A Layman's Love of Letters
TREVELYAN, in the Clark lectures given at Cambridge in 1953, ....811OWS us something which, though it is evident in the writing of L. M. Forster, for example, and otherS, has not been very apparent in more recent Cambridge criticism—that is to say a catholicity of outlook, a desire and an ability to enjoy. He has also another quality that is not always to be found among " the endowed priest- hood " of literattire, and that is respect for the subject combined With a loving humility in the treatment of it. How wise, and how unfashionable, is the following sentence : " I would suggest this formula : any author who was for a number of years together, considered to be a great writer by a large number of the elect spirits of any former age, must have some great merit, and if changes of fashion in thought, and in literary taste, now make that merit less obvious, it is none the less there : it is to be sought, or at least it is not to be denied without seeking."
Dr. Trevelyan owns that in his youth he and his friends, 'laymen' all, were horrified at the idea of there ever being an English Tripos. " Great heavens, how were you to lecture and examine on Shelley's Are thusa, Browning's Saul, or Meredith's Hymn to Colour ? " It is an attitude which, as he says, springs from a profound resp:ct for literature, and when he goes on to say, " We were wrong, of course," one wonders whether, in fact, he and his friends may not have been Perfectly right and whether this last field left for the amateur and the layman might not, with advantage, have been preserved a little longer. Nowadays it would be difficult to find in a volume of essays a study of Shelley " sandwiched in between one on The Character of Sir Robert Peel and one on ' The Credit ',whaler and Banking Companies in France ' " ; and yet this is to be found in the works of Walter Bagehot who " was not only a layman but that essence of a layman—a banker ! " And, if one can judge from Dr. Trevclyan's quotation from it, the essay on Shelley must be very good indeed. Ancient Romeand wondered how long a time had elapsed since last the " Prophecy of Capys " had been pronounced in Cambridge to be " not bad." But even in cases such as (for me) that of Scott, where one's personal taste does not go along with that of the lecturer, Dr. Trevelyan always deserves our respect and commands our interest. Mr. E. M. Forster, also in a Clark lecture, once said, among other damaging things, that Scott " is seen to have a trivial mind and a heavy style." I have always (or since late boyhood) been in agreement with Mr. Forster on this point, but Dr. Trevelyan's stout championship of " the Scottish characters and language of Sir Walter's best novels " has certainly impelled me to try once more what I have often tried to do before but have never, since the age of fourteen, enjoyed doing, and that is to read The Antiquary.
As befits a 'layman,' Dr. Trevelyan ranges far and wide in these lectures. As befits a scholar, he deals not only with what is well known but also with certain authors and passages which will be unfamiliar to many readers. Among those authors who are too often unfamiliar both because of fashion and neglect (his collected poems are, we ara told, out of print) is Meredith, to whom Dr. Trevelyan devotes the last, and one of the best, of his lectures. It would indeed seem natural to suppose that the author of Modern Love and of Love in the Valley should also have written other poetry worth reading ; but not everyone has made this supposition. Dr. Trevelyan seems to me peculiarly enlightening and just in his estimate both of Meredith's prose and poetiy. But he is enlightening and just throughout. His book is a pleasure to read in itself and it will make the reading of other books more pleasurable. This is the kind of ' layman ' who should make the clergy look to their cloth.
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