Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation in the originaldocument have been preserved.
VICTORIAN LITERATURE
SIXTY YEARS OF BOOKS
AND BOOKMEN
Births have brought us richness and variety,
And other births will bring us richness and variety;
I do not call one greater and one smaller;
That which fills its period and place is equal to any.
Walt Whitman
VICTORIAN
LITERATURE
SIXTY YEARS
OF BOOKS AND
BOOKMEN
BY
CLEMENT SHORTER
LONDON: JAMES BOWDEN
10 HENRIETTA STREET
COVENT GARDEN W.C. 1897
INTRODUCTORY
Asked by a kindly publisher to add one moreto the Jubilee volumes which commemorate thesixtieth year of the Queen's reign, I am pleasedat the opportunity thus afforded me of gatheringup a few impressions of pleasant readinghours. "Every age," says Emerson, "must writeits own books; or rather, each generation for thenext succeeding. The books of an older periodwill not fit this." It is true, of course, and as aresult the popular favourite of to-day is well-nighforgotten to-morrow. In reading the criticaljournals of thirty years ago it is made quiteclear that they contain few judgments which wouldbe sustained by a consensus of critical opinionto-day. Whether time will deal as hardly with thecritical judgments of to-day we may not live to see.I have no ambition to put this book to a personaltest. So far as it has any worth at all it ismeant to be bibliographical and not critical. Itaspires to furnish the young student, in handy form,with as large a number of facts about books as canbe concentrated in so small a volume. That thishas been done under the guise of a consecutive2narrative, and not in the form of a dictionary, ismerely for the convenience of the writer.
I have endeavoured to say as little as possibleabout living poets and novelists. With the historiansand critics the matter is of less importance.To say that Mr Samuel Rawson Gardiner haswritten a useful history, or that Professor DavidMasson's "Life of Milton" is a valuable contributionto biographical literature, will excite noantagonism. But to attempt to assign Mr W. B.Yeats a place among the poets, or "Mark Rutherford"a position among the prose writers of theday, is to trespass upon ground which it is wiserto leave to the critics who write in the literaryjournals from week to week. It was not possibleto ignore all living writers. I have ignored asmany as I dared.
It was my intention at first to devote a chapterto Sixty Years of American Literature. But forthat task an Englishman who has paid but oneshort visit to the United States has no qualification.He can write of American literature only asseen through English eyes. That is to see muchof it, it is true. Few Americans realise the enormousinfluence which the literature of their ownland has had upon this country. Probably the mostread poet in England during the sixty years hasbeen Longfellow. Probably the most read novelhas been "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Among people3who claim to be distinctly literary Hawthorne hasbeen all but the favourite novelist, WashingtonIrving not the least popu