OLD ENGLAND REVISITED. Mr Goldwin Smith on the Changes of Five Years.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 187, 15 January 1887, Page 7

OLD ENGLAND REVISITED. Mr Goldwin Smith on the Changes of Five Years.

tion ie apparently to be submitted to the test of experience. Literature and the Drama. In literature there appears to be a pause. Fiction has come down to sensational stories, such aa " Solomon's Mines," "The Treasure Island," or •« Called Back," and no new poet appears. The dratna, too, beetns to languish. I went to the two pieces of the day, and found the acting excellent, but the plays themselves uaught ; there was scarcely a stroke of art, scarcely a touch of wit or pathos, and the plots weie tissues of improbabilities the moat crude aod revolting. Is this falling off in art and literary production which everybody notes merely a contemporary accident, or is the world about to pass definitively from its aesthetic, poetic, and literary youth to a maturity of Bcienco ? Journalism. In English journalism assuredly there is no falling-off Its ability and power have beon steadily on the increaee ; more and more it draws away the real debate from Parliament to it?elf. The increase of force is especially remarkable in the great provincial journals. To a great extent the fufcu.e of England will be in the keeping of its press.