the ,classical revival hundreds of volumes have been written and hundreds more will be written2 ,i will but remind you of what ,spencer talked about with ,gabriel ,harvey1 what ,daniel disputed with ,campion2 that ,marlowe tried to re-incarnate ,machiavelli1 that ,jonson was a sworn ,latinist and the 'tribe of ,ben' a classical tribe2 while1 as for ,shakespeare1 go and reckon the proportion of ,italian and ,roman names in his dramatis personae4 ,of ,donne's debt to ,france1 ,italy1 ,rome1 ,greece1 you may read much in ,professor ,grierson's great edition1 and ,i daresay ,professor ,grierson would be the first to allow that all has not yet been computed4 ,you know how ,milton prepared himself to be a poet4 ,have you realised that1 in those somewhat strangely constructed sonnets of his1 ,milton was deliberately modelling upon the ,horatian ,ode1 as his confrere1 ,andrew ,marvell1 was avowedly attempting the like in his famous ,horation ,ode on ,cromwell's ,return from ,ireland2 so that if ,cromwell had returned 7like ,mr ,quilp71 walked in and caught his pair of ,latin ,secretaries scribbling verse1 one at either end of the office table1 both might colourably have pleaded that they were1 after all1 writing ,latin4 ,waller's task in poetry was to labour true classical polish where ,cowley laboured sham-classical form4 ,put together ,dryden's various ,prefaces and you will find them one solid monument to his classical faith4 ,of ,pope1 ,gray1 ,collins1 you will not ask me to speak4 ,what is salt in ,cowper you can taste only when you have detected that by a stroke of madness he missed1 or barely missed1 being our true ,english ,horace1 that almost more nearly than the rest he hit what the rest had been seeking4 ,then1 of the 'romantic revival'-- enemy of false classicism1 not of classicism--bethink you what1 in his few great years1 ,wordsworth owed directly to ,france of the early ,revolution2 what ,keats drew forth out of ,lempriere3 and again bethink you how ,tennyson wrought upon ,theocritus1 ,virgil1 ,catullus2 upon what ,arnold constantly shaped his verse2 how ,browning returned ever upon ,italy to inspire his best and correct his worse4 ,of ,anglo-,saxon prose ,i know little indeed1 but enough of the world to feel reasonably sure that if it contained any single masterpiece--or anything that could be paraded as a masterpiece--we should have heard enough about it long before now4 ,it was invented by ,king ,alfred for excellent political reasons2 but1 like other ready-made political inventions in this country1 it refused to thrive4 ,i think it can be demonstrated1 that the true line of intellectual descent in prose lies through ,bede 7who wrote in ,latin1 the 'universal language'71 and not through the ,blickling ,homilies1 or1 ,a,elfric1 or the ,saxon ,chronicle4 ,and ,i am sure that ,freeman is perversely wrong when he laments as a 'great mistake' that the first ,christian missionaries from ,rome did not teach their converts to pray and give praise in the vernacular4 ,the vernacular being what it was1 these men did better to teach the religion of the civilised world--orbis terrarum--in the language of the civilised world4 ,i am not thinking of its efficiency for spreading the faith2 but neither is ,freeman2 and1 for that1 we must allow these old missionaries to have known their own business4 ,i am thinking only of how this 'great mistake' affected our literature2 and if you will read ,professor ,saintsbury's ,history of ,english ,prose ,rhythm 7pioneer work1 which yet wonderfully succeeds in illustrating what our prose-writers from time to time were trying to do72 if you will study the ,psalms in the ,authorised ,version2 if you will consider what ,milton1 ,clarendon1 ,sir ,thomas ,browne1 were aiming at2 what ,addison1 ,gibbon1 ,johnson2 what ,landor1 ,thackeray1 ,newman1 ,arnold1 ,pater2 ,i doubt not your rising from the perusal convinced that our nation1 in this storehouse of ,latin to refresh and replenish its most sacred thoughts1 has enjoyed a continuous blessing3 that the ,latin of the ,vulgate and the ,offices has been a background giving depth and1 as the painters say1 'value' to nine-tenths of our serious writing4 ,and now1 since this and the previous lecture run something counter to a great deal of that teaching in ,english ,literature which nowadays passes most acceptably1 let me avoid offence1 so far as may be1 by defining one or two things ,i am not trying to do4 ,i am not persuading you to despise your linguistic descent4 ,english is ,english--our language2 and all its history to be venerated by us4 ,i am not persuading you to despise linguistic study4 ,all learning is venerable4 ,i am not persuading you to behave like ,ascham1 and turn ,english prose into pedantic ,latin2 nor would ,i have you doubt that in the set quarrel between ,campion1 who wished to divert ,english verse into strict classical channels1 and ,daniel1 who vindicated our free ,english way 7derived from ,latin through the ,provencal71 ,daniel was on the whole1 right1 ,campion on the whole1 wrong3 though ,i believe that both ways yet lie open1 and we may learn1 if we study them intelligently1 a hundred things from the old classical metres4 ,i do not ask you to forget what there is of the ,northmen in your blood4 ,if ,i desired this1 ,i could not worship ,william ,morris as ,i do1 among the later poets4 ,i do not ask you to doubt that the barbarian invaders from the north1 with their myths and legends1 brought new and most necessary blood of imagination into the literary material--for the time almost exhausted--of ,greece and ,rome4 ,nevertheless1 ,i do contend that when ,britain 7or1 if you prefer it1 ,sleswick7 ,when ,sleswick first at ,heaven's command ,arose from out the azure main1 she differed from ,aphrodite1 that other foam-born1 in sundry important features of ear1 of lip1 of eye4 ,lastly1 if vehement assertions on the one side have driven me into too vehement dissent on the other1 ,i crave pardon2 not for the dissent but for the vehemence1 as sinning against the very principle ,i would hold up to your admiration--the old ,greek principle of avoiding excess4 ,but ,i do commend the patient study of ,greek and ,latin authors--in the original or in translation--to all of you who would write ,english2 and for three reasons4 7#a7 ,in the first place they will correct your insularity of mind2 or1 rather1 will teach you to forget it4 ,the ,anglo-,saxon1 it has been noted1 ever left an empty space around his houses2 and that1 no doubt1 is good for a house4 ,it is not so good for the mind4 7#b7 ,secondly1 we have a tribal habit1 confirmed by ,protestant meditation upon a ,hebraic religion1 of confining our literary enjoyment to the written word and frowning down the drama1 the song1 the dance4 ,a fairly attentive study of modern lyrical verse has persuaded me that this exclusiveness may be carried too far1 and threatens to be deadening4 ',i will sing and give praise1' says the ,scripture1 'with the best member that ,i have'--meaning the tongue4 ,but the old ,greek was an 'all-round man' as we say4 ,he sought to praise and give thanks with all his members1 and to tune each to perfection4 ,i think his way worth your considering4 7#c7 ,lastly1 and chiefly1 ,i commend these classical authors to you because they1 in the ,european civilisation which we all inherit1 conserve the norm of literature2 the steady grip on the essential2 the clean outline at which in verse or in prose--in epic1 drama1 history1 or philosophical treatise--a writer should aim4 ,so sure am ,i of this1 and of its importance to those who think of writing1 that were this ,university to limit me to three texts on which to preach ,english ,literature to you1 ,i should choose the ,bible in our ,authorised ,version1 ,shakespeare1 and ,homer 7though it were but in a prose translation74 ,two of these lie outside my marked province4 ,only one of them finds a place in your ,english school4 ,but ,homer1 who comes neither within my map1 nor within the ambit of the ,tripos1 would--because he most evidently holds the norm1 the essence1 the secret of all--rank first of the three for my purpose4 ,footnote #a3 ,from ,a ,history of ,oxfordshire1 by ,mr ,j4 ,meade ,falkner1 author of ,murray's excellent ,handbook of ,oxfordshire4 ,,lecture ,x4 ,,english ,,literature ,,in ,,our ,,universities 7,i7 ,wednesday1 ,november #ai ,all lectures are too long4 ,towards the close of my last1 ,gentlemen1 ,i let fall a sentence which1 heard by you in a moment of exhausted or languid interest1 has since1 like enough1 escaped your memory even if it earned passing attention4 ,so let me repeat it1 for a fresh start4 ,having quoted to you the words of our ,holy ,writ1 ',i will sing and give praise with the best member that ,i have1' ,i added ',but the old ,greek was an all-round man2 he sought to praise and give thanks with all his members1 and to tune each to perfection4' ,now a great many instructive lectures might be written on that text3 nevertheless you may think it a strange one1 and obscure1 for the discourse on ',english ,literature in our ,universities' which1 according to promise1 ,i must now attempt4 ,the term 'an all-round man' may easily mislead you unless you take it with the rest of the sentence and particularly with the words 'praise and give thanks4' ,praise whom8 ,give thanks to whom8 ,to whom did our ,greek train all his members to render adoration8 ,why1 to the gods--his gods3 to ,zeus1 ,apollo1 ,aphrodite2 and from them down to the lesser guardian deities of the hearth1 the field1 the farmstead4 ,we modern men suffer a double temptation to misunderstand1 by belittling1 the reverence in which ,hellas and ,rome held their gods4 ,to start with1 our religion has superseded theirs4 ,we approach the ,olympians with no bent towards venerating them2 with minds easy1 detached1 to which a great deal of their theology--the amativeness of ,zeus for example--must needs seem broadly comic1 and a great deal of it not only comic but childish4 ,we are encouraged in this1 moreover1 when we read such writers as ,aristophanes and ,lucian1 and observe how they poked fun at the gods4 ,we assume--so modern he seems--,aristophanes' attitude towards his immortals to be ours2 that when1 for example1 ,prometheus walks on to the stage under an umbrella1 to hide himself from the gaze of all-seeing ,zeus1 the ,athenian audience laughed just as we laugh who have read ,voltaire4 ,believe me1 they laughed quite differently2 believe me1 ,aristophanes and ,voltaire had remarkably different minds and worked on utterly different backgrounds4 ,believe me1 you will understand ,aristophanes only less than you will understand ,a,eschylus himself if you confuse ,aristophanes' mockery of ,olympus with modern mockery4 ,but1 if you will not take my word for it1 let me quote what ,professor ,gilbert ,murray said1 the other day1 speaking before the ,english ,association on ,greek poetry1 how constantly connected it is with religion3 ',all thoughts1 all passions1 all desires' 444 ,in our ,art it is true1 no doubt1 that they are 'the ministers of love'2 in ,greek they are as a whole the ministers of religion1 and this is what in a curious degree makes ,greek poetry matter1 makes it relevant4 ,there is a sense in each song of a relation to the whole of things1 and it was apt to be expressed with the whole body1 or1 one may say1 the whole being4#a ,to a ,greek1 in short1 his gods mattered enormously2 and to a ,roman4 ,to a ,roman they continued to matter enormously1 down to the end4 ,do you remember that tessellated pavement with its emblems and images of the younger gods8 and how ,i told you that a ,roman general on foreign service would carry the little cubes in panniers on mule-back1 to be laid down for his feet at the next camping place8 ,will you suggest that he did this because they were pretty8 ,you know that practical men--conquering generals--don't behave in that way4 ,he did it because they were sacred2 because1 like most practical men1 he was religious1 and his gods must go with him4 ,they filled his literature3 for why8 ,he believed himself to be sprung from their loins4 ,where would ,latin literature be1 for example1 if you could cut ,venus out of it8 ,consider ,lucretius' grand invocation3 ,a,eneadum genetrix1 hominum divumque voluptas1 ,alma ,venus6 ,consider the part ,virgil makes her play as moving spirit of his whole great poem4 ,so follow her down to the days of the later ,empire and open the ,pervigilium ,veneris and discover her1 under the name of ,dione1 still the eternal ,aphrodite sprung from the foam amid the churning hooves of the sea-horses--inter et bipedes equos3-- ,time was that a rain-cloud begat her1 impregning the heave of the deep1 ',twixt hooves of sea-horses a-scatter1 stampeding the dolphins as sheep4 ,lo6 arose of that bridal ,dione1 rainbow'd and besprent of its dew6 ,now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have loved1 love anew6 ,her favour it was fill'd the sails of the ,trojan for ,latium bound1 ,her favour that won her ,a,eneas a bride on ,laurentian ground1 ,and anon from the cloister inveigled the ,virgin1 the ,vestal1 to ,mars2 ,as her wit by the wild ,sabine rape recreated her ,rome for its wars ,with the ,ramnes1 ,quirites1 together ancestrally proud as they drew ,from ,romulus down to our ,caesar--last1 best of that blood1 of that thew4 ,now learn ye to love who loved never--now ye who have loved1 love anew6 ',last1 best of that blood'--her blood1 fusa ,paphies de cruore1 and the blood of ,teucer1 revocato a sanguine ,teucri1 'of that thew'--the thew of ,tros and of ,mars4 ,of these and no less than these our ,roman believed himself the son and inheritor4 ,if we grasp this1 that the old literature was packed with the old religion1 and not only packed with it but permeated by it1 we have within our ten fingers the secret of the ',dark ,ages1' the real reason why the ,christian ,fathers fought down literature and almost prevailed to the point of stamping it out4 ,they hated it1 not as literature2 or at any rate1 not to begin with2 nor1 to begin with1 because it happened to be voluptuous and they austere3 but they hated it because it held in its very texture1 not to be separated1 a religion over which they had hardly triumphed1 a religion actively inimical to that of ,christ1 inimical to truth2 so that for the sake of truth and in the name of ,christ they had to fight it1 accepting no compromise1 yielding no quarter1 foreseeing no issue save that one of the twain--,jupiter or ,christ1 ,deus ,optimus ,maximus or the carpenter's son of ,nazareth--must go under4 ,it all ended in compromise1 to be sure2 as all struggles must between adversaries so tremendous4 ,to-day1 in ,dr ,smith's ,classical ,dictionary1 ,origen rubs shoulders with ,orpheus and ,orcus2 ,tertullian reposes cheek by jowl with ,terpsichore4 ,but we are not concerned1 here1 with what happened in the end4 ,we are concerned with what these forthright ,christian fighters had in their minds--to trample out the old literature because of the false religion4 ,milton understood this1 and was thinking of it when he wrote of the effect of ,christ's ,nativity-- ,the ,oracles are dumb2 ,no voice or hideous hum ,runs through the arched roof in words deceiving4 ,apollo from his shrine ,can no more divine1 ,with hollow shriek the steep of ,delphos leaving4 ,no mighty trance1 or breathed spell ,inspires the pale-eyed ,priest from the prophetic cell4 ,the lonely mountains o'er1 ,and the resounding shore1 ,a voice of weeping heard1 and loud lament2 ,from haunted spring1 and dale ,edg'd with poplar pale1 ,the parting ,genius is with sighing sent2 ,with flower-inwoven tresses torn ,the ,nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn4 as ,swinburne understands and expresses it in his ,hymn to ,proserpine1 supposed to be chanted by a ,roman of the 'old profession' on the morrow of ,constantine's proclaiming the ,christian faith-- ,o ,gods dethroned and deceased1 cast forth1 wiped out in a day6 ,from your wrath is the world released1 redeem'd from your chains1 men say4 ,new ,gods are crown'd in the city2 their flowers have broken your rods2 ,they are merciful1 clothed with pity1 the young compassionate ,gods4 ,but for me their new device is barren1 the days are bare2 ,things long past over suffice1 and men forgotten that were444 ,wilt thou yet take all1 ,galilean8 but these thou shalt not take1 ,the laurel1 the palms and the paean1 the breasts of the nymphs in the brake2 ,thou hast conquer'd1 ,o pale ,galilean2 the world has grown grey from thy breath2 ,we have drunken of things ,lethean1 and fed on the fullness of death4 ',thou hast conquer'd1 ,o pale ,galilean6' ,however the struggle might sway in this or that other part of the field1 ,literature had to be beaten to her knees1 and still beaten flat until the breath left her body4 ,you will not be surprised that the heavy hand of these ,christian fathers fell first upon the ,theatre3 for the actor in ,rome was by legal definition an 'infamous' man1 even as in ,england until the other day he was by legal definition a vagabond and liable to whipping4 ,the policy of religious reformers has ever been to close the theatres1 as our ,puritans did in #afdb2 and a recent pronouncement by the ,bishop of ,kensington would seem to show that the instinct survives to this day4 ,queen ,elizabeth--like her brother1 ,king ,edward ,,vi--signalized the opening of a new reign by inhibiting stage-plays2 and ,i invite you to share with me the pensive speculation1 ',how much of ,english ,literature1 had she not relented1 would exist to-day for a ,king ,edward ,,vii ,professor to talk about8' ,certainly the works of ,shakespeare would not2 and that seems to me a thought so impressive as to deserve the attention of ,bishops as well as of ,kings4 ,apart from this instinct the ,christian ,fathers1 it would appear1 had plenty of provocation4 ,for the actors1 who had jested with the ,old ,religion on a ground of accepted understanding--much as a good husband 7if you will permit the simile7 may gently tease his wife1 not loving her one whit the less1 taught by affection to play without offending--had mocked at the ,new ,religion in a very different way3 savagely1 as enemies1 holding up to ridicule the ,church's most sacred mysteries4 ,tertullian1 in an uncompromising treatise ,de ,spectaculis1 denounces stage-plays root and branch2 tells of a demon who entered into a woman in a theatre and on being exorcised pleaded that the mistake might well be excused1 since he had found her in his own demesne4 ,christians should avoid these shows and await the greatest spectaculum of all--the ,last ,judgment4 ',then1' he promises genially1 'will be the time to listen to the tragedians1 whose lamentations will be more poignant1 for their proper pain4 ,then will the comedians turn and twist in capers rendered nimbler than ever by the sting of the fire that is not quenched4' ,by #djj ,a4,d4 ,augustine cries triumphantly that the theatres are falling--the very walls of them tumbling--throughout the ,empire4 ',per omnes paene civitates cadunt theatra 444 cadunt et fora vel moenia in quibus demonia colebantur'2 the very walls within which these devilments were practised4 ,but the fury is unabated and goes on stamping down the embers4 ,in the eighth century our own ,alcuin 7as the school of ,freeman would affectionately call him7 is no less fierce4 ,all plays are anathema to him1 and he even disapproves of dancing bears--though not1 it would appear1 of bad puns3 'nec tibi sit ursorum saltantium cura1 sed clericorum psallentium4'#b ,the banning of all literature you will find harder to understand2 nay impossible1 ,i believe1 unless you accept the explanation ,i gave you4 ,yet there it is1 an historical fact4 ',what hath it profited posterity--quid posteritas emolumenti tulit1' wrote ,sulpicius ,severus1 about #djj ,a4,d41 'to read of ,hector's fighting or ,socrates' philosophising8' ,pope ,gregory the ,great--,st ,gregory1 who sent us the ,roman missionaries--made no bones about it at all4 ',quoniam non cognovi literaturam1' he quoted approvingly from the #gjth ,psalm1 'introibo in potentias ,domini'3 ',because ,i know nothing of literature ,i shall enter into the strength of the ,lord4' ',the praises of ,christ cannot be uttered in the same tongue as those of ,jove1' writes this same ,gregory to ,desiderius1 ,archbishop of ,vienne1 who had been rash enough to introduce some of his young men to the ancient authors1 with no worse purpose than to teach them a little grammar4 ,yet no one was prouder than this ,pope of the historical ,rome which he had inherited4 ,alcuin1 again1 forbade the reading of ,virgil in the monastery over which he presided3 it would sully his disciples' imagination4 ',how is this1 ,virgilian6' he cried out upon one taken in the damnable act1--'that without my knowledge and against my order thou hast taken to studying ,virgil8' ,to put a stop to this unhallowed indulgence the clergy solemnly taught that ,virgil was a wizard4 ,to us1 long used as we are to the innocent gaieties of the ,classical ,tripos1 these measures to discourage the study of ,virgil may appear drastic1 as the mental attitude of ,gregory and ,alcuin towards the ,latin hexameter 7so closely resembling that of ,byron towards the waltz7 not far removed from foolishness4 ,but there you have in its quiddity the mediaeval mind3 and the point ,i now put to you is1 that out of this soil our ,universities grew4 ,we1 who claim ,oxford and ,cambridge for our nursing mothers1 have of all men least excuse to forget it4 ,a man of ,leyden1 of ,louvain1 of ,liepzig1 of ,berlin1 may be pardoned that he passes it by4 ,more than a hundred years ago ,salamanca had the most of her stones torn down to make defences against ,wellington's cannon4 ,paris1 greatest of all1 has kept her renown2 but you shall search the slums of the ,latin ,quarter in vain for the sixty or seventy ,colleges that1 before the close of the fifteenth century1 had arisen to adorn her1 the intellectual ,queen of ,europe4 ,in ,bologna1 the ancient and stately1 almost alone among the continental ,universities1 survive a few relics of the old collegiate system--the ,college of ,spain1 harbouring some five or six students1 and a little house founded for ,flemings in #afej3 and in ,bologna the system never attained to real importance4 ,but in ,england where1 great as ,london is1 the national mind has always harked to the country for the graces of life1 so that we seem by instinct to see it as only desirable in a green setting1 our ,universities1 planted by the same instinct on lawns watered by pastoral streams1 have suffered so little and received as much from the years that now we can hardly conceive of ,oxford or ,cambridge as ruined save by 'the unimaginable touch of ,time4' ,of all the secular ,colleges bequeathed to ,oxford1 she has lost not one2 while ,cambridge 7,i believe7 has parted only with ,cavendish4 ,some have been subsumed into newer foundations2 but always the process has been one of merging1 of blending1 of justifying the new bottle by the old wine4 ,the vengeance of civil war--always very much of a family affair in ,england--has dealt tenderly with ,oxford and ,cambridge2 the more calculating malignity of ,royal ,commissions not harshly on the whole4 ,university reformers may accuse both ,oxford and ,cambridge of ,annihilating all that's made ,to a green thought in a green shade3 but with those sour men we have nothing here to do3 like ,isaak ,walton's milkmaid we will not 'load our minds with any fears of many things that will never be4' ,but1 as they stand1 ,oxford and ,cambridge--so amazingly alike while they play at differences1 and both so amazingly unlike anything else in the wide world--do by a hundred daily reminders connect us with the ,middle ,age1 or1 if you prefer ,arnold's phrase1 whisper its lost enchantments4 ,the cloister1 the grave grace in hall1 the chapel bell1 the men hurrying into their surplices or to lectures 'with the wind in their gowns1' the staircase1 the nest of chambers within the oak--all these softly reverberate over our life here1 as from belfries1 the mediaeval mind4 ,and that mediaeval mind actively hated 7of partial acquaintance or by anticipation7 almost everything we now study6 ,between it and us1 except these memorials1 nothing survives to-day but the dreadful temptation to learn1 the dreadful instinct in men1 as they grow older and wiser1 to trust learning after all and endow it--that1 and the confidence of a steady stream of youth4 ,the ,universities1 then1 sprang out of mediaeval life1 out of the mediaeval mind2 and the mediaeval mind had for centuries been taught to abominate literature4 ,i would not exaggerate or darken the ',dark ,ages' for you by throwing too much bitumen into the picture4 ,i know that at the beginning there had been a school of ,origen which advocated the study of ,greek poetry and philosophy1 as well as the school of ,tertullian which condemned it4 ,there is evidence that the 'humanities' were cultivated here and there and after a fashion behind ,gregory's august back4 ,i grant that1 while in ,alcuin's cloister 7and ,alcuin1 remember1 became a sort of ,imperial ,director of ,studies in ,charlemagne's court7 the wretched monk who loved ,virgil had to study him with an illicit candle1 to copy him with numbed fingers in a corner of the bitter-cold cloister1 on the other hand many beautiful manuscripts preserved to us bear witness of cloisters where literature was tolerated if not officially honoured4 ,i would not have you so uncritical as to blame the ,church or its clergy for what happened2 as ,i would have you remember that if the ,church killed literature1 she--and1 one may say1 she alone--kept it alive4 ,yet1 and after all these reservations1 it remains true that ,literature had gone down disastrously4 ,even philosophy1 unless you count the pale work of ,boethius--real philosophy had so nearly perished that men possessed no more of ,aristotle than a fragment of his ,logic1 and 'the ,philosopher' had to creep back into ,western ,europe through translations from the ,arabic6 ,but this is the point ,i wish to make clear4--,philosophy came back in the great intellectual revival of the twelfth century2 ,literature did not4 ,literature's hour had not come4 ,men had to catch up on a dreadful leeway of ignorance4 ,the form did not matter as yet3 they wanted science--to know4 ,i should say1 rather1 that as yet form seemed not to matter3 for in fact form always matters3 the personal always matters3 and you cannot explain the vast crowds ,abelard drew to ,paris save by the fascination in the man1 the fire communicated by the living voice4 ,moreover 7as in a previous lecture ,i tried to prove7 you cannot divorce accurate thought from accurate speech2 but for accuracy1 even for hair-splitting accuracy1 of speech the ,universities had the definitions of the ,schoolmen4 ,in literature they had yet to discover a concern4 ,literature was a thing of the past1 inanimate4 ,nowhere in ,europe could it be felt even to breathe4 ,to borrow a beautiful phrase of ,wordsworth's1 men numbered it among 'things silently gone out of mind or things violently destroyed4' ,nobody quite knows how these ,universities began4 ,least of all can anybody tell how ,oxford and ,cambridge began4 ,in ,bede1 for instance--that is1 in ,england as the eighth century opens--we see scholarship already moving towards the thing1 treading with sure instinct towards the light4 ,though a hundred historians have quoted it1 ,i doubt if a feeling man who loves scholarship can read the famous letter of ,cuthbert describing ,bede's end and not come nigh to tears4 ,and ,bede's story contains no less wonder than beauty1 when you consider how the fame of this holy and humble man of heart1 who never left his cloisters at ,jarrow1 spread over ,europe1 so that1 though it sound incredible1 our ,northumbria narrowly missed in its day to become the pole-star of ,western culture4 ,but he was a disinterested genius1 and his pupil1 ,alcuin1 a pushing dull man and a born reactionary2 so that1 while ,alcuin scored the personal success and went off to teach in the court of ,charlemagne1 the great chance was lost4 ,no one knows when the great ,universities were founded1 or precisely out of what schools they grew2 and you may derive amusement from the historians when they start to explain how ,oxford and ,cambridge in particular came to be chosen for sites4 ,my own conjecture1 that they were chosen for the extraordinary salubrity of their climates1 has met 7,i regret to say7 with derision1 and may be set down to the caprice of one who ever inclines to think the weather good where he is happy4 ,our own learned historian1 indeed--,mr ,j4 ,bass ,mullinger--devotes some closely reasoned pages to proving that ,cambridge was chosen as the unlikeliest spot in the world1 and is driven to quote the learned ,poggio's opinion that the unhealthiness of a locality recommended it as a place of education for youth2 as ,plato1 knowing naught of ,christianity1 but gifted with a soul naturally ,christian1 'had selected a noisome spot for his ,academe1 in order that the mind might be strengthened by the weakness of the body4' ,so difficult still it is for the modern mind to interpret the mediaeval6 ,most likely these ,universities grew as a tree grows from a seed blown by chance of the wind4 ,it seems easy enough to understand why ,paris1 that great city1 should have possessed a great ,university2 yet ,i surmise the processes at ,oxford and ,cambridge to have been only a little less fortuitous4 ,the schools of ,remigius and of ,william of ,champeaux 7we will say7 have given ,paris a certain prestige1 when ,abelard1 a pupil of ,william's1 springs into fame and draws a horde of students from all over ,europe to sit at his feet4 ,these 'nations' of young men have to be organised1 brought under some sort of discipline1 if only to make the citizens' lives endurable3 and lo6 the thing is done4 ,in like manner ,irnerius at ,bologna1 ,vacarius at ,oxford1 and at ,cambridge some innominate teacher1 'of importance1' as ,browning would put it1 'in his day1' possibly set the ball rolling2 or again it is suggested that a body of scholars dissatisfied with ,oxford 7such dissatisfaction has been known even in historical times7 migrated hither--a laborious journey1 even nowadays--and that so ,a brighter ,hellas rears its mountains ,from waves serener far6 ,these young or nascent bodies had a trick of breaking away after this fashion4 ,for reasons no longer obvious they hankered specially towards ,stamford or ,northampton4 ,until quite recently1 within living memory1 all candidates for a ,mastership of ,arts at ,oxford had to promise never to lecture at ,stamford4 ,a flood here in #aebj1 which swept away ,garret ,hostel ,bridge1 put ,cambridge in like mind and started a prophecy 7to which you may find allusion in the fourth book of ,the ,faerie ,queene7 that both ,universities would meet in the end1 and kiss1 at ,stamford4 ,each in turn broke away for ,northampton1 and the worthy ,fuller 7a ,northamptonshire man7 has recorded his wonder that so eligible a spot was not finally chosen4 ,i have mentioned a flood3 but the immediate causes of the migrations or attempted migrations were not usually respectable enough to rank with any such act of ,god4 ,they started as a rule with some ,town and ,gown row1 or some bloody affray between scholars of the ,north and of the ,south4 ,without diminishing your sense of the real fervour for learning which drew young men from the remotest parts of ,europe to these centres1 but having for my immediate object to make clear to you that1 whatever these young men sought1 it was not literature1 ,i wish you first to have in your minds a vivid picture of what a ,university town was like1 and what its students were like during the greater part of the #abth and #acth centuries2 that is to say1 after the first enthusiasm had died down1 when ,oxford or ,cambridge had organised itself into a ,studium ,generale1 or ,universitas 7which1 of course1 has nothing to do with ,universality1 whether of teaching or of frequenting1 but simply means a ,society4 ,universitas all of us74 ,to begin with1 the town was of wood1 often on fire in places2 with the alleviation of frequent winter floods1 which in return1 in the words of a modern poet1 would 'leave a lot of little things behind them4' ,it requires but a small effort of the imagination in ,cambridge to picture the streets as narrow1 dark1 almost meeting overhead in gables out of which the house slops would be discharged after casual warning down into a central gutter4 ,that these narrow streets were populous with students remains certain1 however much discount we allow on contemporary bills of reckoning4 ,and the crowd was noisy4 ,men have always been ingenious in their ways of celebrating academical success4 ,pythagoras1 for example1 sacrificed an ox on solving the theorem numbered #dg in the first book of ,euclid2 and even to-day a ,professor in his solitary lodge may be encouraged to believe now and then1 from certain evidences in the sky1 that the spirit of ,pythagoras is not dead but translated4 ,but of the mediaeval ,university the lawlessness1 though well attested1 can scarcely be conceived4 ,when in the streets 'nation' drew the knife upon 'nation1' 'town' upon 'gown'2 when the city bell started to answer the clang of ,st4 ,mary's2 horrible deeds were done4 ,i pass over massacres1 tumults such as the famous one of ,st ,scholastica's ,day at ,oxford1 and choose one at a decent distance 7yet entirely typical7 exhumed from the annals of the ,university of ,toulouse1 in the year #accb4 ,in that year ,five brothers of the noble family de la ,penne lived together in a ,hospicium at ,toulouse as students of the ,civil and ,canon ,law4 ,one of them was ,provost of a ,monastery1 another ,archdeacon of ,albi1 another an ,archpriest1 another ,canon of ,toledo4 ,a bastard son of their father1 named ,peter1 lived with them as squire to the ,canon4 ,on ,easter ,day1 ,peter1 with another squire of the household named ,aimery ,beranger and other students1 having dined at a tavern1 were dancing with women1 singing1 shouting1 and beating 'metallic vessels and iron culinary instruments' in the street before their masters' house4 ,the ,provost and the ,archpriest were sympathetically watching the jovial scene from a window1 until it was disturbed by the appearance of a ,capitoul and his officers1 who summoned some of the party to surrender the prohibited arms which they were wearing4 ',ben ,senhor1 non fassat' was the impudent reply4 ,the ,capitoul attempted to arrest one of the offenders2 whereupon the ecclesiastical party made a combined attack upon the official4 ,aimery ,beranger struck him in the face with a poignard1 cutting off his nose and part of his chin and lips1 and knocking out or breaking no less than eleven teeth4 ,the surgeons deposed that if he recovered 7he eventually did recover7 he would never be able to speak intelligibly4 ,one of the watch was killed outright by ,peter de la ,penne4 ,that night the murderer slept1 just as if nothing had happened1 in the house of his ecclesiastical masters4 ,the whole household1 masters and servants alike1 were1 however1 surprised by the other ,capitouls and a crowd of #bjj citizens1 and led off to prison1 and the house is alleged to have been pillaged4 ,the ,archbishop's ,official demanded their surrender4 ,in the case of the superior ecclesiastics this1 after a short delay1 was granted4 ,but ,aimery1 who dressed like a layman in 'divided and striped clothes' and wore a long beard1 they refused to treat as a clerk1 though it was afterwards alleged that the tonsure was plainly discernible upon his head until it was shaved by order of the ,capitouls4 ,aimery was put to the torture1 admitted his crime1 and was sentenced to death4 ,the sentence was carried out by hanging1 after he had had his hand cut off on the scene of the crime1 and been dragged by horses to the place of execution4 ,the ,capitouls were then excommunicated by the ,official1 and the ecclesiastical side of the quarrel was eventually transferred to the ,roman ,court4 ,before the ,parlement of ,paris the ,university complained of the violation of the ,royal privilege exempting scholars' servants from the ordinary tribunals4 ,the ,capitouls were imprisoned1 and after long litigation sentenced to pay enormous damages to the ruffian's family and erect a chapel for the good of his soul4 ,the city was condemned for a time to the forfeiture of all its privileges4 ,the body was cut down from the gibbet on which it had been hanging for three years1 and accorded a solemn funeral4 ,four ,capitouls bore the pall1 and all fathers of families were required to walk in the procession4 ,when they came to the ,schools1 the citizens solemnly begged pardon of the ,university1 and the cortege was joined by #cjjj scholars4 ,finally1 it cost the city #ae1jjj livres tournois or more to regain their civic privileges4#c ,the late ,mr ,cecil ,rhodes once summarized all ,fellows of ,colleges as children in matters of finance4 ,be that as it may1 you will find nothing more constant in history than the talent of the ,universities for extracting money or money's worth out of a riot4 ,time 7,i speak as a parent7 has scarcely blunted that faculty2 and still--since where young men congregate1 noise there must be--our ,universities like ,wordsworth's ,happy ,warrior turn their necessity to glorious gain4 ,these were the excesses of young 'bloods1' and their servants3 but with them mingled scholars not less ferocious in their habits because almost desperately poor4 ,you all know1 ,i dare say1 that very poor scholars would be granted licences to beg by the ,chancellor4 ,the sleeve of this gown in which ,i address you represents the purse or pocket of a ,master of ,arts1 and may hint to you by its amplitude how many crusts he was prepared to receive from the charitable4 ,now1 choosing to ignore 7because it has been challenged as overpainted7 a picture of penury endured by the scholars of ,st ,john's ,college in this ,university1 let me tell you two stories1 one well attested1 the other fiction if you will1 but both agreeable as testifying to the spirit of youth which1 ever blowing upon their sacred embers1 has kept ,oxford and ,cambridge perennially alive4 ,my first is of three scholars so poor that they possessed but one 'cappa' and gown between them4 ,they took it in turns therefore1 and when one went to lecture the other two kept to their lodgings4 ,i invite you even to reflect on the joy of the lucky one1 in a winter lecture room1 dark1 with unglazed windows1 as he listened and shuffled his feet for warmth in the straw of the floor4 ,no one1 by the way1 can understand the incessant harping of our early poets upon ,may-time and the return of summer until he has pictured to himself the dark and cold discomfort of a ,middle-,english winter4 ,these three poor scholars fed habitually on bread1 with soup and a little wine1 tasting meat only on ,sundays and feasts of the ,church4 ,yet one of them1 ,richard of ,chichester1 who lived to become a saint1 saepe retulit quod nunquam in vita sua tam jucundam1 tam delectabilem duxerat vitam--that never had he lived so jollily1 so delectably4 ,that is youth1 youth blessed by friendship4 ,now for my second story1 which is also of youth and friendship4-- ,two poor scholars1 who had with pains become ,masters of ,arts and saved their pence to purchase the coveted garb1 on the afternoon of their admission took a country walk in it1 together flaunting their new finery4 ,but1 the day being gusty1 on their return across the bridge1 a puff of wind caught the biretta of one and blew it into the river4 ,the loss was irrecoverable1 since neither could swim4 ,the poor fellow looked at his friend4 ,his friend looked at him4 ',between us two1' he said1 'it is all or naught1' and cast his own cap to float and sink with the other down stream4 ,you will never begin to understand literature until you understand something of life4 ,these young men1 your forerunners1 understood something of life while as yet completely careless of literature4 ,after the impulse of ,abelard and others had died down1 the mass of students betook themselves to the ,universities1 no doubt1 for quite ordinary1 mercenary reasons4 ,the ,university led to the ,church1 and the ,church1 in ,england at any rate1 was the door to professional life4 ,nearly all the civil servants of the ,crown--,i am here quoting freely--the diplomatists1 the secretaries or advisers of great nobles1 the physicians1 the architects1 at one time the secular law-givers1 all through the ,middle ,ages the then large tribe of ecclesiastical lawyers1 were ecclesiastics4444 ,clerkship did not necessarily involve even minor orders4 ,but as it was cheaper to a ,king or a ,bishop or a temporal magnate to reward his physician1 his legal adviser1 his secretary1 or his agent by a ,canonry or a ,rectory than by large salaries1 the average student of ,paris or ,oxford or ,cambridge looked toward the ,church as the 'main chance' as we say1 and small blame to him6 ,he never at any rate looked towards ,literature3 nor did the ,universities1 wise in their generation1 encourage him to do anything of the sort4 ,you may realise1 ,gentlemen1 how tardily1 even in later and more enlightened times1 the study of ,literature has crept its way into official ,cambridge1 if you will take down your ,university ,calendar and study the list of ,professorships there set forth in order of foundation4 ,it begins in #aejb with the ,lady ,margaret's ,chair of ,divinity1 founded by the mother of ,henry ,,vii4 ,five ,regius ,professorships follow3 of ,divinity1 ,civil ,law1 ,physic1 ,hebrew1 ,greek1 all of #aedj4 ,so ,greek comes in upon the flush of the ,renaissance2 and the ,calendar bravely1 yet not committing itself to a date1 heads with ,erasmus the noble roll which concludes 7as may it long conclude7 with ,henry ,jackson4 ,but ,greek comes in last of the five4 ,close on a hundred years elapse before the foundation of the next chair--it is of ,arabic2 and more than a hundred before we arrive at ,mathematics4 ,so ,sir ,william ,hamilton was not without historical excuse when he declared the study of ,mathematics to be no part of the business of this ,university6 ,then follow ,moral ,philosophy 7#afhc71 ,music 7#afhd71 ,chemistry 7#agjb71 ,astronomy 7#agjd71 ,anatomy 7#agjg71 ,modern ,history and more ,arabic1 with ,botany 7#agbd71 ,geology 7#agbg71 closely followed by ,mr ,hulse's ,christian ,advocate1 more ,astronomy 7#agdi71 more ,divinity 7#aggg71 ,experimental ,philosophy 7#aghc73 then in the nineteenth century more ,law1 more ,medicine1 ,mineralogy1 ,archaeology1 ,political ,economy1 ,pure ,mathematics1 ,comparative ,anatomy1 ,sanskrit and yet again more ,law1 before we arrive in #ahfi at a ,chair of ,latin4 ,faint yet pursuing1 we have yet to pass chairs of ,fine ,art 7belated71 ,experimental ,physics1 ,applied ,mechanics1 ,anglo-,saxon1 ,animal ,morphology1 ,surgery1 ,physiology1 ,pathology1 ,ecclesiastical ,history1 ,chinese1 more ,divinity1 ,mental ,philosophy1 ,ancient ,history1 ,agriculture1 ,biology1 ,agricultural ,botany1 more ,biology1 ,astrophysics1 and ,german1 before arriving in #aiaj at a ,chair of ,english ,literature which by this time ,i have not breath to defend4 ,the enumeration has1 ,i hope1 been instructive4 ,if it has also plunged you in gloom1 to that atmosphere 7as the clock warns me7 for a fortnight ,i must leave you3 with a promise1 however1 in another lecture to cheer you1 if it may be1 with some broken gleams of hope4 ,footnote #a3 ,what ,english ,poetry may still learn from ,greek3 a paper read before the ,english ,association on ,nov4 #ag1 #aiaa4 ,footnote #b3 ,see ,mr ,e4 ,k4 ,chambers' ,mediaeval ,stage1 ,dr ,courthope's ,history of ,english ,poetry1 and ,professor ,w4 ,p4 ,ker's ,the ,dark ,ages4 ,footnote #c3 ,rashdall1 ,the ,universities of ,europe in the ,middle ,ages1 vol4 ii1 p4 #fhd1 from documents printed in ,fournier's collection4 ,,lecture ,,xi4 ,,english ,,literature ,,in ,,our ,,universities nglish ,literature in ,our ,universities 7,,ii7 ,wednesday1 ,december #c ,we broke off1 ,gentlemen1 upon the somewhat painful conclusion that our ,universities were not founded for the study of literature1 and tardily admitted it4 ,the dates of our three literary chairs in ,cambridge--,i speak of our ,western literature only1 and omit ,arabic1 ,sanskrit1 and ,chinese--clenched that conclusion for us4 ,greek in #aedj1 ,latin not until #ahfi1 ,english but three years ago--from the lesson of these intervals there is no getting away4 ,now ,i do not propose to dwell on the ,renaissance and how ,greek came in3 for a number of writers in our time have been busy with the ,renaissance1 and have--,i was going to say 'over-written the subject1' but no--it is better to say that they have focussed the period so as to distort the general perspective at the cost of other periods which have earned less attention2 the twelfth century1 for example4 ,at any rate their efforts1 with the amount they claim of your reading1 absolve me from doing more than remind you that the ,renaissance brought in the study of ,greek1 and ,greek necessarily brought in the study of literature3 since no man can read what the ,greeks wrote and not have his eyes unsealed to what ,i have called a norm of human expression2 a guide to conduct1 a standard to correct our efforts1 whether in poetry1 or in philosophy1 or in art4 ,for the rest1 ,i need only quote to you ,gibbon's magnificent saying1 that the ,greek language gave a soul to the objects of sense and a body to the abstractions of metaphysics4 ,may ,i add1 in parenthesis1 that1 while no believer in compulsory ,greek1 holding1 indeed1 that you can hardly reconcile learning with compulsion1 and still more hardly force them to be compatibles1 ,i subscribe with all my heart to ,bagehot's shrewd saying1 'while a knowledge of ,greek and ,latin is not necessary to a writer of ,english1 he should at least have a firm conviction that those two languages existed4' ,but1 assuming you to know something of the ,renaissance1 and how it brought ,greek into ,oxford and ,cambridge1 ,i find that in the course of the argument two things fall to be said1 and both to be said with some emphasis4 ,in the first place1 without officially acknowledging their native tongue or its literature1 our two ,universities had no sooner acquired ,greek than their members became immensely interested in ,english4 ,take1 for one witness out of many1 ,gabriel ,harvey1 ,fellow of ,pembroke ,hall4 ,his letters to ,edmund ,spenser have been preserved1 as you know4 ,now ,gabriel ,harvey was a man whom few will praise1 and very few could have loved4 ,few will quarrel with ,dr ,courthope's description of him as 'a person of considerable intellectual force1 but intolerably arrogant and conceited1 and with a taste vitiated by all the affectations of ,italian humanism1' or deny that 'his tone in his published correspondence with ,spenser is that of an intellectual bully4'#a ,none will refuse him the title of fool for attempting to mislead ,spenser into writing hexameters4 ,but all you can urge against ,gabriel ,harvey1 on this count or that or the other1 but accumulates proof that this donnish man was all the while giving thought--giving even ferocious thought--to the business of making an ,english ,literature4 ,let me adduce more pleasing evidence4 ,at or about ,christmas1 in the year #aeig1 there was enacted here in ,cambridge1 in the hall of ,st ,john's ,college1 a play called ,the ,pilgrimage to ,parnassus1 a skittish work1 having for subject the 'discontent of scholars'2 the misery attending those who1 unsupported by a private purse1 would follow after ,apollo and the ,nine4 ,no one knows the author's name3 but he had a wit which has kept something of its salt to this day1 and in ,christmas1 #aeig1 it took ,cambridge by storm4 ,the public demanded a sequel1 and ,the ,return from ,parnassus made its appearance on the following ,christmas 7again in ,st ,john's ,college hall72 to be followed by a ,second ,part of the ,return from ,parnassus1 the author's overflow of wit1 three years later4 ,of the popularity of the first and second plays--,the ,pilgrimage and ,the ,return1 ,part ,i--we have good evidence in the prologue to ,the ,return1 ,part ,,ii1 where the author makes ,momus say1 before an audience which knew the truth3 ,the ,pilgrimage to ,parnassus and ,the ,returne from ,parnassus have stood the honest ,stagekeepers in many a crowne's expense for linckes and vizards3 purchased many a ,sophister a knocke with a clubbe3 hindred the butler's box1 and emptied the ,colledge barrells2 and now1 unlesse you have heard the former1 you may returne home as wise as you came3 for this last is the last part of ,the ,returne from ,parnassus2 that is1 the last time that the ,author's wit will turne upon the toe in this vaine4 ,in other words1 these plays had set everybody in ,cambridge agog1 had been acted by link-light1 had led to brawls--either between literary factions or through offensive personal allusions to which we have lost all clue--had swept into the box-office much money usually spent on ,christmas gambling1 and had set up an inappeasable thirst for ,college ale4 ,the point for us is that 7in #aeig-afja7 they abound in topical allusions to the ,london theatres3 that ,shakespeare is obviously just as much a concern to these young men of ,cambridge as ,mr ,shaw 7say7 is to our young men to-day1 and an allusion to him is dropped in confidence that it will be aptly taken4 ,for instance1 one of the characters1 ,gullio1 will have some love-verses recited to him 'in two or three diverse veins1 in ,chaucer's1 ,gower's and ,spenser's and ,mr ,shakespeare's4' ,having listened to ,chaucer1 he cries1 ',tush6 ,chaucer is a foole'2 but coming to some lines of ,mr ,shakespeare's ,venus and ,adonis1 he cries1 ',ey1 marry1 ,sir6 these have some life in them6 ,let this duncified world esteeme of ,spenser and ,chaucer1 ,i'le worship sweet ,mr ,shakespeare1 and to honoure him ,i will lay his ,venus and ,adonis under my pillowe4' ,for another allusion--',few of the ,university pen plaies well1' says the actor ,kempe in ,part ,,ii of the ,returne2 'they smell too much of that writer ,ovid and that writer ,metamorphosis1 and talke too much of ,proserpina and ,jupiter4 ,why here's our fellow ,shakespeare puts them all downe1 ay and ,ben ,jonson1 too4' ,here you have ,cambridge assembling at ,christmas-tide to laugh at well-understood hits upon the theatrical taste of ,london4 ,here you have1 to make ,cambridge laugh1 three farcical quasi-,aristophanic plays all hinging on the tribulations of scholars who depart to pursue literature for a livelihood4 ,for a piece of definite corroborative evidence you have a statute of ,queens' ,college 7quoted by ,mr ,bass ,mullinger7 which directs that 'any student refusing to take part in the acting of a comedy or tragedy in the ,college and absenting himself from the performance1 contrary to the injunctions of the ,president1 shall be expelled from the ,society'--which seems drastic4 ,and on top of all this1 you have evidence enough and to spare of the part played in ,elizabethan drama by the ',university ,wits4' ,why1 ,marlowe 7of ,corpus ,christi7 may be held to have invented its form--blank verse2 ,ben ,jonson 7of ,st ,john's7 to have carried it on past its meridian and through its decline1 into the masque4 ,both ,universities claim ,lyly and ,chapman4 ,marston1 ,peel1 ,massinger1 hailed from ,oxford4 ,but ,greene and ,nashe were of ,cambridge--of ,st ,john's both1 and ,day of ,caius4 ,they sought to ,london1 and there 7for tragic truth underlay that ,christmas comedy of ,the ,pilgrimage of ,parnassus7 many of them came to bitter ends3 but before reaching their sordid personal ruin--and let the deaths of ,marlowe and ,greene be remembered--they built the ,elizabethan drama1 as some of them lived to add its last ornaments4 ,we know what1 meanwhile1 ,spenser had done4 ,i think it scarcely needs further proof that ,cambridge1 towards the end of the sixteenth century1 was fermenting with a desire to read1 criticise1 yes and write1 ,english literature1 albeit officially the ,university recognised no such thing4 ,there remains a second question--,how happened it that ,cambridge1 after admitting ,greek1 took more than three hundred years to establish a ,chair of ,latin1 and that a ,chair of ,english is1 so to speak1 a mushroom 7call it not toadstool67 of yesterday8 ,why simply enough4 ,latin continued to be the working language of ,science4 ,in ,latin ,bacon naturally composed his ,novum ,organum and indeed almost all his scientific and philosophical work1 although a central figure of his age among ,english prose-writers4 ,in ,latin1 in the eighteenth century1 ,newton wrote his ,principia3 and ,i suppose that of no two books written by ,englishmen before the close of that century1 or indeed before ,darwin's ,origin of ,species1 can it be less extravagantly said than of the ,novum ,organum and the ,principia that they shook the world4 ,now1 without forgetting our ,classical ,tripos 7founded in #ahbb71 as without forgetting the great names of ,bentley and ,porson1 we may observe it as generally true1 that whenever and wherever large numbers of scientific men use a particular language as their working instrument1 they have a disposition to look askance on its refinements2 to be jealous of its literary professors2 to accuse these of treating as an end in itself what is properly a means4 ,like the ,denver editor ,i quoted to you in a previous lecture1 these scientific workers want to 'get there' in a hurry1 forgetting that 7to use another ,americanism7 the sharper the chisel the more ice it is likely to cut4 ,you may observe this disposition--this suspicion of 'literature1' this thinly veiled contempt--in many a scientific man to-day2 though because his language has changed from ,latin to ,english1 it is ,english he now chooses to cheapen4 ,well1 we cannot help it1 perhaps4 ,perhaps he cannot help it4 ,it is human nature4 ,we must go on persuading him1 not losing our tempers4 ,none the less we should not shut our eyes to the fact that while a language is the working instrument of scientific men there will always be a number of them to decry any study of it for its beauty1 and even any study of it for the sake of accuracy--its beauty and its accuracy being indeed scarcely distinguishable4 ,i fear1 ,gentlemen1 you may go on from this to the dreadful conclusion that the date #ahfi1 when ,cambridge at length came to possess a ,chair of ,latin1 marks definitely the hour at which ,latin closed its eyes and became a dead language2 that you may proceed to a yet more dreadful application of this to the ,chair of ,english founded in #aiaj3 and that henceforward 7to misquote what ,mr ,max ,beerbohm once wickedly said of ,walter ,pater7 you will be apt to regard ,professor ,housman and me as two widowers engaged1 while the undertaker waits1 in composing the features of our beloveds4 ,but 7to speak seriously7 that is what ,i stand here to controvert3 and ,i derive no small encouragement when--as has more than once happened--,a1 a scientific man1 comes to me and complains that he for his part cannot understand ,b1 another scientific man1 'because the fellow can't express himself4' ,and the need to study precision in writing has grown far more instant since men of science have abandoned the 'universal language' and taken to writing in their own tongues4 ,let us1 while not on the whole regretting the change1 at least recognise some dangers1 some possible disadvantages4 ,i will confine myself to ,english1 considered as a substitute for ,latin4 ,in ,latin you have a language which may be thin in its vocabulary and inelastic for modern use2 but a language which at all events compels a man to clear his thought and communicate it to other men precisely4 ,thoughts hardly to be packed ,into the narrow act --may be all impossible of compression into the ,latin speech4 ,in ,english1 on the other hand1 you have a language which by its very copiousness and elasticity tempts you to believe that you can do without packing1 without compression1 arrangement1 order2 that1 with the ,denver editor1 all you need is to 'get there'--though it be with all your intellectual belongings in a jumble1 overflowing the portmanteau4 ,rather ,i preach to you that having proudly inherited ,english with its copia fandi1 you should keep your estate in order by constantly applying to it that jus et norma loquendi of which1 if you seek to the great models1 you will likewise find yourselves inheritors4 ',but1' it is sometimes urged1 'why not leave this new study of ,english to the younger ,universities now being set up all over the country8' ',ours is an age of specialising4 ,let these newcomers have something--what better than ,english8--to specialise upon4' ,i might respond by asking if the fame of ,cambridge would stand where it stands to-day had she followed a like counsel concerning other studies and1 resting upon ,mathematics1 given over this or that branch of ,natural ,science to be grasped by new hands4 ,what of ,electricity1 for example8 ,or what of ,physiology8 ,yes1 and among the unnatural sciences1 what of ,political ,economy8 ,but ,i will use a more philosophical argument4 ,some years ago ,i happened on a collection of ,bulgarian proverbs of which my memory retains but two1 yet each an abiding joy4 ,in a lecture on ,english ,literature in our ,universities you will certainly not miss to apply the first1 which runs1 ',many an ass has entered ,jerusalem4' ,the application of the second may elude you for a moment4 ,it voices the impatience of an honest ,bulgar who has been worried overmuch to subscribe to what1 in this ,england of ours1 we call ,church ,purposes2 and it runs1 ',all these two-penny saints will be the ruin of the ,church4' ,now far be it from me to apply the term 'two-penny saint' to any existing ,university4 ,to avoid the accusation ,i hereby solemnly declare my deep conviction that every single ,university at this moment in ,england1 ,scotland1 ,wales or ,ireland has reasons--strong in all1 in some overwhelmingly strong--for its existence4 ,that is plainly said1 ,i hope8 ,yet ,i do maintain that if we go on multiplying ,universities we shall not increase the joy2 that the reign of two-penny saints lies not far off and will soon lie within measurable distance2 and that it will be a pestilent reign4 ,as we saw in out last lecture the word ',university'--,universitas--had1 in its origin1 nothing to do with ,universality3 it meant no more than a ,society1 organised 7as it happened7 to promote learning4 ,but words1 like institutions1 often rise above their beginnings1 and in time acquire a proud secondary connotation4 ,for an instance let me give you the beautiful ,wykehamist motto ,manners ,makyeth ,man1 wherein 'manners' originally meant no more than 'morals4' ,so there has grown around our two great ,universities of ,oxford and ,cambridge a connotation 7secondary1 if you will1 but valuable above price7 of universality2 of standing like great beacons of light1 to attract the young wings of all who would seek learning for their sustenance4 ,thousands have singed1 thousands have burned themselves1 no doubt3 but what thousands of thousands have caught the sacred fire into their souls as they passed through and passed out1 to carry it1 to drop it1 still as from wings1 upon waste places of the world6 ,think of country vicarages1 of ,australian or ,himalayan outposts1 where men have nourished out lives of duty upon the fire of three transient1 priceless years4 ,think of the generations of children to whom their fathers' lives1 prosaic enough1 could always be re-illumined if someone let fall the word ',oxford' or ',cambridge1' so that they themselves came to surmise an aura about the name as of a land very far off2 and then say if the ineffable spell of those two words do not lie somewhere in the conflux of generous youth with its rivalries and clash of minds1 ere it disperses1 generation after generation1 to the duller business of life4 ,would you have your mother ,university1 ,gentlemen1 undecorated by some true study of your mother-,english8 ,i think not1 having been there1 and known such thoughts as you will carry away1 and having been against expectation called back to report them4 ,and sometimes ,i remember days of old ,when fellowship seem'd not so far to seek1 ,and all the world and ,i seem'd far less cold1 ,and at the rainbow's foot lay surely gold1 ,and hope was strong1 and life itself not weak4 ,my purpose here 7and ,i cannot too often recur to it7 is to wean your minds from hankering after false ,germanic standards and persuade you1 or at least point out to you1 in what direction that true study lies if you are men enough to take up your inheritance and believe in it as a glory to be improved4 ,neither ,oxford nor ,cambridge nor any ,university on earth can study ,english ,literature truthfully or worthily1 or even at all profitably1 unless by studying it in the category for which ,heaven1 or ,nature 7call the ultimate cause what you will71 intended it2 or1 to put the assertion more concretely1 in any other category than that for which the particular author--be his name ,chaucer or ,chesterton1 ,shakespeare or ,shaw--designed it2 as neither can ,oxford nor ,cambridge nor any ,university study ,english ,literature1 to understand it1 unless by bracing itself to consider a living art4 ,origins1 roots1 all the gropings towards light--let these be granted as accessories2 let those who search in them be granted all honour1 all respect4 ,it is only when they preach or teach these preliminaries1 these accessories1 to be more important than ,literature itself--it is only when they1 owing all their excuse in life to the established daylight1 din upon us that the precedent darkness claims precedence in honour1 that one is driven to utter upon them this dialogue1 in monosyllables3 ,and ,god said1 ',let there be light'3 and there was light4 ',oh1 thank you1 ,sir1' said the ,bat and the ,owl2 'then we are off6' ,i grant you1 ,gentlemen1 that there must always inhere a difficulty in correlating for the purposes of a ,tripos a study of ,literature itself with a study of these accessories2 the thing itself being naturally so much more difficult3 being so difficult indeed that 7to take literary criticism alone and leave for a moment the actual practice of writing out of the question7 though some of the first intellects in the world--,aristotle1 ,longinus1 ,quintilian1 ,boileau1 ,dryden1 ,lessing1 ,goethe1 ,coleridge1 ,sainte-,beuve--have broken into parcels of that territory1 the mass of it remains unexplored1 and nobody as yet has found courage to reduce the reports of these great explorers to any system2 so that a very eminent person indeed found it easy to write to me the other day1 ',the principles of ,criticism8 ,what are they8 ,who made them8' ,to this ,i could only answer that ,i did not know ,who made them2 but that ,aristotle1 ,dryden1 ,lessing1 had1 as it was credibly reported1 discovered five or1 it might be1 six4 ,and this difficulty of appraising literature absolutely inheres in your study of it from the beginning4 ,no one can have set a ,general ,paper on ,literature and examined on it1 setting it and marking the written answers1 alongside of papers about language1 inflexions and the rest1 without having borne in upon him that here the student finds his difficulty4 ,while in a paper set about inflexions1 etc41 a pupil with a moderately retentive memory will easily obtain sixty or seventy per cent4 of the total marks1 in a paper on the book or play considered critically an examiner1 even after setting his paper with a view to some certain inferiority of average1 has to be lenient before he can award fifty1 forty1 or even thirty per cent4 of the total4 ,you will find a somewhat illuminating passage--illuminating1 that is1 if you choose to interpret and apply it to our subject--in ,lucian's ,true ,history1 where the veracious traveller1 who tells the tale1 affirms that he visited ,hades among other places1 and had some conversation with ,homer1 among its many inhabitants-- ,before many days had passed1 ,i accosted the poet ,homer1 when we were both disengaged1 and asked him1 among other things1 where he came from2 it was still a burning question with us1 ,i explained4 ,he said he was aware that some derived him from ,chios1 others from ,smyrna1 and others again from ,colophon2 but in fact he was a ,babylonian1 generally known not as ,homer but as ,tigranes2 but when later in life he was given as a homer or hostage to the ,greeks1 that name clung to him4 ,another of my questions was about the so-called spurious books2 had he written them or not8 ,he said that they were all genuine3 so ,i now knew what to think of the critics ,zenodotus and ,aristarchus and all their lucubrations4 ,having got a categorical answer on that point1 ,i tried him next on his reason for starting the ,iliad with the wrath of ,achilles4 ,he said he had no exquisite reason2 it just came into his head that way4 ,even so diverse are the questions that may be asked concerning any great work of art4 ,but to discover its full intent is always the most difficult task of all4 ,that task1 however1 and nothing less difficult1 will always be the one worthiest of a great ,university4 ,on that1 and on that alone1 ,gentlemen1 do ,i base all claims for our ,school of ,english ,literature4 ,and yet in conclusion ,i will ask you1 reminding yourselves how fortunate is your lot in ,cambridge1 to think of fellow-,englishmen far less fortunate4 ,years ago ,i took some pains to examine the examination papers set by a renowned ,examining ,body and ,i found this--',i humbly solicit' 7to use a phrase of ,lucian's7 'my hearers' incredulity'--that in a paper set upon three ,acts of ,hamlet--three ,acts of ,hamlet6--the first question started with ',g4tt4 p44cha' ',al44g4tor' and invited the candidate to fill in the missing letters correctly4 ,now ,i was morally certain that the words 'gutta-percha' and 'alligator' did not occur in the first three ,acts of ,hamlet2 but having carefully re-read them ,i invited this examining body to explain itself4 ,the answer ,i got was that1 to understand ,shakespeare1 a student must first understand the ,english ,language6 ,some of you on leaving ,cambridge will go out--a company of ,christian folk dispersed throughout the world--to tell ,english children of ,english ,literature4 ,such are the pedagogic fetters you will have to knock off their young minds before they can stand and walk4 ,gentlemen1 on a day early in this term ,i sought the mound which is the old ,castle of ,cambridge4 ,access to it1 as perhaps you know1 lies through the precincts of the ,county ,prison4 ,an iron railing encloses the mound1 having a small gate1 for the key of which a notice-board advised me to ring the prison bell4 ,i rang4 ,a very courteous gaoler answered the bell and opened the gate1 which stands just against his wicket4 ,i thanked him1 but could not forbear asking ',why do they keep this gate closed8' ',i don't know1 sir1' he answered1 'but ,i suppose if they didn't the children might get in and play4' ,so with his answer ,i went up the hill and from the top saw ,cambridge spread at my feet2 ,magdalene below me1 and the bridge which--poor product as it is of the municipal taste--has given its name to so many bridges all over the world2 the river on its long ambit to ,chesterton2 the tower of ,st ,john's1 and beyond it the unpretentious but more beautiful tower of ,jesus ,college4 ,to my right the magnificent chine of ,king's ,college ,chapel made its own horizon above the yellowing elms4 ,i looked down on the streets--the narrow streets--the very streets which1 a fortnight ago1 ,i tried to people for you with that mediaeval throng which has passed as we shall pass4 ,still in my ear the gaoler's answer repeated itself--',i suppose1 if they didn't keep it locked1 the children might get in and play'3 and a broken echo seemed to take it up1 in words that for a while had no more coherence than the scattered jangle of bells in the town below4 ,but as ,i turned to leave1 they chimed into an articulate sentence and the voice was the voice of ,francis ,bacon--,regnum ,scientiae ut regnum ,coeli non nisi sub persona infantis intratur4--,into the ,kingdom of ,knowledge1 as into the ,kingdom of ,heaven1 whoso would enter must become as a little child4 ,footnote #a3 ,cambridge ,history of ,english ,literature1 vol4 iii1 p4 #bac4 ,,lecture ,,xii4 ,,on ,,style ,wednesday1 ,january #bh1 #aiad ,should ,providence1 ,gentlemen1 destine any one of you to write books for his living1 he will find experimentally true what ,i here promise him1 that few pleasures sooner cloy than reading what the reviewers say4 ,this promise ,i hand on with the better confidence since it was endorsed for me once in conversation by that eminently good man the late ,henry ,sidgwick2 who added1 however1 ',perhaps ,i ought to make a single exception4 ,there was a critic who called one of my books epoch-making4 ,being anonymous1 he would have been hard to find and thank1 perhaps2 but ,i ought to have made the effort4' ,may ,i follow up this experience of his with one of my own1 as a preface or brief apology for this lecture8 ,short-lived as is the author's joy in his critics1 far-spent as may be his hope of fame1 mournful his consent with ,sir ,thomas ,browne that 'there is nothing immortal but immortality1' he cannot hide from certain sanguine men of business1 who in ,england call themselves ',press-,cutting ,agencies1' in ,america ',press-,clipping ,bureaux1' and1 as each successive child of his invention comes to birth1 unbecomingly presume in him an almost virginal trepidation4 ',your book1' they write falsely1 'is exciting much comment4 ,may we collect and send you notices of it appearing in the ,world's ,press8 ,we submit a specimen cutting with our terms2 and are1 dear ,sir1' etc4 ,now1 although steadily unresponsive to this wile1 ,i am sometimes guilty of taking the enclosed specimen review and thrusting it for preservation among the scarcely less deciduous leaves of the book it was written to appraise4 ,so it happened that having this vacation1 to dust--not to read--a line of obsolete or obsolescent works on a shelf1 ,i happened on a review signed by no smaller a man than ,mr ,gilbert ,chesterton and informing the world that the author of my obsolete book was full of good stories as a kindly uncle1 but had a careless or impatient way of stopping short and leaving his readers to guess what they most wanted to know3 that1 reaching the last chapter1 or what he chose to make the last chapter1 instead of winding up and telling 'how everybody lived ever after1' he 7so to speak7 slid you off his avuncular knee with a blessing and the remark that nine o'clock was striking and all good children should be in their beds4 ,that criticism has haunted me during the vacation4 ,looking back on a course of lectures which ,i deemed to be accomplished2 correcting them in print2 revising them with all the nervousness of a beginner2 ,i have seemed to hear you complain--',he has exhorted us to write accurately1 appropriately2 to eschew ,jargon2 to be bold and essay ,verse4 ,he has insisted that ,literature is a living art1 to be practised4 ,but just what we most needed he has not told4 ,at the final doorway to the secret he turned his back and left us4 ,accuracy1 propriety1 perspicuity--these we may achieve4 ,but where has he helped us to write with beauty1 with charm1 with distinction8 ,where has he given us rules for what is called ,style in short8--having attained which an author may count himself set up in business4' ,thus1 ,gentlemen1 with my mind's ear ,i heard you reproaching me4 ,i beg you to accept what follows for my apology4 ,to begin with1 let me plead that you have been told of one or two things which ,style is not2 which have little or nothing to do with ,style1 though sometimes vulgarly mistaken for it4 ,style1 for example1 is not--can never be--extraneous ,ornament4 ,you remember1 may be1 the ,persian lover whom ,i quoted to you out of ,newman3 how to convey his passion he sought a professional letter-writer and purchased a vocabulary charged with ornament1 wherewith to attract the fair one as with a basket of jewels4 ,well1 in this extraneous1 professional1 purchased ornamentation1 you have something which ,style is not3 and if you here require a practical rule of me1 ,i will present you with this3 ',whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing1 obey it --whole-heartedly--and delete it before sending your manuscript to press4 ,murder your darlings4' ,but let me plead further that you have not been left altogether without clue to the secret of what ,style is4 ,that you must master the secret for yourselves lay implicit in our bargain1 and you were never promised that a writer's training would be easy4 ,yet a clue was certainly put in your hands when1 having insisted that ,literature is a living art1 ,i added that therefore it must be personal and of its essence personal4 ,this goes very deep3 it conditions all our criticism of art4 ,yet it conceals no mystery4 ,you may see its meaning most easily and clearly1 perhaps1 by contrasting ,science and ,art at their two extremes--say ,pure ,mathematics with ,acting4 ,science as a rule deals with things1 ,art with man's thought and emotion about things4 ,in ,pure ,mathematics things are rarefied into ideas1 numbers1 concepts1 but still farther and farther away from the individual man4 ,two and two make four1 and fourpence is not ninepence 7or at any rate four is not nine7 whether ,alcibiades or ,cleon keep the tally4 ,in ,acting on the other hand almost everything depends on personal interpretation--on the gesture1 the walk1 the gaze1 the tone of a ,siddons1 the ruse smile of a ,coquelin1 the exquisite1 vibrant intonation of a ,bernhardt4 ',english ,art8' exclaimed ,whistler1 'there is no such thing6 ,art is art and mathematics is mathematics4' ,whistler erred4 ,precisely because ,art is ,art1 and ,mathematics is ,mathematics and a ,science1 ,art being ,art can be ,english or ,french2 and1 more than this1 must be the personal expression of an ,englishman or a ,frenchman1 as a ',constable' differs from a ',corot' and a ',whistler' from both4 ,surely ,i need not labour this4 ,but what is true of the extremes of ,art and ,science is true also1 though sometimes less recognisably true1 of the mean3 and where they meet and seem to conflict 7as in ,history7 the impact is that of the personal or individual mind upon universal truth1 and the question becomes whether what happened in the ,sicilian ,expedition1 or at the trial of ,charles ,i1 can be set forth naked as an alegebraical sum1 serene in its certainty1 indifferent to opinion1 uncoloured in the telling as in the hearing by sympathy or dislike1 by passion or by character4 ,i doubt1 while we should strive in history as in all things to be fair1 if history can be written in that colourless way1 to interest men in human doings4 ,i am sure that nothing which lies further towards imaginative1 creative1 ,art can be written in that way4 ,it follows then that ,literature1 being by its nature personal1 must be by its nature almost infinitely various4 ',two persons cannot be the authors of the sounds which strike our ear2 and as they cannot be speaking one and the same speech1 neither can they be writing one and the same lecture or discourse4' ,quot homines tot sententiae4 ,you may translate that1 if you will1 ',every man of us constructs his sentence differently'2 and if there be indeed any quarrel between ,literature and ,science 7as ,i never can see why there should be71 ,i for one will readily grant ,science all her cold superiority1 her ease in ,sion with universal facts1 so it be mine to serve among the multifarious race who have to adjust1 as best they may1 ,science's cold conclusions 7and much else7 to the brotherly give-and-take of human life4 ,quicquid agunt homines1 votum1 timor1 ira1 voluptas444 ,is it possible1 ,gentlemen1 that you can have read one1 two1 three or more of the acknowledged masterpieces of literature without having it borne in on you that they are great because they are alive1 and traffic not with cold celestial certainties1 but with men's hopes1 aspirations1 doubts1 loves1 hates1 breakings of the heart2 the glory and vanity of human endeavour1 the transience of beauty1 the capricious uncertain lease on which you and ,i hold life1 the dark coast to which we inevitably steer2 all that amuses or vexes1 all that gladdens1 saddens1 maddens us men and women on this brief and mutable traject which yet must be home for a while1 the anchorage of our hearts8 ,for an instance3-- ,here lies a most beautiful lady1 ,light of step and heart was she3 ,i think she was the most beautiful lady ,that ever was in the ,west ,country4 ,but beauty vanishes1 beauty passes1 ,however rare1 rare it be2 ,and when ,i crumble who shall remember ,that lady of the ,west ,country8 7,walter de la ,mare47 ,or take a critic--a literary critic--such as ,samuel ,johnson1 of whom we are used to think as of a man artificial in phrase and pedantic in judgment4 ,he lives1 and why8 ,because1 if you test his criticism1 he never saw literature but as a part of life1 nor would allow in literature what was false to life1 as he saw it4 ,he could be wrong-headed1 perverse2 could damn ,milton because he hated ,milton's politics2 on any question of passion or prejudice could make injustice his daily food4 ,but he could not1 even in a friend's epitaph1 let pass a phrase 7however well turned7 which struck him as empty of life or false to it4 ,all ,boswell testifies to this3 and this is why ,samuel ,johnson survives4 ,now let me carry this contention--that all ,literature is personal and therefore various--into a field much exploited by the pedant1 and fenced about with many notice-boards and public warnings4 ',neologisms not allowed here1' ',all persons using slang1 or trespassing in pursuit of originality4444' ,well1 ,i answer these notice-boards by saying that1 literature being personal1 and men various--and even the ,oxford ,english ,dictionary being no ,canonical book--man's use or defiance of the dictionary depends for its justification on nothing but his success3 adding that1 since it takes all kinds to make a world1 or a literature1 his success will probably depend on the occasion4 ,a few months ago ,i found myself seated at a bump-supper next to a cheerful youth who1 towards the close1 suggested thoughtfully1 as ,i arose to make a speech1 that1 the bonfire 7which of course he called the 'bonner'7 being due at nine-thirty o'clock1 there was little more than bare time left for 'langers and godders4' ,it cost me1 who think slowly1 some seconds to interpret that by 'langers' he meant ',auld ,lang ,syne' and by 'godders' ',god ,save the ,king4' ,i thought at the time1 and still think1 and will maintain against any schoolmaster1 that the neologisms of my young neighbour1 though not to be recommended for essays or sermons1 did admirably suit the time1 place1 and occasion4 ,seeing that in human discourse1 infinitely varied as it is1 so much must ever depend on who speaks1 and to whom1 in what mood and upon what occasion2 and seeing that ,literature must needs take account of all manner of writers1 audiences1 moods1 occasions2 ,i hold it a sin against the light to put up a warning against any word that comes to us in the fair way of use and wont 7as 'wire1' for instance1 for a telegram71 even as surely as we should warn off hybrids or deliberately pedantic impostors1 such as 'antibody' and 'picture-drome'2 and that1 generally1 it is better to err on the side of liberty than on the side of the censor3 since by the manumitting of new words we infuse new blood into a tongue of which 7or we have learnt nothing from ,shakespeare's audacity7 our first pride should be that it is flexible1 alive1 capable of responding to new demands of man's untiring quest after knowledge and experience4 ,not because it was an ugly thing did ,i denounce ,jargon to you1 the other day3 but because it was a dead thing1 leading no-whither1 meaning naught4 ,there is wickedness in human speech1 sometimes4 ,you will detect it all the better for having ruled out what is naughty4 ,let us err1 then1 if we err1 on the side of liberty4 ,i came1 the other day1 upon this passage in ,mr ,frank ,harris's study of ',the ,man ,shakespeare'3-- ,in the last hundred years the language of ,moliere has grown fourfold2 the slang of the studios and the gutter and the laboratory1 of the engineering school and the dissecting table1 has been ransacked for special terms to enrich and strengthen the language in order that it may deal easily with the new thoughts4 ,french is now a superb instrument1 while ,english is positively poorer than it was in the time of ,shakespeare1 thanks to the prudery of our illiterate middle class4#a ,well1 let us not lose our heads over this1 any more than over other prophecies of our national decadence4 ,the ,oxford ,english ,dictionary has not yet unfolded the last of its coils1 which yet are ample enough to enfold us in seven words for every three an active man can grapple with4 ,yet the warning has point1 and a particular point1 for those who aspire to write poetry3 as ,francis ,thompson has noted in his ,essay on ,shelley3-- ,theoretically1 of course1 one ought always to try for the best word4 ,but practically1 the habit of excessive care in word-selection frequently results in loss of spontaneity2 and1 still worse1 the habit of always taking the best word too easily becomes the habit of always taking the most ornate word1 the word most removed from ordinary speech4 ,in consequence of this1 poetic diction has become latterly a kaleidoscope1 and one's chief curiosity is as to the precise combinations into which the pieces will be shifted4 ,there is1 in fact1 a certain band of words1 the ,praetorian cohorts of ,poetry1 whose prescriptive aid is invoked by every aspirant to the poetic purple4444 ,against these it is time some banner should be raised4444 ,it is at any rate curious to note that the literary revolution against the despotic diction of ,pope seems issuing1 like political revolutions1 in a despotism of his own making2 and he adds a note that this is the more surprising to him because so many ,victorian poets were prose-writers as well4 ,now1 according to our theory1 the practice of prose should maintain fresh and comprehensive a poet's diction1 should save him from falling into the hands of an exclusive coterie of poetic words4 ,it should react upon his metrical vocabulary to its beneficial expansion1 by taking him outside his aristocratic circle of language1 and keeping him in touch with the great commonalty1 the proletariat of speech4 ,for it is with words as with men3 constant intermarriage within the limits of a patrician clan begets effete refinement2 and to reinvigorate the stock1 its veins must be replenished from hardy plebeian blood4 ,in diction1 then1 let us acquire all the store we can1 rejecting no coin for its minting but only if its metal be base4 ,so shall we bring out of our treasuries new things and old4 ,diction1 however1 is but a part of ,style1 and perhaps not the most important part4 ,so ,i revert to the larger question1 ',what is ,style8 ,what its ,greek3 to ti en einai1 its essence1 the law of its being8' ,now1 as ,i sat down to write this lecture1 memory evoked a scene and with the scene a chance word of boyish slang1 both of which may seem to you irrelevant until1 or unless1 ,i can make you feel how they hold for me the heart of the matter4 ,i once happened to be standing in a corner of a ball-room when there entered the most beautiful girl these eyes have ever seen or now--since they grow dull--ever will see4 ,it was1 ,i believe1 her first ball1 and by some freak or in some premonition she wore black3 and not pearls--which1 ,i am told1 maidens are wont to wear on these occasions--but one crescent of diamonds in her black hair4 ,et vera incessu patuit dea4 ,here1 ,i say1 was absolute beauty4 ,it startled4 ,i think she was the most beautiful lady ,that ever was in the ,west ,country4 ,but beauty vanishes1 beauty passes4444 ,she died a year or two later4 ,she may have been too beautiful to live long4 ,i have a thought that she may also have been too good4 ,for ,i saw her with the crowd about her3 ,i saw led up and presented among others the man who was to be1 for a few months1 her husband3 and then1 as the men bowed1 pencilling on their programmes1 over their shoulders ,i saw her eyes travel to an awkward young naval cadet 7,do you remember ,crossjay in ,meredith's ,the ,egoist8 ,it was just such a boy7 who sat abashed and glowering sulkily beside me on the far bench4 ,promptly with a laugh1 she advanced1 claimed him1 and swept him off into the first waltz4 ,when it was over he came back1 a trifle flushed1 and ,i felicitated him2 my remark 7which ,i forget7 being no doubt 'just the sort of banality1 you know1 one does come out with'--as maybe that the ,british ,navy kept its old knack of cutting out4 ,but he looked at me almost in tears and blurted1 ',it isn't her beauty1 sir4 ,you saw8 ,it's--it's--my ,god1 it's the style6' ,now you may think that a somewhat cheap1 or at any rate inadequate1 cry of the heart in my young seaman2 as you may think it inadequate in me1 and moreover a trifle capricious1 to assure you 7as ,i do7 that the first and last secret of a good ,style consists in thinking with the heart as well as with the head4 ,but let us philosophise a little4 ,you have been told1 ,i daresay often enough1 that the business of writing demands two--the author and the reader4 ,add to this what is equally obvious1 that the obligation of courtesy rests first with the author1 who invites the seance1 and commonly charges for it4 ,what follows1 but that in speaking or writing we have an obligation to put ourselves into the hearer's or reader's place8 ,it is his comfort1 his convenience1 we have to consult4 ,to express ourselves is a very small part of the business3 very small and almost unimportant as compared with impressing ourselves3 the aim of the whole process being to persuade4 ,all reading demands an effort4 ,the energy1 the good-will which a reader brings to the book is1 and must be1 partly expended in the labour of reading1 marking1 learning1 inwardly digesting what the author means4 ,the more difficulties1 then1 we authors obtrude on him by obscure or careless writing1 the more we blunt the edge of his attention3 so that if only in our own interest--though ,i had rather keep it on the ground of courtesy--we should study to anticipate his comfort4 ,but let me go a little deeper4 ,you all know that a great part of ,lessing's argument in his ,laokoeon1 on the essentials of ,literature as opposed to ,pictorial ,art or ,sculpture1 depends on this--that in ,pictorial ,art or in ,sculpture the eye sees1 the mind apprehends1 the whole in a moment of time1 with the correspondent disadvantage that this moment of time is fixed and stationary2 whereas in writing1 whether in prose or in verse1 we can only produce our effect by a series of successive small impressions1 dripping our meaning 7so to speak7 into the reader's mind--with the correspondent advantage1 in point of vivacity1 that our picture keeps moving all the while4 ,now obviously this throws a greater strain on his patience whom we address4 ,man at the best is a narrow-mouthed bottle4 ,through the conduit of speech he can utter--as you1 my hearers1 can receive--only one word at a time4 ,in writing 7as my old friend ,professor ,minto used to say7 you are as a commander filing out his battalion through a narrow gate that allows only one man at a time to pass2 and your reader1 as he receives the troops1 has to re-form and reconstruct them4 ,no matter how large or how involved the subject1 it can be communicated only in that way4 ,you see1 then1 what an obligation we owe to him of order and arrangement2 and why1 apart from felicities and curiosities of diction1 the old rhetoricians laid such stress upon order and arrangement as duties we owe to those who honour us with their attention4 ',la clarte1' says a ,french writer1 'est la politesse4' ,greek3 ,charisi kai sapheneia thue1 recommends ,lucian4 ,pay your sacrifice to the ,graces1 and to ,greek3 sapheneia--,clarity--first among the ,graces4 ,what am ,i urging8 ',that ,style in writing is much the same thing as good manners in other human intercourse8' ,well1 and why not8 ,at all events we have reached a point where ,buffon's often-quoted saying that ',style is the man himself' touches and coincides with ,william of ,wykeham's old motto that ',manners makyth ,man'3 and before you condemn my doctrine as inadequate listen to this from ,coventry ,patmore1 still bearing in mind that a writer's main object is to impress his thought or vision upon his hearer4 ',there is nothing comparable for moral force to the charm of truly noble manners4444' ,i grant you1 to be sure1 that the claim to possess a ,style must be conceded to many writers--,carlyle is one--who take no care to put listeners at their ease1 but rely rather on native force of genius to shock and astound4 ,nor will ,i grudge them your admiration4 ,but ,i do say that1 as more and more you grow to value truth and the modest grace of truth1 it is less and less to such writers that you will turn3 and ,i say even more confidently that the qualities of ,style we allow them are not the qualities we should seek as a norm1 for they one and all offend against ,art's true maxim of avoiding excess4 ,and this brings me to the two great paradoxes of ,style4 ,for the first 7#a71--;although ,style is so curiously personal and individual1 and although men are so variously built that no two in the world carry away the same impressions from a show1 there is always a norm somewhere2 in literature and art1 as in morality4 ,yes1 even in man's most terrific1 most potent inventions--when1 for example1 in ,hamlet or in ,lear ,shakespeare seems to be breaking up the solid earth under our feet--there is always some point and standard of sanity--a ,kent or an ,horatio--to which all enormities and passionate errors may be referred2 to which the agitated mind of the spectator settles back as upon its centre of gravity1 its pivot of repose4 7#b7 ,the second paradox1 though it is equally true1 you may find a little subtler4 ,yet it but applies to ,art the simple truth of the ,gospel1 that he who would save his soul must first lose it4 ,though personality pervades ,style and cannot be escaped1 the first sin against ,style as against good ,manners is to obtrude or exploit personality4 ,the very greatest work in ,literature--the ,iliad1 the ,odyssey1 the ,purgatorio1 ,the ,tempest1 ,paradise ,lost1 the ,republic1 ,don ,quixote--is all ,seraphically free ,from taint of personality4 ,and ,flaubert1 that gladiator among artists1 held that1 at its highest1 literary art could be carried into pure science4 ',i believe1' said he1 'that great art is scientific and impersonal4 ,you should by an intellectual effort transport yourself into characters1 not draw them into yourself4 ,that at least is the method4' ,on the other hand1 says ,goethe1 ',we should endeavour to use words that correspond as closely as possible with what we feel1 see1 think1 imagine1 experience1 and reason4 ,it is an endeavour we cannot evade and must daily renew4' ,i call ,flaubert's the better counsel1 even though ,i have spent a part of this lecture in attempting to prove it impossible4 ,it at least is noble1 encouraging us to what is difficult4 ,the shrewder ,goethe encourages us to exploit ourselves to the top of our bent4 ,i think ,flaubert would have hit the mark if for 'impersonal' he had substituted 'disinterested4' ,for--believe me1 ,gentlemen--so far as ,handel stands above ,chopin1 as ,velasquez above ,greuze1 even so far stand the great masculine objective writers above all who appeal to you by parade of personality or private sentiment4 ,mention of these great masculine 'objective' writers brings me to my last word3 which is1 ',steep yourselves in them3 habitually bring all to the test of them3 for while you cannot escape the fate of all style1 which is to be personal1 the more of catholic manhood you inherit from those great loins the more you will assuredly beget4' ,this then is ,style4 ,as technically manifested in ,literature it is the power to touch with ease1 grace1 precision1 any note in the gamut of human thought or emotion4 ,but essentially it resembles good manners4 ,it comes of endeavouring to understand others1 of thinking for them rather than for yourself--of thinking1 that is1 with the heart as well as the head4 ,it gives rather than receives2 it is nobly careless of thanks or applause1 not being fed by these but rather sustained and continually refreshed by an inward loyalty to the best4 ,yet1 like 'character' it has its altar within2 to that retires for counsel1 from that fetches its illumination1 to ray outwards4 ,cultivate1 ,gentlemen1 that habit of withdrawing to be advised by the best4 ,so1 says ,fenelon1 'you will find yourself infinitely quieter1 your words will be fewer and more effectual2 and while you make less ado1 what you do will be more profitable4' ,footnote #a3 ',an oration1' says ,quintilian1 'may find room for almost any word saving a few indecent ones 7quae sunt parum verecunda74' ,he adds that writers of the ,old ,comedy were often commended even for these3 'but it is enough for us to mind our present business--sed nobis nostrum opus intueri sat est4' ,,index ,abelard #bjc1 #bje1 #bab ,abercrombie1 ,lascelles #ah ,addison1 ,joseph #abd1 #agb ,alcuin #aii1 #bjj1 #bjd1 #bje ,alfred1 ,king #ahf ,aristophanes #aib ,aristotle #abh1 #bjc1 #bbg ,arnold1 ,matthew #ce1 #gf1 #aci1 #ahf1 #bjb ,arte of ,rhetorique1 ,wilson's #aah ,ascham1 ,roger #aba1 #ahh ,augustine #aii ,bacon1 ,lord #f1 #g1 #aj1 #bbj1 #bca ,bagehot1 ,walter #baf ,ballata #de ,barbour1 ,john #aab ,barrie1 ,sir ,james ,matthew #ag1 #ace ,bede #bjd ,beerbohm1 ,max #bbb ,belisarius #age ,bentham1 ,jeremy #ig ,beowulf #aei-afe ,beranger1 ,pierre-,jean de #de ,berners1 ,lord #ajh-aaj1abj ,bible1 ,the3 ,authorised ,version #ec1 #ig1 #aaj1 #abb et seq41 #ada1 #adc1 #aij ,revised ,version #aca-acc ,blair1 ,wilfred #hj ,blake1 ,william #ab ,boccaccio #ahd ,boethius #bjc ,bologna1 ,university of #bjj-a1 #bjf ,borneil1 ,giraud de #aha ,boswell1 ,james #bch ,bridges1 ,robert #ai ,brooke1 the ,rev4 ,stopford ,a4 #aei ,brougham1 ,ld #dg1 #aja ,browne1 ,sir ,thomas #aj1 #ea1 #abd1 #afh1 #bcb ,browning1 ,robert #ci1 #ahf ,buffon #bde ,bunyan1 ,john #abd ,burke1 ,edmund #bg1 #bh1 #df1 #dg-eb1 #aja ,burns1 ,robert #de ,butler1 ,arthur ,john #bj ,caedmon #afc ,cambridge #bja et seqq4 ,campion1 ,thomas #ahe1 #ahh ,carducci1 ,giosue #aed-e ,carlyle1 ,thomas #ah1 #ajc1 #bde ,cellini1 ,benvenuto #da ,cervantes #g1 #be ,chadwick1 ,professor ,h4 ,m4 #afc ,chair of ,english ,literature1 ,university ,ordinance #g ,chambers1 ,e4 ,k4 #aii ,champeaux1 ,william of #bje ,chaucer1 ,geoffrey #aj1 #aaj-aaa1 #afc1 #ahc1 #ahd1 #bai ,chesterton1 ,gilbert ,k4 #bcc ,chichester1 ,richard of #baa ,cicero #bh1 #di ,clare1 ,john #ci ,coleridge1 ,samuel ,taylor #da1 #fd1 #fe ,conington1 ,john #aga-b ,courthope1 ,w4 ,j4 #ac1 #aeh1 #ahd1 #aii ,coverdale1 ,miles #abd ,cowley1 ,abraham #ahe ,cowper1 ,william #ahf ,crewe1 ,ld ,chief ,justice #g ,cynewulf #afc ,daniel1 ,samuel #ahe1 #ahh ,dante #gg1 #ahd ,darwin1 ,charles #bba ,defoe1 ,daniel #fa1 #ge4 ,dekker1 ,thomas #fe ,de ,la ,mare1 ,walter #bcg ,de ,quincey1 ,thomas #ed ,desiderius1 ,archbishop #aii ,dionysius of ,halicarnassus #bh ,donne1 ,john #ajb1 #ajf1 #ahe ,dryden1 ,john #agb1 #ahf1 #bbg ,duchess of ,malfy1 ,webster's #ii ,dunbar #aj ',eliot1 ,george' #aa ,emerson1 ,ralph ,waldo #aa ,falconer1 ,william #gi ,falkner1 ,j4 ,meade #afh-i ,fenelon #bdh ,fitz,gerald1 ,edward #ig ,flaubert1 ,gustave #bdg ,fletcher1 ,john #ac ,fowler1 ,w4 ,h4 and ,f4 ,g4 #ij1 #acg ,freeman1 ,professor ,e4 ,a4 #aeh1 #afj1 #agd-agi1 #ahf ,froissart1 ,berners' #ajh ,froude1 ,james ,anthony #gh ,fuller1 ,thomas #bjf ,gibbon1 ,edward #abd1 #baf ,gildas #age ,goethe #ajc1 #bdg ,gray1 ,thomas #aa1 #af1 #acf1 #aeg-h1 #afb ,green1 ,j4 ,r4 #aeh ,green1 ,t4 ,h4 #h ,gregory the ,great1 ,pope #aii ,grierson1 ,professor ,h4 ,j4 ,c4 #ahe ,hamilton1 ,sir ,william #bac ,hardy1 ,thomas #ah ,harris1 ,frank #bdj ,harvey1 ,gabriel #ahe1 #baf-g ,heine1 ,heinrich #de ,herbert1 ,george #acc ,hero and ,leander1 ,marlowe's #ih ,herodotus #dd1 #fc ,homer #be1 #fd1 #fi1 #gf-gh1 #hj1 #ha1 #afa1 #aij1 #bbh ,horace #aga-b ,housman1 ,professor ,a4 ,e4 #bbb ,ibsen #if ,irnerius #bjf ,isaiah #acj-acc ,jackson1 ,dr ,henry #bac ,johnson1 ,samuel #aa1 #cg1 #fi1 #aba1 #agb1 #bch ,jonson1 ,ben #abi1 #adf1 #ahe1 #bai1 #bbj ,jowett1 ,benjamin #bi ,jusserand1 ,j4 ,j4 #ahb ,juvenal1 #agb ,keats1 ,john #af1 #ci1 #ahf ,kempis1 ,thomas a #ae ,ker1 ,professor ,w4 ,p4 #afj1 #aii ,kipling1 ,rudyard #fa ,lamb1 ,charles #da ,lessing #ha1 #bbg1 #bdd ,lindsay1 the ,rev4 ,t4 ,m41 ,d4,d4 #aah ,lloyd ,george1 the ,right ,hon4 ,david #acg-h ,lucian #f1 #afj1 #aib1 #bbh1 #bde ,lucretius #aic ,malory1 ,sir ,thomas #ajg-aaj1 #abj ,marlowe1 ,christopher #ih-i1 #ahe1 #bbj ,marvell1 ,andrew #ahe ,mason1 ,william #aeg ,masson1 ,david #ab ,mc,kenna1 the ,right ,hon4 ,reginald #acg-h ,meredith1 ,george #bdc1 #bdg ,milton1 ,john #a1 #aj1 #af1 #dc1 #ef-fb1 #gd-gf1 #abd1 #aeb1 #ahe1 #aie1 #bch ,minto1 ,professor ,william #bde ,moore1 ,thomas #de ,morris1 ,william #ahh ,mullinger1 ,j4 ,bass #bje1 #bai ,murray1 ,professor ,gilbert #aic ,nashe1 ,thomas #abj ,newman1 ,cardinal #e1 #cj1 #ca-b1 #aae1 #acd1 #add1 #adg1 #bcd ,newton1 ,sir ,isaac #bba ,noyes1 ,alfred #gh ,nut-,brown ,maid1 ,the #aaa ,oates1 ,captain #db ,origen #aie1 #bjb ,oxford #bja et seq4 ,paris1 ,university of #bjj1 #bje ,pater1 ,walter #gg1 #bbb ,patmore1 ,coventry #bde ,payne1 ,e4 ,j4 #ajj-ajc ,pervigilium ,veneris #aea1 #aid ,pheidias #ad ,philosophy and ,poetry #a ,piers ,plowman #afc1 #ahb ,pilgrimage to ,parnassus1 ,the #bag-bbj ,plato #a-d1 #aej1 #bje ,pliny #aeb-c ,podsnap 7see ,freeman7 ,poggio #bje ,pope1 ,alexander #aeg1 #afb ,powell1 ,f4 ,york #aei ,provencal ,song #aha-ahc ,pythagoras #bjh ,quintilian #bi1 #adj1 #bdj ,raleigh1 ,professor ,sir ,walter #i ,rashdall1 ,hastings #bjh-bac ,remigius #bjf ,renan #a ,reynolds1 ,sir ,joshua #bc-be ,sainte-,beuve1 ,charles ,augustus #bj ,saintsbury1 ,prof4 ,george #ee1 #ef1 #ahg ,salamanca1 ,university of #bjj ,scott1 ,the ,antarctic ,expedition #db ,severus1 ,sulpicius #aii ,shakespeare1 ,william #ae1 #da1 #ej1 #ea-b1 #ig-ajj1 #aac1 #abi1 #ahe1 #aij1 #aig1 #bai1 #bbi1 #bdf ,shaw1 ,george ,bernard #gb ,shelley #dj ,shirley1 ,james #ajf ,sidgwick1 ,henry #bcb ,sidney1 ,sir ,philip #da-b ,skeat1 ,walter ,w4 #ab ,sonata #de ,south1 ,robert #ajb ,spenser1 ,edmund #ahe1 #bjf1 #bag1 #bai ,stevenson1 ,robert ,louis #acc ,stubbs1 ,bishop ,w4 #dd ',student's ,handbook1 ,the' #gb-c ,swift1 ,jonathan #fa ,swinburne1 ,algernon #aif ,taylor1 ,jeremy #fh-i ,tennyson1 ,lord #ge1 #ahf ,tertullian #aie1 #aih1 #bjb ,thackeray1 ,william ,makepeace #abd ,thompson1 ,francis #bda ,thomson1 ,james #ci ,toulouse1 ,university of #bjh ,tyndale1 ,william #abb1 #abf1 #abg ,vacarius #bjf ,ventadour1 ,bernard de #aha ,venus and ,adonis #ih-i ,verrall1 ,dr ,a4 ,w4 #g ,vigfusson1 ,gudbrand #aei ,virgil #be1 #hj1 #aid1 #bjj ,voltaire #aib ,waller1 ,edmund #he ,walpole1 ,horatio #agc ,walton1 ,isaak #gj-a1 #abd1 #bja ,warton1 ,thomas #aeh ,watson1 ,e4 ,j4 #aee ,watson1 ,william #af 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