MR LANG ON RECENT ENG- LISH LITERETURE.

Press, Volume XLVII, Issue 7700, 4 November 1890, Page 3

MR LANG ON RECENT ENGLISH LITERETURE.

A.M.T. in the Argus.

It may fee as well to go a little Int® detail, with a view of showing thai o«f? age has not been as barren Iα work* of literary genius or high talent as our crltfe -, would aave ua believe. To begin wim history, Mr Lang tells as that " there Is a great deal of the Industry of the, specialist, study of manuscripts and records, articles in the 'Historical. Review,' but, except Canon Creighton's 'History of the Popes,' Mr Gardiner , * book, and Mr Leekys unfinished work, there Iβ little bae essays and mcraogcaph*, and brief biographies at a shilling, to show for the labor. We are getting together materials, rather than bufldlnjg euch edifices as MacAulay, Mr VtoadL ■*nd Mr Freeman hare created* We shall aay nothing of the fact that perhaps iUtt most valuable portion of M? Freemaira work, certainly a good half of it. fall* within our period, and that it; Is during the last 20 years that his influence aa c teacher of history has become Nor need we refer to Mr Froudwe " English in Ireland." or to the latter portion of Mr Klngiake's history, aa all these writers are exeludga by Mr Lang on the principles «c has laid down is forming his estimate. But what about Bishop Stubbs, whoae " Constitutional Hlitory of (1874 to 1878) Is admittedly one of th#. most valuable historical works of our time f And what of the late John Richard Green, whose genius for this branch 01 literature Mr Lane will scarcely deny, and whose "Short History of the EogUw People," which appeared in 1874, eehleYle a popularity almosc equal to that ox Macaulay, while this and his subsequent books, too few in number, show that 4 great literary artist as well as historical student was lost to the world by his early death. Among books, too, which, though ■ not properly speaking historical, are yet inspired by the true spirit of historical research, some mention should be ma<&4 of that monuraeotal work," The American Commonwealth,"publishedlast yea? byDJf. Bryce, whose masterly little book, •'TJi# Holy Roman Empire," appeared ov«8 twenty-five years ago. Stranger stOl is Mr Lang's omission to meo> tion Mr Jotm Addlngton Syraonda, whose "Renaissance in Italy" Iβ tat production not only of an admirable critic and historian, but also of a brUlla»l and original writer. Mr Thomas Hodakiit, theauthor of an excellent history of 6%ft inrasionsof Italy in the fifth centary.andM* J. B. Bury, who published only the other day an elaborate history of the l&tefi Roman Empire, ate worthily carrying «to the succession of historical writers of whom our country and age has such good reason to be proud. , , In treating of poetry and fiction, Mr Lang is on more familiar ground, turn writes with a firmer grasp of the subject, though a few errors and omissions may be pointed oat here too. As already men* tioned, Mr Swinburne and Mr WUHaflal Morris may be fairly claimed as belonging to the last 20 years, and still more is tfcui the case with the late Mr Roesettt, whoa? first and memorable volume of poems was Eublished in 1370. Among the novelist* [r Lang mentions Mr Meredith, M* Norris, Mr Black, Mr Stevenson, and a few; lesser lights, but says nothing about Mβ Thomas Hardy, Mr Blackmore, Mr Christie Murray, Miss Thackeray, and the author of "Vice Versa" (Mr James and Mc Howells are perhaps excluded a« beinjt.. Americans), although their works ehouloL certainly be taken into account in estimate* ing the fictional literature of thelssfc 29 years. Nor should we have expected the absence of all reference to the late Rlehara Jefferles, whose exquisite deacrlptldua of rural life have never been excelled ; Miff. Grant Allen, not as the writer of strange stories and sensation novels, but as euthos of "The Evolutionist at Large** " Vignettes from Nature," and other da* lightful essays full of original thought and literary power; and MrlPhlUp Gilbert Hamerton, admirable as ft critic both, mi art and of life. Broadly speaking, it may be said that though the last twenty years has produced no novelist equal to Dickens, Thackeray, or George Eliot, it can boast o£ ft greet®* number of really meritorious writers of action than any former age. The novel* reader has had such a surfeit of Isteyeaui that he is apt to underrate books fcfeat &r© poured out In such profusion. Mr L&log admits that it is too much %& ©spaot a great poet every twenty years, and fcffli same may be said of a great novelist* Th© fact is that twenty years Is rathe? tm short a time in which to estimate &&a literary tendencies of an age. Thirty yease is better, end in the period and®? noU&t the additional t®n years brings out &U the more strongly the characteristics of wnii is really a great literary era, ©ne o| the most distinctive and remarkable is oa» history. Just cast a glance over the year* that lie between 1860 and 1880, and -«ci. what a gap there would be in Che intellectual equipment of all of us if I* were possible to obliterate from our ssslndi the influences we have received from the authors of that period* Iβ history there is a brilliant array of names—Froude, Freeman, Kinglakaj Lecky, Stubbs, Green, Bryce. Gardiaee—'., writers who have revolutionised our way of looking at the past and added some itjt&f mortal pages tto English literature. I& fiction we have George Eliot, G-eorg* Meredith, Mrs Gaskeli, Mrs OHjphaai, Anthony Trollope, Charles Beade, Gsorae Macdonald, Miss Thackeray, Black, Black* more, Hardy, Besant, Marion Crawford, Robert Louie Stevenson, Christie Murray, and Anstey, to mention only the leading names. In poetry there la perhaps not as much to boast of, the really importatsfe names, omitting the veterans fennyeoE and Browniner, oeing only four drftve** Matthew jArnbld, Swinburne, WllUaia Morris, and the Rossettls. In litera*? history and criticism, the list is at»y* thing but insignificant. Including m> Mf does the names of Matthew Areola,. Symonds, Falgrave, Hamerton, LeaHe Stephen, Saintsbury, oosse. Hufcfcog, Austin Dobson, and Mr Lang himself. P must be confessed, however, thai the age is greater in the more solid and weighty than in the lighter departments of li&er&i ture, and it is by its contributions in this direction chiefly that it will be valued by future generations. Darwin and Herbert Spencer, Tyndall and Huxley, WalJacej, Maine, Tylor, Lewes, Luboock, Mass Muller, and Walter Bagehot— a trwt literary artist i£ ever there were on#-? these, with the historians already enumerated, are the great Barnes of out generation. They represent a philosophies! movement that has changed the entire current of opinion on the most importaaf questions that can engage the imtaaft mind, and" cannot be omitted in any account of the literary activity of the The movement has had a direct infiueacS upon every branch of literature, end thf writers themselves, or some of them, have shown in the espositios ©I their doctrines literary ability of a ?®ff: high order. While fully admitting t&fl justness of some of Mr Liang's etrlctaree —and they refer chiefly to the lighter atip more ephemeral features of the of the day—it is a serious mistake to sajK pose that ours has been a barren or pattf age &3 regards its literary achleveiaeßts. There Is, indeed, as Mr Lang saye, » grep deal in the way of mere essays and jaapiiß» graphs, shilling biographies, and ehiliissg shockers, but beneath all these £empora|y manifestations of the POP^ ft deep current of our literature bM;»«M steadily on. Nor can it be said that in mx. beat writers there are as yet aay of tfcf signs that portend the approaeeta« ; e*» c&Qonce of ft great literature. >i