TWO LITERARY MANUALS.*
To the general reader, the titles, and indeed the contents, of works like this of Mr. Ryland's cannot be described as volup- tuously seductive ; yet there is a sense in which even dates have their charm. It is not uninteresting to be reminded that Mr. Leslie Stephen was born in the year when Scott and Goethe died, and if it is added that the same year saw the passing of the great Reform Bill and the death of the inventor of Utilitarianism, we feel that the bare date 1832 opens up a tolerably wide mental prospect. The plan of Mr. Ryland's Outlines of English Literature, broadly speaking, is that of a synchronism of books and events. In five parallel columns, he professes to supply us, firstly, with the titles of all English publications assignable to any given year; secondly, with such concurrent biographical facts as go to make up literary perspective ; thirdly, with the names of European works of paramount importance appearing at the same time ; fourthly, with all contemporaneous historical events of first- rate moment ; and, lastly, under the head of "Annotations," with any leading bibliographical details which may appear to demand mention. The plan is an excellent one, and we are far from saying that it has not been well carried out. Mr. Ryland, perhaps somewhat unnecessarily, warns us not to expect infallible accuracy, and, as far as we have been able to test his facts, we should say that such flaws as his work exhibits are due to incompleteness of statement rather than to positive incorrectness. Thus, without any qualifying addition, he gives 1759 as the date of the publication of the first and second volumes of Tristram. Shandy. He might usefully have added, in the column reserved for annotations, that they were printed at York. Then, too, with regard to the time of the appearance of the volumes there is really some obscurity, and it seems highly probable that they were not actually issued until January 1st, 1760. On the other hand, Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatists who lived about the Time of Shakespeare may, for anything we know, have really appeared in 1807, as Mr. Ryland states ; but the title-page of the first edition nevertheless bears date 1808, and Mr. Ryland should at least have mentioned the fact. In cases where a single work appeared in successive instalments, Mr. Ryland some- times records the circumstance, and sometimes does not. Thus, while giving 1786 as the date of publication of Wolcot's Lousiad, he adds the useful annotation that the last part was not published till 1789; but in assigning Burke's Letters on a Regicide Peace to the year 1791, he omits to say that the first two letters alone appeared in that year, the third and fourth only seeing the light posthumously. Again, he tells us, as a matter of course, that Burns's poems, first edition, appeared at Kilmarnock, and by the same rule he • (1.) Chronologicil Outlines of English Laerature. By Frederick Ryland, M.L. London : Macmillan and Co.— (2) Handbook of linglish Literature. By R. MoWilliam, B.A. London : Longmans, Green, and Co.
ought to mention that Shelley's Adonis was printed at Pisa.
The poems of Thomas Parnell were published in five years after his death, and the fact is duly recorded; but no reference occurs to the circumstance of Pope's editorial con- nection with the volume, which he prefreed with the exquisite lines to Lord Oxford. This is the omission of a secondary fact, though one of much interest ; but we fear Mr. Ryland cannot always be acquitted of the charge of leaving out facts which are not secondary. Thus, among notable publications of 1791, Burke's Letter• to a Member of the National Assembly (which contains the memorable invective against Rousseau) has been overlooked. And, worse still, in connection with the succeeding year, 1792, no mention is made of so im- portant a work as Arthur Young's Travels in France. Mr. Ryland is extremely severe upon his predecessors, Lowndes and Allibone, whom he accuses of wholesale inaccuracy. We are not concerned to defend either of those laborious com- pilers, but we think that in some instances where Mr. Ryland differs from them, the superiority is not conspicuously on his own side. For example, he gives 1669 as the date of the first, authorised edition of the poems of Mrs. Katherine Philips, and turning to both Lowndes and Allibone, we find that the date given by them is 1667. Which is right we do not know, not having had an opportunity of consulting original sources ; but Lowndes and Allibone, at all events, print the authoress's name as we have been accustomed to see it, while in Mr. Ryland's work she figures somewhat apocryphally as " Kate Philips," by which name we hardly recognise "the Matchless Orinda." The second part of Mr. Ryland's volume, being simply an alphabetical list of English authors, together with the dates of their writings, would seem to have been easy enough to prepare; but we cannot award it the praise of thoroughness. It includes living as well as deceased writers, being, in fact, brought up to last year ; but under the letter " M," it seems strange, while mentioning Philip Bourke Marston, to omit a writer of the intellectual stature of Dr. Martineau. Monckton Manes is also absent, nor does he appear as Lord Houghton, though the " H's" include Theodore Hook and other writers of considerably less than front rank. Place is very properly found for Thomas Lovell Beddoes, but he appears solely as the author of The Bride's Tragedy, no reference being made to his Death's Jest-Book, the work by which he has the better chance of being remembered. Among the minor poets now deceased, the names of Darley, Motherwell, Horne, John Clare, Charles Wells, and Julian Fane do not occur in this catalogue, which is too imperfect to be of much value for purposes of reference. Nevertheless, it is only fair to admit that this volume contains a vast mass of admirably arranged facts, testifying to immense labour on the part of their compiler; and we have no reason for supposing that the work does not in general represent such a degree of accuracy as the student has a right to demand.
Mr. McWilliam's Handbook of English Literature traverser; ground which is already pretty well occupied, and is the sort of book which is perhaps easier to criticise than to write. On the whole, young students—whose wants it appears specially designed to meet—will find in its pages a succinct and lucid narrative of the progress of our litera- ture from the first rude beginnings to the present time. Mr. McWilliam's criticisms, as a rule, limit themselves to the intelligent reproduction or condensation of generally accepted verdicts, though occasionally we meet with debateable matter. which should, as far as possible, be avoided in a book like this. For instance, a propos of the Lyrical Ballads, we read that " the finest poem in all the volume " is Wordsworth's " Lines written above Tintern Abbey,"—quite as if " The Ancient Mariner" had no rival claims. And we are told in the same off-band way that " George Eliot did for the Midland Counties of England what Scott did for the Lowlands of Scotland. though with a lower degree of power and beauty." Mr. McWilliam must surely know that the latter part of this state- ment is contested, and therefore inappropriate in a primer of literature. Then, again, in his otherwise well-judged account of the author of The Duchess of MeV, he quotes one of Mr. Swinburne's extravagant eulogies, and the passage is felt to be all the more out of place from its incongruity with Mr. McWilliam's own sober and discriminating estimate of Webster's qualities. Glancing at his chapter on Shakespeare, we are not quite sure that Richard II. is "a less powerful work " than the more popular Richard III., with its greater
amount of bustle and " go ;" while it is somewhat amazing to read that., in The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, Shakespeare " seems to return to his earlier manner." With regard to contemporary allusions to the poet, if Spenser's lines about "our pleasant Willy" are to be quoted at all, the class of readers for whom this book is intended should be told that the reference may be to Lyly. Mr. McWilliam often quotes from well-known critical writers with good effect, but he sometimes yields to the temptation of giving extracts which are rather entertaining than really illustrative. Thus, as a speci- men of Leigh Hunt's qualities, a passage showing that writer's delicacy of appreciation would have been far better than a merely amusing bit of anecdotage. Some small inaccuracies in this volume are perhaps worth correcting. Matthew Arnold is credited with the authorship of a work called Essays on Criticism. The famous Quarterly attack upon Keats is described as having "called forth the indignant Adonais of Shelley." It called forth the passage in that poem beginning "Our Adonais has drunk poison." Charles Lamb is mentioned as having died in 1835. He died on December 27th, 1834. Mr. McWilliam does not always observe due proportion in the contents of his volume, and it is surprising to find no mention whatever of so powerful a literary personality as Landor, while a separate account is given of Rogers. Similarly, in the sketch of American literature, a most inexcusable omission is that of Thoreau, whose writings are surely more important than the rather cver-praised verse of Bryant. We have perhaps taken up too much space with incidental fault-finding, for this "Handbook," despite a few shortcomings, has the merit of giving in brief compass a really readable account of the work and relative positions of nearly all our greatest writers, and its critical summaries are, with rare exceptions, just and sound.
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