Page:The Newspaper and the Historian.djvu/380



THHE NEWS T

RIAN

AND THE HISTO

- a failure that has in its turn led to instability in all criticism .115

Given an ideal public trained to demand and to appreciate genuine literary criticism, the question of book reviewing may

be summed up in the words of Robert Lynd who says, “ What seems to be wanted, then , in a book -reviewer is that, without being servile, he should be swift to praise, and that, without being censorious, he should have the courage to blame.” 116 The companion question of criticism may be summed up in

the words of J. C. Collins who concludes that “ Criticism is to Literature what legislation and government are to States. If

they are in able and honest hands all goes well; if they are in weak and dishonest hands all is anarchy and mischief.” 117 Yet for the historian who seeks to use criticism as one means

of reconstructing the past the book review is but the initial step.

He must still look for that larger criticism that in the opinion of Carl Becker has to do with the entire intellectual activity of the time and is therefore concerned with books only as they

aptly illustrate some aspect of this larger subject.118 Dramatic criticism in the press is a comparatively recent

development. “ The production,” says John Underhill, “ of a new play by a Dryden or by an Etherege, interesting as it was to a playgoer like Pepys, does not appear to have been thought

sufficiently important to merit a single line in any contemporary news-sheet.” 119 In the eighteenth century present conditions 115 R. Bagot deplores the lack of an organized system of criticism in the press and proposes a body chosen from the most capable critics to sift the tares of fiction from the wheat and become in effect a clearing-house for

fiction. — “ The Reviewing of Fiction ,” Nineteenth Century and After, Feb ruary, 1906 , 59 : 288 – 297. Many practical difficulties would seem

to prevent the organization of

such a body, while a perverse novel-reading public would probably object to the overthrow of a system that has produced “ the six best sellers.” Two opposing views of the subject are given by William Knight, “ Criti

cism as a Trade,” and A. J. Church, “ Criticism as a Trade. A Reply ," Nineteenth Century, September, November, 1889, 26 : 423- 430 , 833 -839. Archdeacon Farrar somewhat ostentatiously disclaims that he is himself

a reviewer and attacks literary criticism in " The Nether World ,” Contem porary Review, September, 1889, 56 : 370 - 380.

116 “ Book -Reviewing,” The British Review, April, 1915 , 10 : 92– 106. 117 J. C. Collins, “ The Present Functions of Criticism ,” Ephemera Critica , pp. 13 - 44.

118 “ The Reviewing of Historical Books,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1912, pp. 127- 136 . 119 Athenian Oracle, p.