Hogarth Lectures
ONE advantage in writing in a series of " lectures " is that your title can quite clearly state what your book is about ; there is no feverish searching for a public-catcher. Thus, Some Religious Elements in English Literature exactly expresses what Miss Macaulay treats of : she is concerned with religious elements rather than with literature, and the " some " is judicious. It is so not only because the book breaks off soon after the middle of the eighteenth century (since " the nine- teenth and the twentieth centuries have a terrible look. They have too much literature, and too many religious trends "), but also because in the period she does cover Miss Macaulay can work frankly within her limitations. One of these, at least, is serious ; for Miss Macaulay, as she implies, is not herself of a religious temperament. In many ways this is an advantage : a looker-on, even in religion, may see the most of the game ; and an outside point of view, because of its lack of prejudice, is often very valuable.
The matter in the earlier chapters is brilliantly handled : Miss Macaulay is always mistress of her subject, and picks out the threads of thought and influence with skilful fingers : she makes clear that the only impulse, on the whole, which the heavy theology of the Middle Ages could not clog, was the lyrical one. It is amazing how long most literature, especially the drama, 'had to fight the repressive views of the Church : it is the old and continuing story of " What has Christ to do with Apollo ? " The spate of satires against the clergy did little to free the mediaeval mind. From the Elizabethan period onward, Miss Macaulay is not quite so good : there was more there than she has been inclined to search out ; and from this point onward, indeed, analysis is necessary, an operation she studiously avoids. For what we want to know is, how did religious thought influence not only what the writers said, but how they said it ? and we ask for more di- stinction between the various kinds of religious experience than Miss Macaulay is able to give us. This is where the outside view begins to fail. And, indeed, a little later we feel that 'Miss Macaulay's dislike of religion blinds her to the beauties of much religious literature. George Herbert's Prayer, for instance, she calls " elaborate, artificial, and tedious," and regards as a mere collection of " quiddities." Tedious ? But it is a masterly poem ; those two four-line, stanzas, so suave, yet calmly ecstatic, followed by the con-, eluding couplet which sweeps us off with an utterly different and most exciting rhythm, makes the poem one of the precious things of our literature. Again, is " agreeable_" the right. adjective for Smart's Song to David ? Prior is agreeable ;. Smart is terrific, a great minor poet.
What was wrong with the eighteenth century: was, not so, much a failure in religion, though there was plenty of that_: but_ a false critical conception of how poetry ought to be written, a point that Miss Stewart brings out admirably in her book, which is a sound and illuminating piece of work. 'Miss Stewart does not suffer from the same kind of limitation as Miss Macaulay does, for she is clearly passionately fond of poetry, both French and English. Though she may not be a poet, she does not stand outside the realm of poetry as MiS3 Macaulay does outside of religion. Her analysis of the likenesses and differences of the two poetic cultures is always to the point, and she seizes the salient nodes with an unerring hand. Although her book is concerned with the relation between the two literatures, it would serve as a sympathetic introduction to French poetry from Ronsard to Valery.
It is curious to note how much Western European civiliza- tion is one ; for the English and French movements often march hand in hand : and at the same time it is significant that although both countries suffer the same changes, each gives them its own particular flavour. Thus French Augustan poetry differs from the English, so much that, when the romantic revival comes, " Wordsworth's aim is, above all, to clear away false ornaments, to simplify the language of poetry ; Hugo's is to enrich it." Sometimes, of course, each country produces something the other cannot remotely border upon : the French produced Racine ; we bred the Meta- physical Poets. Most interesting, perhaps, is the history of the late nineteenth century. What can we show but indi- vidualistic compromises with the romantic tradition ? The French, however, opened new doors with Gerard de Nerval, Baudelaire, and finally Rimbaud, probably the most im- portant figure of the century, whom Miss Stewart certainly regards as such, and deals with at length. Why was this ? Here, perhaps, Miss Macaulay could have helped us, if she had adventured so far.
Both these books are to be recommended, not only for the student but to the general reader : neither is heavy, each abounds in apt quotations. There is an entertaining difference in styles. Miss Macaulay writes a little like a don determined to make amusing a subject which she feels her examination candidates might find dull. Everybody knows that Miss Macaulay can be amusing, and she is, as thus : " Who, if any- one, Cynewulf was, scholars must (or anyhow do) debate. It does not much matter. The uninstructed must (or anyhow do) call these authors, for short, Cynewulf." But the fun is brought in from outside ; it does not issue from the subject itself. Miss Macaulay is careful to write colloquially, de- scending even to slang, such as " to get away with it." Miss Stewart, on the other hand, who is a don, does not write like a don at all, unless to handle material easily and to have a respect for one's language, is to write like one : yet there is a delightful humour in many of her paragraphs. She believes in her subject, and feels that it does not rest with her to make it palatable : the result is that we taste it with pleasure. She, on her part, might benefit by being a little more colloquial ; we do not believe that she would utter to a class the sentences that she writes so continuously. Miss Macaulay's lectures are lectures ; Miss Stewart's are rather essays.
BONAMY DOBItikE.
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