A NEW BOSWELL.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 18, 26 February 1914, Page 3

A NEW BOSWELL.

LIFE OF GOLDWIN SMITH. National and Parliamentary union or independence—the real choice lies between those two.—Professor Goldwin Smith on the Home Mule question. Boswell, thofigh he has written the best biography in the language, did not: come to know Johnson intimately until his hero was already in the vale of years, and our new Bosweil —Mr Arnold Haulta,in —was acquainted with Goldwin Smith for an even shorter period of time, for the record of conversation does not begin till February, 1898, and Goldwin Smith was born in 1823. - ' - A well-known literary critic has been knoWn to express the opinion that Goldwin Smith was in his day—and that day is only just over—one of the two <y three best writers of English who were then alive. There is a certain topical interest in recalling the fact that Goldwin Smith was bo'rn at Reading, though he early settled in Canada, after a distinguished carer at Oxford, where he was Regius Professor of. History from 1858 till 1865. In 1871 he settled in Canada, and was elected to the Senate of Toronto University. Our Boswell could not quite stomach the professor's lunch: — | ' 1 Lunched at The Grange. Their luncheons do not suit me, and no wonder. The professor helps himself to rice blancmange or * pumpkin' pie—the latter is one of his pet dishes; they grow pumpkins on .purpose for him. This he washes down with a cup of tea; and his luncheon is over—time, about. seven minutes. I make as much haste as a very good appetite cin, land always by eight minutes to; 2 we are back at-our respective desks/ ' / 'A hard case., surely, £6r the dietetic cranks, this prof essor-pio iiefer of the quick lunch, tfho lived a vigorous life until well past 80, and. who died at 87. TOO MUCH ATHLETICISM. It is curious to find Goldwin Smith, more than 40 years ago, expressing his disapproval oi the eult of athleticism at Oxford. Writing to an American friend in 1869, he says:— \ f;I w acknowledge yoip, magnanimous the* '43 oat* - and lake off i»y * hat to" you in return. ] But I am rather at variance with my species on the subject. All this tends not only to the glorification of mere muscle (in the case of boating especially there is nothing else), but of aristocratic idleness, and all that is connected with it. Athleticism is becoming the bane of our schools and univer-. sities —almost of the nation —and if you inoculate yourselves with it you will have -cause to rue the day." . And, travelled or untravelled, the .patriotic Londoner will be pleased to have this judgment on St. Paul's: "I "asked him about the Church of San Marco (Venice). "He: 'lt is small, and certainlybeautiful; but nothing to go into ecstatic raptures over, as Ruskin did. Ruskin went mad about, it. . . . In my opinion St. Paul's whips them all, St. Mark's, even St. Peter's. St. Peter's stimulates no religious emotion. It is capacious and luminous, but it lacks the religious aspect. Strange how these great buildings, which seem built for eternity, in- 1 evitably decay.? " SOME OBITER DICTA. "Macaulay's language descends to the language of an auctioneer." "It seems to be a serious question how far this tidal wave of pig-wash i*. going to affect men.and women." (This of ,the modern novel.) Carlyle was a universal cynic; he criticised everything and everybody." "William Watson is a Tennyson uncuius." ' 1 Browning wrote obscure essays in bald verse, and in page upon page of his poetry the lines end in monosyllabic thud." "Tennyson's note was languor, the note of his age." "I am struck by the very narrow limits within which the science of medicine is still confined." -"What is there of Gladstone's that will live? His speeches have no literi ary merit. I cannot think of a single sentence of his that will live." ' 1 Women had much better keep out of politics. They vote, according to their fdiiici6S» *' "Style! I have no style. I merely wait till the mud settles." ' 1 Swinburne was a ranting, raving creature." But our modern Boswell is no blind worshipper. He holds that liis hero's intellect was developed at the expense of his heart. "A page of Carlyle," ha says, "sends you away thrilled; a page of Goldwin Smith sends you away chilled.'' Still, ice is a pleasant thing now and again. "The wild man of the cloister," Disraeli's phrase, is quoted approvingly by Mr Haultain, and it undoubtedly nettled Goldwin Smith, who, as may be gathered, had a pretty definite and by no means inadequate appreciation of his own ability. Lovers of the sparkling mot, the incisive and the caustic, will enjoy these pages.