The Dominion. SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1909. BRITISH IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 514, 22 May 1909, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, MAY 22, 1909. BRITISH IMAGINATIVE LITERATURE.

The- suddct) loss, within a little moro than a month, of Swinburne and Meredith will not fail to turn tile attention of all lovers of books towards tho present condition of English imaginative literature. For many years it has been the consolation of dispirited memories, as they have looked back over the- many? golden ages of British letters, that these two great survivors of the raid*Yictorian period of Tennyson-, Browning, Dickens, Thackeray, and William Morris' have remaiincd. The charge that has been brought against almost overy age, that it makeß judgments that will bo upset even by an early posterity, cannot truthfully be brought against this twentieth ccntury. Nobody of even ordinary judgment is unaware that the ! present-day performance, in imaginative literature is not a high on'c, that our, time has brought forth few durable works and few writers who can hope for long remembrance. But. the charge of poverty could not be brought against an ago in which BvinborNe and Meredith were still actively productive. Now that they are dead, We can rcaliso how poor wo are, not only in present possessions, but ih future promise. It is almost a sufficient judgment, almost & sufficient definition of the quality of our poets and our novelists, to say that Swinburne was too high in tho world" of poetry, and Meredith in the | world of fiction, for any of their last with one possible exception in each case, to be compared with them.? When Tennyson died, there was still Swinburne; when Dickens died, there Was still MfcREDiW. In each-case the new, king. was as tall as his predecessor. To-day, however, it is .impossible to discover a poet and a novelist who, in quality and in achievement,-can rival, or seem likely eVcr to rival, the -two giants who have lately died. William WatsON alone amongst the poets, and Thomas 'Hardy amongst the novelists, can claim approximation to equality with them.'! There was never a time when so many men were, writing poetry. The world is full of exquisite little songs., Tlii British lyric is not Jess sweet atid strong .than in any earlier, day. . But .it. is almost nil.minor poetry, and it is very largely,, the - poetry of ingenuity rather than of inspiration. To set out the names of all " the British poci.s who have dono.• small'things' tfejl, in a .list that would do no injustice by omission, would be a heavy piece of compilation, for the ldwct slopbs of Parnassus; arc crowded. WiLLtAli Watson is prodiiejng vtii-y little poetry now, or since the wlltcted edition of his"' poems, was published. He' is tho most perfect' workman amongst living British poets; his verses are not excelled by SwiNiitfKNli'a in point of colour and music; stately and passionate, ho is thq most affluent of our present-day singers in thought , njid imagination. - John) Davidson, who has- had a strange fate,' Ro'brrt Bridgis, Alfred Austin, Tuomas ; HaroY, Mrs.'Mevnell, , Rudyard Kii"lino, •- .Theojoobe Watts-Dunton, ; and, amongst .the younger men, Herbert TftfeSfca, AiJ-'REb liovfa, Jo.tiS Todhunter, .William-Yeats, and W. J.'De La Mare are. the most cbnsidorablo of tho 'present singers. ; 3-ut One .looks in. vain to thbni for, the deep, broad,'continuous interpretation of life which alone yields tho performance which -will bo remembered and loved two generations after the poet's death. That much of Swinburne is the true, immortal stuff is beyond questioning. Much of Watson,will remain, and many fragments of Davidson; but it is impossible to bnlioVo that any other con* temporary poet will keep-a in'the common treasuries .of our tongue, In the Uventy-first century, few oven of their very nambß will bo- remembered. Thero lmvo boon many such Bhrinkings- of tho (Iniiift in, the literary; past of England} the great lights came When seme new strong wind blew away tho calm. There 1& no reason why this phenomenon may not bb repeated, and the roll of English poets receive an accession, as notable'as the mid-Victoriah group or the brilliant elustor of names that Bhine from the beginnings of the nineteenth century.

British fiction is in better Case. The days of thti British Balsac are over. Meredith and Haudy were the last, abd, in those latest years, tho only British sucof the great then vfhose work had that unity of plan arid breadth of scope which make Dickens more durablo than monuments. Our /authors have no inclination .tb do big tilings in a big fray. The inducements to. virtuosity and Versatility are too great to allow the modern novolist of ability to plan b. "cdmldit. hutnain-e." The transformation of the reading public consoquont (m. the extension of State education is responsible for the decline of British fiction from its older, greatness'. The decline is. not entirely ruinous; the eilergy that went into greatness is not entirely wasted; much of it now displays itsolf in, finfcn&ss. In spite of tile vogue of sensation ahd unreality, there are, many novelists in Britain deeply in love with thoir art, and' sinccrc afid caroful ifl their W6rk. In the Literary Yiar Book there are given the names of nearly six hundred novelists in full production, and It ii u&happily only at long intervals in the list that a name occurs which has appeared oh the title pagt of h wefrthy h&vol. The bulk of current fiction is slovenly dflvel, Untfruo to Hfe t and as wholly baffling to the ee6ker for meaning of significance as the modern .musical comedy. But there ore, as we have said, fine Writers, Whose stylo has distinction, and-whose characters are wrought with brainß. Tho British novel of to-day cannot be treated with CbUtempt while Snaith and Galsworthy and Wells, and Belloc and Chesterton andWHiTEiNO, to name a few of tho choicer spirits at random, are still vigorously working at fiction. We still have Barbie, Conbad, de Morgan, and HeWLEfr, and we can fairly claim Henry JAtifcS as a British writer. Nor are thero lacking distinguished women Writers. A new novel by Mrs. Humphry ~ Ward, Edith. Whartokj May Sinclair, or Maiiy Cholmondelby is still, in this age of chfiapneES and sensation, an event to bo welcomed. The modern novel is generally infinitely superior in structure and tefilv nir|iic tb the novel of even a generation ngo,- but In earnestness a.nd living vigour it is a pale shadow' of the older fiction. Finehesa tlierfc is in abundance, but greattiMißi of oyon tto pVbmiw* of sroaiVicbsj it a toj&a&ilila id ...