THE CRITICS BUSINESS.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 520, 29 May 1909, Page 9

THE CRITICS BUSINESS.

From Plato downwards a lons'succession of -scliolars and. thinkers havo, with more or lees deliberate; intention, set themselves to establish principles" by which tho criticism of literature. may.-.,be regulated. Tho procoss has been marked by an ever-widening view of tho methods by which the.critic may approach ■literature, and tlio duty : of., the later writers on . tho subject '/has -been to codify the existing rules rather than :to promulgate new .ones., A roviowal of. the., various methods that- havo been propounded, alfcl practised is the business of Mr.;]);/Nichol Smith-in a: lecture delivered by him last month before tho University of Oxford, and now-published as a pamphlet by : the Clarendon Press-with the title, "The 'Function of Criticism." . It may ho said.that in the nature "of things no other course was open to him, for if a new form of."..'criticism bo discoverable it must hp demonstrated; mere explanation would hardly sufiico. , ; lullis lecturo, therefore, Mr. Smith has glanced at men and methods ancient ancLjnodern, from L'lato to Dryden, J'opo'and Jolinson; Taino, Sainte-Boiivo," and Bninctiere: Hazlitt, Jjanib, Coleridge; Mr. Conrthopo, Mr. Bradley, Mr.. Ilalcigh, Mr. Saintsbury, and Mr. Among, tho motho-ds are tho historical, biogi'iiphical, and comparative, as well as tlio method of criticising each hook upon its merits, apart from its author or its environment in timo and place. . . Jlr. .Smith recognises that "few critics— and certainly fow of our living critics— codld-bo placed exclusively in any one of the groups. :'.. Tho points of difference are-not.sufficient to warrant rigid division, and oven the most divergent .groups havo much in common." But in his view thero I are threo definite points, on ono of which, or all of which, criticism must baso itself. There is tho date, and the author, and the work. But on whichever of the points, or whichever combination of them, n critic chooses te exercise his skill, "criticism is ultimately a criticism of life." ' The difficult" of criticism of odntcmporaryt work is

one of tho commonplaces of literary history —Joffrey's "This will never do" is the terriblo oxamplo—and it is for this reason that Mr. Smith eulogises Uoileau:—"Thero has niwcr, boon a greater critic of contemporary work than Boilenu. It was ho who, amid strong and varied opposition, assured Louis XIV that Molicro was. the greatest genius of the ago—Moliere, who smilod at tho talk about rules, and said that tho same good sense which had made them could still raako thorn any day without tho help of Aristotle and Horace." After all Moliere here ' hits upon the fundamental principlo of critical as well as of creativo literature. The genius must be a law unto himself in criticism, and may transcend tho laws that servo to guid'o meaner spirits. But lor those less gifted, those with a talent for criticism carefully cultivated, thero must bo somo standard of judgment, however difficult that standard may bo to define—if indeed it be at all definable. After tho standard comes tho ■method of measurement, and then tho various schools of criticism bring into operation their respective methods. But these standards and methods aro dependent for their effect upon what is regarded as the function of criticism, and this, Mr. Smith tells us, "is to aid appreciation. Somo havo held that v it is tho duty: of the critics to keep the poets in order and poiico the republic of letters. Others tell us that ho must think for the crowd, others that ho must interpret, others again that ho must judge and class. A judgment is of valuo only as a means of appreciation ; and it n'oed, not presume to close the case. ... We do not oxpect a final verdict" on life, though each ago strives . to give it, and may givo'one that is acceptable to itself. No more need we expect final verdicts on tho art which has its v/holo existence in life." A treatise on criticism, even so interesting as this, Is.apt to leave one with the feelino of Omar, that lie has come out by the same door wherein he wont.—"Glasgow Herald."