REVIEW.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1354, 10 February 1898, Page 11

REVIEW.

“Victorian Literature : Sixty Years of Books and Bookmen,” by Clement K. Shorter. (London: Jameißowden.) s Lovers of good literature owe Mr Shorter (the editor of the Illustrated London News ) a debt of gratitude for his admirablydesigned and distinctly helpful survey of Victorian literature. It is not on the same stately and ponderous scale as Professor Saintsbury’s “ History of Nineteenth Century Literature,” published recently by Messrs Macmillan and Co, but Mr Shorter’s critical portraits of writers are much less biassed and his judgments more tolerantand friendly than those of Mr Saintsbury, who is apt at times to let his own personal prejudices—political and religious—run away with him. In less than 200 pages Mr Shorter deals briefly with practically every writer of any standing who has flourished during Her Majesty’s reign, and although of necessity his brevity is at times somewhat aggravating, he manages to give us a series of cleverly etched miniatures of the leading poets, historians and novelists of the Victorian age, which make some very pleasant reading. To the poets he allots some forty pages, beginning with the later days and achievements of Southey and Words worth, and coming down to such distinctly “moderns” as Watson and Kipling. He hits,'we think, the mark when he argUes that although Wordsworth “was a vital force in the minds and hearts of nearly all the interesting people of the period (the earlier part of this reign), students of to-day will be well content to read him only in Matthew Arnold’s ‘ Selections/ ” Mr Shorter says: — Here they will find him as a sonneteer proclaiming liberty with Bcarcsly less zeal and power than Milton. They will find him as the sympathetic friend of the poor and of the oppressed. To be dead to the charms of Matthew Arnold’s “Selections from Wordsworth ” is to care nothing for poetry. < To appreciate with any measure of enthusiasm the twelve volumes of Wordsworth’s collected writings is equally to have one’s sense of true poetry deadened and destroyed. We have no time now for “The Excursion’’ and “ The Prelude.’’ We have leas for Wordsworth’s “Ecclesiastical Sonnets” and “The Borderers.” For hi* copious prose moralising* one has no toleration whatever. Tennyson, Mr Shorter considers, will be read by succeeding generations of Englishmen if only for “his exquisite purity of style,’” and he points out how aptly and sympathetically Tennyson was in touch with some of the social aspirations of his ttoe. Uv Shorter defend browning from

the oft-repeated charge of obscurity—made most by people who have never read him. He says : The hearts of all of ua go out to Tennyson when we think of the music of hia verse, of hia gifts of natural description, hia fine and captivating imagination ; but our hearts and our intellects go out to Browning as to one who has enshrined our best thoughts, who has touched our deepest emotionß. “ The Bing and the Book ”is not obscure. It is an exciting story, dramatically told. So also are the poems called “ Men -and Women ” and the “Dramatic Idylls." “Luria,” “In a Balcony " and “A Blot in the 'Scutcheon ” are as readable as railway novels. And yet Browning had, and has, none of the popularity of Tennyson. The one writer sold by thousands, and hi 3 financial reward was probably unprecedented in poetry ; the other had but a small audience, ari audience which never approached to one-third of his rival’s. Notwithstanding all this, it is pleasing to not 6 that the two poets loyally esteemed one another, as the dedication of Borne of their books conspicuously proves.

Mr Shorter writes very sympathetically of Mrs Browning, and as exemplifying the condescension of the earlier contemporaries of the Brownings quotes Wordsworth as saying:—“So, Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett have gone off together! Well, I hope they may understand each other—nobody else could.” Lord Granville, who was staying at Florence when a son was born to the Brownings there in 1849, was still more amusing, although equally uncritical: “ Now there are not two incoraprehensibles but three incomprehensibles,” he said. Landor’s poetry, so Mr Shorter says, “ can command no audience nowadays,” although he mentions that both De Quincey and Southey had a high opinion of it. But Londor’s prose, especially his “Imaginary Conversations,” he evidently considers pure gold. An excellent little portrait of Swinburne is followed by a high appreciation of Matthew Arnold's verse. Clough, too, is warmly praised, and there are eulogies also for the work of the Rossettis and William Morris. “ The Earthly Paradise ” says Mr Shorter, “ will live as long as good story-telling remains with us.” Tom Hood, Coventry Patmore, James Thomson (of “City of Dreadful Night” fame) Barry Cornwall (Bryan Procter) and several other poets are dealt with and some of the so-called/' minor ” poets of the day receive brief mention.

Passing on to fiction, Mr Shorter has much to say that is new, or that if not exactly new, is put withsome novelty of expression. The fiction of the Victorian era is not equal, he thinks, to that of the period which began with Goldsmith and Bichardson and ended with Sir Walter. But he has praise, and who should not, for Dickens and Thackeray with his careful estimates of whose works we find ourselves in complete accord. The shcrt biographies with critical estimates of these two authors are excellent and make capital reading. Mr Shorter, as the author of “ Charlotte Bronte and His Circle,” is naturally enthusiastic over the Bronte sisters, but one of the best thiDgs in his fiction section is his estimate of George Eliot from which we feel compelled to quote the following striking passages:—

It is by her novels that she must be judged, ami these, for insight into character, analysis of the motives which guide men, and sympathy with the intellectual and moral struggles which make up so large a part of life, have a literary niche to themselves. With singular catholicity she paints the simplest faith and the highest idealism, whether it be an evangelical clergyman, a Dissenting minister, or a Methodist factory girl, she enters into the spirit of their lives with fullest sympathy. Carlyle could see in Methodism only “ a religion fit for gross and vu’garuninded people, a religion so-called, and the essence of it cowardice and hunger, terror of pain and appetite for pleasure both carried to the infinite.” George Eliot’s sympathies were wider. She won the heart of Methodists, who have stood in imagination listening to Dinah Morris addressing the Hayslope peasantry, as she gained the devotion of Roman Catholici like Lord Acton, who have seen in her portrait cf Savonarola a wise expression of their faith. . . . The creation* of George Fliot -Toto and Baldassare, Mrs Poyser and Silas Marner, Dorothy Brooke and Gwendolen are not as familiar to the reading public of to day as they were to that of ten or fifteen years ago. Of the idolatry which almost made her a prophetess of a new cult, we hear nothing now. She has not maintained her position as Dickens, Thackeray and Charlotte Bronte have maintained theirs, But if there be little of partisanship and much detraction, it is id,e to <l>-nv th t G or. e Eii t’s many gifts. Her humour, her p=th >s, her remarkable intell cu d ’endowments, give her an assured ph-ce among the writeis of Victorian literature.

Of Charles and Henry Kingsley we get pleasant portraits. Of the latter Mr Shorter s lys Henry was a bit of a ne’er do well, and so his personality has been carefully screened from the public. His name is not even mentioned in Charles Kingsley’s biography. Sir Edwin Arnold, however, who knew him at Oxford, and Miss Thackeray Ritchie, who knew him towards the end of his life, testify to certain delightful qualities of mind and heart which peculiarly appealed to them.

Mr Shorter modestly omits to mention that he himself has recently edited a new edition of Henry Kingsley’s novels, of which three at least, “ Geoffrey Hamlyn,” “ Ravenshoe,” and “ The Hilyars and the Bartons” rank, in our humble opinion, with the best of his brother Charles’ work —not even excepting “Westward Ho”— though this to many will, wo know, smack of literary high treason. Lytton, Lever, Disraeli, Trollope, Harrison Ainsworth, Stevenson, George Meredith, Wilkie Collins, and Mrs Oliphant loom up big amongst Mr Shorter’s list of novelists, and minor writers are done justice to. Perhaps the best section of this excellent little book is that in which the historians are considered. Carlyle is evidently Mr Shorter's favourite, and to the Sage of Chelsea he devotes several well-written pages of careful estimate. Freeman’s acW&1 Maoau-

lay’s clever special pleadings, Grote’s industry, Becky’s brilliancy, are all referred to, bub we dare not commence quoting as we have already devoted more space than we can afford to Mr Shorter’s fascinating little studies. In the critics and philosophers we have estimates of Euskin and John Stuart Mill, Fawcett, Herbert Spencer, Bain, George Henry Lewes, Tyndall, Darwin, Huxley and many others, whilst special attention is devoted to critics of literature. A most complete index serves as a useful guide to a book which is not only a mine of useful information, remarkably well arranged, but is also a study in literary history which is written in a peculiarly fascinating though simple style. The price of this excellent work is only half-a-crown. It is tastefully printed and bound, and should be not only on the shelves of all young students of that proud heritage the literature of our nation, but will be perused with interest and pleasure by those whose acquaintance with English literature has long been a source of delight and solace.