What Is a Classic ?. By T. S. Eliot. (Faber
and Faber. 3s. 6d.)
Tins little book, which contains an address originally delivered by Mr. Eliot before the Virgil Society last year, shows the acute analysis and quiet distinction we would expect from this author. His definition of a classic is an interesting and somewhat elaborate one, and leads him to the conclusion that we have no classic in his sense in English literature because the language itself is still de- veloping and has not yet reached its prime. Pope is the nearest thing we have to a classic and our eighteenth century the nearest to a classic epoch ; but it is only so at the cost of sacrificing some of our language's finest qualities. Pope is therefore a false or pseudo-classic, and the only true classic in our Western world literature is Virgil. It is an interesting and revealing conception, if not altogether a convincing one.
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