11 S. V.MAY 25, 1912.]
NOTES AND QUERIES.
419
on Uooks.
The Cambridge History of English Literature.
Edited by A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller.
Vol. IVIII. The Age of Dryden. (Cambridge
University Press.)
THIS erudite and comprehensive history is making steady progress, and displays in the present volume the qualities which have long established its reputation with students of letters. The text and the wonderful bibliographies attached to each chapter both testify to the care and knowledge brought to bear on every aspect of the subject. Besides the chapters on literature, as ordinarily understood, we find others on ' The Early Quakers,' whom Mr. Edward Grubb perhaps represents as more readable than in the main they are : on ' Divines of the Church of England,' Jy Archdeacon W. H. Hutton ; on ' Legal Lite- rature,' by Dr. F. C. J. Hearnshaw : and on ' The Progress of Science.' by Dr. A. E. Shipley, who is agreeably lucid in his survey.
Dr. A. W. Ward leads off with a chapter on Dryden which is well balanced, and puts before us clearly what can be said for a great writer who needs apology every now and then, and, with all allowance for a crowd of detractors rude, can hardly win our regard. Glorious John was, in fact, a master of morigeration, to use a somewhat rare word here revived. On the form and sub- stance of his verse Dr. Ward writes with excellent judgment, and we note as specially interesting a passage on the use of the heroic couplet in drama, though it does not quite convince us.
Mr. W. F. Smith devotes some twenty-two pages to Samuel Butler, and seems to have more licence in the way of tolerably familiar detail and quotation than his colleagues. Mr. Previte'- Orton, on ' Political and Ecclesiastical Satire,' covers the ground satisfactorily, but is somewhat dull. The same may be said of Prof. Schelling's first chapter on ' The Restoration Drama.' He abounds in learning, but we are not so sure of his taste. The third chapter on the subject, by Mr. A. T. Bartholomew, deals with the lesser people ; the second, by Mr. Charles Whibley, leads off with Congreve, to whom full justice is done. Here, and in his chapter on ' The Court Poets,' Mr. Whibley shows a happy ease of style and a brightness which are much to the point. But we do not think his cavalier treatment of the " blundering attack " of Jeremy Collier will satisfy the ordinary student of letters. Dryden admitted that Collier had " taxed him justly," and Pepys, who was no Puritan, found the Court wits " cursed loose company." With all that is said of the real gifts of Rochester as a born man of letters we heartily agree. If he had only had to write for a living, he might have outstripped his serious fellows, but, like other fashionable wits, he had not the time or inclination to keep up the level of things well begun. At his best he is singularly concise and apt. But when Mr. Whibley adds scorn of " the common assumption " that his " poems are unfit to be read " we are astonished. A stupid and witless indecency spoils many of them, and makes them, we venture to say, wholly unfit for general reading. Prof. Saintsbury has in ' The Prosody of the Seven- teenth Century ' too thorny a subject to be tackled in the space of a review. We only note that " irregularities, " in Milton's iambics have
their ample parallel in Greek tragedy, a fact which
may escape the notice of this unclassical age.
Mr. H. B. Wheatley, who supplies a remark- able Dryden bibliography, writes as an expert on Evelyn and Pepys. He does not permit himself to say much on the secret of the latter's charm, though he fully and rightly emphasizes his claims as a patriot and public servant. To us it seems that Pepys might profitably be compared with Boswell in his all-embracing curiosity and zest. Entering a passing protest against the journalese " in connection with," used in the second foot-note on p. 253, we pass on to the point that Pepys lived thirty-three years after his ' Diary ' ended. He thought 'he was going blind, but, if he had secured the right sort of glasses, says Mr. D'Arcy Power, he could have gone on for many years with his entrancing record. The little paper on this subject (noticed in The Aihenceum of 22 July last year) might Well be added to the bibliography, 'where the same ingenious writer's ' Address' on the Medical History of Mr. and Mrs. Pepys ' is noted.
We are glad to find in an appendix to the chapter on ' Legal Literature ' a neat little paper on ' Selden's " Table-Talk," ' by Dr. Ward. Sclden's wisdom more than legal in scope, and commended by admirable touches of the vernacular is but little known to-day, and might enlarge the mind& of some of our up-to-date politicians. John Locke, as the most important figure in English philosophy, is ably treated by Prof. Sorley, who shows clearly his significance as the precursor of Kant ; indeed, the poser of the problems which have been agitating philosophers ever since. Yet Locke came to his researches almost casually. What he thought could be settled on a single sheet of paper in the winter of 1670-71 occupied his leisure for nearly twenty years.
The final paper, by Mr. A." A. Tilley, deals with ' The Essay and the Beginning of Modern English Prose.' It is one of the most interesting of all, tracing out that feeling for simplicity and direct- ness, for an ordinary vehicle of expression, which succeeded the splendid excesses of Elizabethan and Caroline prose. The genius of France, the land of lucidity, and the strong sense of Dryden stood for much in this change, and Montaigne influenced English without introducing that cult of the Ego which pleases our more intro- spective age. Temple and Cowley are admirable prose writers of this period, better models for imitation than more florid and elaborate essay- ists either of earlier or later date.
Reading this final paper, we thought of another, on the changes in English vocabulary, the creation of new words and depreciation of 'others, which might figure in these volumes. Mr. Pearsall Smith has recently done something of the kind in his short book on ' The English Language ' in the " Home University Library." Here is an instance which occurs to us. Dryden was not afraid of homely thought ami word, witness this passage in one of his prologues :
Still they write on, and like great authors show ; But 'tis as rollers in wet gardens grow Heavy with dirt, and gathering as they go. Yet when he translated Virgil, he found it ad visable to reject " marjoram " as a " kitchen word." Modern taste lias reinstated it, or perhaps has hardly realized its temporary dis- grace, since it figures immortally in one of the- most beautiful lines of Shakespeare's sonnets.
