VOL. III.
HOURS IN A LIBRARY
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1892
[All rights reserved]
CONTENTS
OF
THE THIRD VOLUME
page | |
| Charlotte Brontë | 1 |
| Charles Kingsley | 31 |
| Godwin and Shelley | 64 |
| Gray and his School | 101 |
| Sterne | 139 |
| Country Books | 175 |
| George Eliot | 207 |
| Autobiography | 237 |
| Carlyle's Ethics | 271 |
| The State Trials | 306 |
| Coleridge | 339 |
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
Mr. Swinburne, in his recent essay upon Miss Brontë, has, as usual, bestowed the most enthusiastic and generous praise with a lavish hand, and bestowed it upon worthy objects. And, as usual, he seems to be a little too much impressed with the necessary connection between illuminating in honour of a hero and breaking the windows or burning the effigies of the hero's rivals. I do not wish to examine the justice of his assaults, and still less to limp on halting and prosaic feet after his eloquent discourse. I propose only to follow an inquiry suggested by a part of his argument. After all, though criticism cannot boast of being a science, it ought to aim at something like a scientific basis, or at least to proceed in a scientific spirit. The critic, therefore, before abandoning himself to the oratorical impulse, should endeavour to classify the phenomena with which he is dealing as calmly as if he were ticketing a fossil in a museum. The most glowing eulogy, the most bitter denunciation, have their proper place; but they belong to the art of persuasion, and form no part of scientific method. Our literary, like our religious, creed should rest upon a purely rational ground