Contemporary Literature [pp. 729-761]

1874.] CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE. 747
One who would understand a great author by the aid of such criticism must
seize upon the secret of that author's life and power, and must try to grasp
his complete work as the unfolding of that life and the embodiment of that
pow er. He is then ready for the still higher and more special work of taking
the grand production-the Hamlet, or Paradise Lost, or In MIemoriam-of
such author, and studying it as an artistic system, having its one great
organic idea of truth and beauty presented by subordinate ideas marshalled
in order around it, expressed by means of words and imagery, and pervaded
by the spirit of the master who molds all into a harmonious whole of beauty
and power justly called a creation.
It must be confessed that in too many of our Literary Institutions but little
has yet been done along these two great lines of thought. Instead of the
living and fruitful general view of English literature, our students too often
get -where they get anything-a barren catalogue of meaningless literary
names and works, and that poor privilege of cramming them for examina tion for which all generous young men have a hearty and growing contempt.
Intelligent and helpful Special Criticism is yet almost untouched. Instead of
it our students too often get, at the best, only a petty view of similes and
metaphors, of rhyme and jingle, along with a little of the "milk-for-babes"
style of rhetoric, all of which is only an addition to the other catalogue of
barrenness and worthlessness, and which by its very pettiness unfits for un derstanding any great production of the language. And yet an educated
man, who has no intelligent furnishing in these two lines, cannot be said to be
in the highest sense prepared for Enyglish thouight and work.
Besides the Comprehensive View of Literature and the Special Criticism,
there is a third line of the study of English, which, though it may not have
been considered absolutely indispensable to every liberally educated man, is
yet of vast importance as an aid to the highest and best criticism, and to the
highest and best English writing and speech-the line of Philological and
Liniguistic Study. Every English word has its origin, affinities, life, develop ment, and he who would gain the highest power over the language, whether
for criticism or production, must acquaint himself thoroughly with the history
and relationships of its words. Students have unavoidably gained a poor
smattering of Latin and Greek philology, and recently a poorer of French
and German; but of that Anglo-Saxon, which may be justly called our
mother speech, not even the acquirement of such smattering has been possible.
There is a positive and growing conviction that there is need of a thorough
study of our English speech, starting from its Anglo-Saxon basis. Why
should it not be so studied? The strong Yman in the Englishman of all ages
has been Anglo-Saxon-Gothic-and the strength of our language has come
from him. Says Montesquieu, in his Stirit of Laws, "What ought to
recommend the Gothic race, beyond every people upon earth, is that they
afforded the great resource to the liberty of Europe-that is, to almost all the
liberty that is among men. Jornandes, the Goth, calls the north of Europe
' The Forge of Mankind.' I should rather call it the forge of those instru ments which broke the fetters manufactured in the south. It was there those