Page:Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lamb, etc., being selections from the Remains of Henry Crabb Robinson.djvu/23

INTRODUCTION from himself—many of them very long. These range over Robinson's whole life, some of them being family letters of earlier date. In addition there are 28 volumes containing Journals of Tours, and various volumes and bundles of miscellanea. We know from the Diary that, nevertheless, much time was spent by Robinson towards the end of his life in the destruction of papers and of letters which he thought would prove valueless to posterity. It cannot be claimed that everything which is preserved merits publication. Inevitably, much in so detailed a Diary must for us who come after be unprofitable reading. People of importance in their day, or events and discussions which once loomed large, have ceased to be interesting. We do not want to know exactly where Robinson visited and dined on every one of 365 days every year. The part he took as a young man in debates, or later on in law-suits as a practising barrister, or in discussions throughout his life; his services as mediator between his friends, or as adviser and guide to all and sundry; his errors, real and imaginary, of omission and commission—some of this indubitably could be spared vrith advantage. But the man who emerges from this mass of material is, nevertheless, a lovable personality—no Boswell certainly, but one who possessed a genuine gift for characterization, an instinct for friendship, and the power to stamp himself and his experience with extraordinary vividness on his pages. This is no mere prosy raconteur, unable to distinguish between small things and great; no shorthand reporter taking indiscriminate notes of what passes before his eyes. The man has a mind of his own; he has critical ability and the power to estimate the worth of new works, prose or poetry, good as well as bad. In 1820 he was already hailing Keats as a great poet; he at once recognized the value of Macaulay's history; long before he knew the name of their author he, like the rest of the world, was devouring the Waverley Novels, but, unlike most people, with an instinctive preference for the more successful of them. Kenilworth and Ivanhoe, for example, are recognized as definitely inferior to the Heart of Midlothian