MR. GROTE ON THE ABUSES OF NEWSPAPER CRITICISM.
MR. Grote, in a controversial criticism on an able contemporary with which we have nothing to do, takes occasion to make some admirable general remarks on the spirit and honesty of modern news- paper criticism, with which we and all other newspaper critics have a great deal to do. "There is one thing," he says, "that this criti- cism never seems to have a notion of, and that is the possibility of criticism on itself." Mr. Grote encourages the common-sense reader not to be afraid of us. Such a reader is, he says, and very justly says, often a person of far better judgment than the anonymous critic whom he peruses, if it would but enter his head that he may use his own judgment and throw off the newspaper-yoke to which an Englishman so willingly. submits. The readers should rally their strength against this imposing power of type. The historian of Greece himself is willing to lead the forlorn hope, and has made a spirited onset in the pamphlet before us : "I think there is but little doubt that reviewing in our day is in one respect inferior to what it has been, namely, that there is less in it of the element of dis- cussion, that each reviewer has pretty much the impression that with his own readers he has the last word, and that he need not fear anybody looking after him. If the reader would do a little criticism for himself, or care a little more to see criticism answered, some pretended critiques which he might otherwise believe in and be amused at would indeed lose their interest for him, or indeed, perhaps, excite indignation; but I do not think he would lose in pleasure. There wants a little fresh recollection with us that the end of criticism is to bring out and set in clearest light the truth, and that difrorced from that purpme, it is almost the lowest kind of literature, a parasitical appendage to that which makes effort to be real literature, which like the ivy strangles what it feeds on, offering itself only as the wretched substitute, and really extinguishing in the readers every- thing that is intellectually valuable." This is excellent advice, and nothing would improve newspaper criticism so much as the knowledge that it was to be read by men too hardy to acquiesce in the authoritative statement of the reviewer. Criticism, despite all that is urged in its favour, especially the short criticism of newspapers, is always tending to become positively in- jurious. "Newspaper old age seems to come speedily," says Mr. Grote. And no doubt there is a tendency in all professional critics, still more if they be successful writers, to put out less and less posi- tive appreciative effort as they grow old; and, except in the rare cases where they are really fascinated themselves, to deliver their oracles from their own traditional point of view without any laborious attempt to see with their author's eyes what he really believes that he has achieved. For, all true criticism on worthy subjects does involve effort, and considerable effort. No one can fairly judge what another has done without genuine study of something which is generally in some degree alien to one's own thought. And it is so much easier to stay at one's own centre and rail at another man for not coming to us, than to migrate to his point of view, that criticism is always tending to degenerate into a list of excellent reasons why an author should have been other than he is in order that he might have written his book from a centre of conviction similar to our own, instead of the one which) he has chosen. In order to see what true criticism, and especially newspaper cri- ticism, may and ought to be, the first step is to keep its aim within modest and moderate bounds. It is not the great Judicial function that it affects to be ;—that it is often said to be. If critics mistake their duty, it is, as Mr. Grote hints, very much because the public encourage them to do so ; and not the public only, but thoughtful and far-sighted men. We are always hearing the relative import- mice of true criticism exaggerated (we do not mean its absolute im- portance, for that we do not esteem lightly), but its importance re- latively to a higher and more creative task. It was only the other day that Mr. Matthew Arnold, a poet who can utter his own critical thoughts in sentences so lucid and harmonious that even when they seem most false they cling to the mind with a fascination far beyond that of the finest and most perfect criticism, did what he could to perpetuate this cant about the yearning of the age for criticism. He laid it down in his recent lectures, with the calm dogmatism which seems an essential part of his mind that, "of the literatures of France and Germany, as of the intellect of Europe in general, the main effort, for now many years, has been a critical effort; the en- deavour, in all branches of knowledge—theology, philosophy, history, art, science—to see the object as in itself it really is.' "But owing," he adds, "to the presence in English literature of this ec- centric and arbitrary spirit, owing to the strong tendency of English writers to bring to the consideration of their object some individual fancy, almost the last thing for which one would come to English literature is just that very thing which now Europe most desires— criticism." Surely Mr. Arnold, when lie pronounces such a sentence as this, is guilty of the very sin he is condemning—that of boldly im- porting, namely, a very strong individual peculiarity of his own into the universal European mind. As far as our experience goes, Europe does not pant after criticism, nay, is rather weary of it, and would fain see something more spontaneous and more likely to draw men into closer social unity. In the mean time, such criticism as the age is condemned to elaborate will be most likely to lead us to something higher, if it knows its own place. It is good when it is a link in the passage to what is better, when it is so sensitively alive to every gleam of true genius and nobility in creative minds that it can translate and spread what it discerns so as to render this more widely apprehensible. But if it does not take this modest attitude towards the great living words and thoughts and realities that are above cri- ticism, it abolishes its own function ; nay, it does more, it intervenes to shut out the light; for no sooner does the critic cease to look up to the finer minds above his own than he begins to grudge the appear- ance of new power altogether, and to do much towards persuading those who are under his influence to share his own jealousy and scepticism.
It is obivons that what an ordinary critic can do for the society he addresses is not disposed of by Mr. Arnold's dictum, that he should teach people to see each of the various objects of the intellec- tual world " as in itself it really is." No doubt this is so; but how can he do this? Not certainly, as Mr. Arnold would have us believe, by simply striving to sweep his own mind clear of eccentrici- ties and prejudices, and then coldly contemplating by the "dry light" of modern culture what he wishes to describe. No work of genius, no triumph of faith, was ever appreciated and translated into the lan- guage of less cultivated minds by such a process as this. Criticism at its highest—as Mr. Arnold's own writings show—must have at least enough of the creative power it deals with, to feel completely
its spell and fascination. And this is not got by critical habits; it is got spell
a long apprenticeship to uncritical habits; by readiness of
sympathy, flexibility of taste, and the modesty which is ever willing to abandon a lower standard of judgment for a higher, so soon as it is convinced that it is higher. What criticism can do, then, for works of a power or genius higher than its own, is this : Its first and by far its highest function is to apprehend that which lies really above its own sphere ; to be accessible to thoughts, or aims, or beauties which it can appreciate but could not have created; and to delineate them for those who might not otherwise have time or culture to find them out. Its second and secondary task—too often made its first and primary— is to rectify the exclusiveness and frequent one-sidedness of genius by the broader sense of ordinary judgment. This is a very useful and, for the most part, an easy part of its work ; but it is useful and easy only so far as the critic duly discharges the higher part of his task. If a critic can translate for others what the few teach or conceive, it is more than his right, it is his positive duty, to piece it out by insisting on the directions in which it will fail to satisfythe wants of the many. For instance, those who can teach us to see ddeeper than ever into the infinite beauty of Homer, or Chaucer, or Shakspeare, are bound to point out, if they can, what parts of the human mind these great poets wholly fail to express. But to insist on the latter without the former, is rather to blind the eyes of their readers than to open them—to give them the impression of more darkness instead of more light.
But what, it will be said, has newspaper criticism to do with such tasks as these ? It is not once in a year that a really great work, measured even by the standard of a single generation, appears, and barely once in many years that a work of lasting genius is produced. This is perfectly true. But the only criticism which is really likely to be useful on the minor works of every-day literature is that Fhich has been trained and disciplined in worthier studies. Here is the mis- take of the cut-and-dried man of culture. He goes about with the secret of having learned to appreciate the "grand style." He has lived in Homer till he can recal the roll of that many-sounding sea. He has pored over the lofty and pictorial thought of Plato till he begins to pique hinme9r upon its grandeur. His fancy has been fed on the
quaint old-world genius of Herodotus, his judgment on the melan- choly wisdom of Tacitus and the complacent cynicism of Gibbon,— and of all this he is conscious and proud. When first fortune com- pels him to deal with the daily literary efforts of ordinary English- men, he chooses such as are more or less connected with his real admirations, and the slowly developed intellectual worship. of his youth ; and while this lasts his work is fresh and true criticism ; it translates the higher thoughts that have entered into him, for those who have not yet learned to apprehend them, and supplements them by the common-sense wants of the class with which he is in daily intercourse. But when this period has passed by, and reputation as a critic has been fairly won, there is more and more temptation to cloak himself in the culture of which he is so proud, and rebuke the raw thoughts of an uncultivated world. " Max arse attollit in auras
Ingrediturque solo, at earit inter nnbila oondit."
This is in some measure, we iake it, the secret of the premature old age which is apt to afflict, if not newspapers, at least newspaper critics.
And no doubt it is a trial to men steeped in the culture of the noblest literature of the world, to appreciate fairly the ephemeral pro- ductions of a busy generation. It seems beneath them, and the more they trample it beneath them, the less are they competent to detect its higher tendencies. But still the critic who allows this feeling to grow upon him abdicates his true office. Unless he can enter into the wants of his generation, he has no business to pretend to direct its thoughts. He becomes really a mischief instead of a benefit if he puts his heel scornfully on all that is less artistic than his own tastes. The passion for putting an extinguisher on incomplete or half-successful efforts is a very growing and a very fatal one. It is as injurious to the critic himself as to the public whom it de- frauds. An extinguisher of real flames, however tiny, cannot help being soiled and blackened by the work. And no man can really ignore from intellectual pride any sign of just or timely thought with- out some injury of an analogous kind. There is, -however, a sphere for just severity in newspaper criticism. To some extent the public look to newspaper notices as guides to what they shall read br neglect. In an age of unscrupulous and shameless book-making, it is a duty to give notice of the rubbish that cumbers the ground. There is no credit, no real power required for this task. It is the work of an intellectual scavenger, and far from being specially. honourable. Still, if done scrupulously, it is not dis- honourable. If a man, after hunting for the true aim and purpose of a work, finds none such of any worthy kind, if he can detect no new store of information, no single gleam of well-directed purpose, no glimpse of any element that may serve anyone except the seller of the commodity in question, it is right to say so, though every critic should be sure that the irresponsibility of anonymous writing in no way sways his mind. But it is well to recollect that the sentence of condemnation is always easier to pass than any other ; and, when unjust, reflects more seriously upon the critic than on the condemned. It is not only easier to destroy than to create, but far easier to imagine worthlessness than to appreciate worth.
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