Both in his verse and in his critical studies, - Mr.
Sherard Vines (The Course of English Classicism, Hogarth Lectures, Hogarth Press, 8s. (Id.) has the qualities and defects of a pronounced -temperament, which exists in a state of what may be called intellectual tourism. This pronouncedly clever author rushes from fact to fact, from Citation to citation, with the speed of an aeroplane, and the view he gives us of the subject is correspondingly panoramic. Beneath this somewhat self-conscious pride of knowledge—the latest fashion in pedantry—we discover a sensible and even orthodox judgment, happily tuned to the theme of this essay, which is an enquiry into the growth and development of the classical tradition m_ English letters. We see that it has existed side by side with our more national, individualistic and even anarchic qualities ever since we have had a literature, and that the eighteenth century was an emphasis of this growth, and not a• sporadic and temporary phase.
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