UNIVERSITY ENGLISH.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPROTATOR."1 SIR,—Readers of the classics, whether Greek or English, will be grateful for the trenchant protest against the "heavy, slovenly style " made in your review of Mr. G. B. Grundy's book on Thucydides (Spectator, October 7th). Why is it, one wonders, that so many of the books which come from Oxford and Cambridge are made intolerable to readers of taste and culture by a mode of writing which is not only " heavy and slovenly," but often so involved and ungrammatical that the meaning becomes a matter of mere guess-work ? Without any misgiving University Dons lay down laws of style for others, and by a stroke of satire, of which they are obviously unconscious, too frequently demonstrate in the process that they are themselves ignorant of what they pretend to teach. Need we be surprised that the classics are regarded with suspicion by the man in the street? " Learned lumber," he remarks, and turns away sniffuig. There are exceptions. Mr. Mackail has given us a little masterpiece on Latin litera- ture, and Professor Gilbert Murray a delightful history of Greek literature and a yet more delightful book on " The Rise of the Greek Epic." But these works stand almost alone. I have just been reading Piebon's recently published "History of Latin Literature." M. Pichon's charming and illuminative book proves that a scholar may also be a man of letters. In France that is the rule; in England it is the
exception. Again I ask, why ?--I am, Sir, &c., S.
[In our opinion " S." very greatly overstates his case. It is, however, a fact that the sense of style is born in a man. Not all the lore of Greece or Rome will supply it where it is wanting. On the other hand, a commercial traveller like Cobden, or an ex-Sergeant like Cobbett, may display it the moment he begins to write.,--En. Spectator.]
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