Page:Appreciations of Horace Howard Furness.djvu/31



HORACE HOWARD FURNESS

ONJECTURAL criticism,' observes Dr. Johnson, 'demands more than humanity possesses, and he that exercises it with most praise has very frequent need of indulgence. Let us now be told no more of the dull duty of an editor.'

With these words of soberness ringing in his ears, Dr. Furness began more than forty years ago the vast labor which has placed him at the head of Shakespearean scholars, and has made the student world his debtor. He brought to bear upon his task qualities essential to its completion: patience, balance, a wide acquaintance with Elizabethan literature and phraseology, the keenness of a greyhound on the track, an incorruptible sense of proportion, and an appreciation, equally just and generous, of his predecessors' work. Leisure and that rarest of fortune's gifts, the command of solitude, made possible the industry of his life. Above all, a noble enthusiasm sustained him through years of incredible drudgery. 'The dull duty of an editor'! Well may Dr. Johnson heap scorn upon the words. When one is fitted by nature to enjoy the pleasure which perfection in literary art can give: one does not find it dull to live face to face