25 JANUARY 1890, Page 14

MR. GLADSTONE AND ITALIAN LITERATURE.

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I am an admirer of what is called "the New Journalism." I object to the adjective " new :" there is nothing new in it, unless it be the enlarged scale on which it is supplied. But when I saw an " Easy-Chair " wheeled into the columns of the Spectator, I began to fear. Each of its successive utterances has confirmed my suspicions ; but the close of its last set of commentaries caps the series, and makes me cry out for a reform.

Mr. Gladstone certainly has many. faults, and has done. many rash things ; but I do not think he has ever pro- fessed himself to be "the master of every subject under

heaven," nor in any way "assumed the universal chairmanship of things in general." Of one thing he has always proved himself—with few exceptions indeed—a master, that is, the facts which he handles, whatever they may be. So that, as your "Easy-Chair" jauntily informs us, to find him telling us "that for two hundred years before Wordsworth there was a blank in poetical literature [the context shows that British is meant]," would certainly be a marvel indeed, and might justify the recommendation "to him of a Brief Biographical Dictionary by Mr. Hole," a book which in its first edition was, as I know from experience, one of the most inaccurate ever issued from the press.

But now, what does Mr. Gladstone say ? It is that, "from Chaucer's day we measure over four and a half centuries ;" that this "is perhaps without a parallel in the history of man, for it has been upon the whole a continuous life, though with ascending and descending elevation." He then refers by way of comparison to other countries, ending up with Italy, who, he tells us, "has had an undoubted resurrection in the age which has given birth to the genius of Manzoni and of Leopardi, Yet this was resurrection. There had been before this century [in Italy] an intermission of poetry of a high order for nearly two centuries."

Now, if the calm occupant of your " Easy-Chair " had put the BriefBiographical Dictionary aside, and taken the trouble to read Mr. Gladstone's paper before trying to make him and it ridiculous, we should have been spared this display. Pardon me if I go one step further, and say that we who have learned to love the Spectator for its fairness, its fresh- ness, and its rich fruit of earnest and vigorous thought and study, who admire it when we differ from it, and feel a blank. when circumstances delay its arrival, have some right to com- plain when its high standard is lowered in this way.—I am,