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FAMOUS CRITIC DEAD

PROFESSOR G. SAINTSBURY AUTHORITY ON LITERATURE (Received January 30, 5.5 p.m.) LONDON, Jan. 29 The death has occurred of Professor George Saintsbury, the famous English literary critic and connoisseur, at the age of 88 George Edward Bateman Saintsbury, the authority on French and English literature, was born at Southampton in 1845. He was educated at King's College School, London, and Merlon College, Oxford. After graduating he spent six years in Guernsey as senior classical master of Elizabeth College. Then from 1874 to 1876 he was headmaster of the Elgin Institute, He began his literary career in 1875 as a critic for the Academy and for many years was actively engaged in journalism, eventually joining the staff of the Saturday Review. Some of his critical articles were collecttd and published later. He became the greatest English authority on French literature. Beginning with a primer and a short history, lie published a long series of editions ol French classics and of books and articles on tho writers and the literary history of France. His contributions to the study of English literature were almost as extensivo and he devoted special attention to the poets. His works include A History of English Prosody from the 12th Century to the Present Day (three volumes), The Later 19th Century, Minor Poets of the Caroline Period (a collection of rare poems), A History of English Prose Rhythm, A History of Elizabethan Literature, A Short History of English Literature, A First Book of English Literature, The Race of the Augustans and The English Novel. One of his most important works is A History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe, with a companion volume, Loci Critici: Passages Illustrative of Critical Theory and Practice. He edited the series Periods of European Literature, contributing the volumes on The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory and Tho Earliest Renaissance. He also issued editions of tho English classics and undertook a revision of Scott's edition of the works of Dryden, on whom he wrote a monograph. In 1895 he was appointed •a professor of rhetoric and English literature at Edinburgh University, a post which he held until his resignation in 1915. Somewhat of a gourmet, he was, if any: thing, prouder of his proficiency in French cooTcery than of his encyclopaedic knowledge of French literature. In 1920 lie published Notes on a Cellarbook, in which ho wrote learnedly and lovingly on wines. Between 1922 and 1924 he issued three Scrapbooks. Professor Saintsbury has been freely acknowledged as the greatest English bookman of his time. A writer in tho linies, in a birthday tribute, said: —He has been, as nearly as man may be, omnilegous. He has read "everything that ever was written in the five greatest languages of the world" (of which he holds English to be the first and ancient Greek the second). What is more, he remembers everything that lie has ever road. He takes, as his portraits suggest, a large size in hats; yet still the wonder grows how one small head can carry all he knows. Unsatisfied with a Gargantuan banquet of literature, ho must attack everything that ever was written about literature, and go on hungrily to the metres and the rhythms of. which literature is made. He is steeped in learning to the brows. A great man of letters, he has never stooped to that affected contempt of the life of letters with which some younger academics have attempted to conceal the traces of the "shop." He is proud to be a man of letters. Yet no man was ever less of a pedant or a slave to his calling. He has spent some of his best years in teaching; and he has rounded, almost savagely, upon modern education. He has written of "the peace of the 'Augustans' " in prose that would make Addison writhe and Johnson rage. Ho has tasted (in books, as in food and wine) with his own palate, heard with his own ears arid spoken with his own voice. And, while his literary strength is noted in his independence and his freshness, they in their turn are based upon his conception of life as greater than learning. We think, in contrast, of another hero of learning, who, "when he had gathered all books had to give," was going to begin living his life. That has not been the way of humorous, generous George Saintsbury. Let us quote some words of his own: "If God has given you brains and courage and the upward countenance; if you have loved; if you have had your day and lived your life, what more do you want?"

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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH19330131.2.81

Bibliographic details

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21404, 31 January 1933, Page 9

Word Count
776

FAMOUS CRITIC DEAD New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21404, 31 January 1933, Page 9

FAMOUS CRITIC DEAD New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21404, 31 January 1933, Page 9