Select Essays of Sainte - Beuve. Translated by A. J. Butler. (Edward
Arnold.)—Every one knows, or ought to know, what manner of critic Sainte-Beuve was. It is needless to attempt, at this time, any estimate of him. All that we have to do is to indicate the selection which the translator has made, and to recognise the judgment which he has shown in the choice and the excellence of his translation. The Essays there are described as "Chiefly bearing on English Literature." The first two, how- ever, are of a more general kind, dealing with the question, "What is a Classic F" (the reader should specially note a fine bit of imaginative writing, the great classics grouped in a sort of Elysium), and discussing a "Literary Tradition" (to illustrate the difference between the duties of a professor and those of a critic,—the critic discovers new talent, the professor maintains a good tradition of taste). The literary subjects proper are,— " Lord Chesterfield's Letters," "William Cowper" (three essays), "Gibbon" (two), " Grote's History of Greece,"" Bonstetten and Gray," "M. Taine's History of English Literature" (three).
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