12

have not been exhausted when reference has been made to the light which it has thrown on linguistic obscurities: it has contributed in no small measure to the elucidation of difficulties of long standing in the domain of ancient history. What, for instance, can be of greater interest to a student of Roman history than recent attempts to widen our knowledge of the state of early civilisation in Italy and to pronounce upon the disputed question of the existence of a Graeco-Italian family, by means of a careful comparison of certain Latin and Greek words in the light of well-established philological principles ? We are beginning to see the fulfilment of Bacon's prophecy that the comparative study of languages would, in time, throw light on the dispositions and manners of nations. As philology attains to more of the well-ordered regularity of a science and becomes less a matter of guess-work, it may be expected to become more and more useful to the historian as well as to the student of language proper. It would not be amiss if some informal instruction in comparative philology were given at an earlier period of classical training than is usual. It is a mistake to suppose that young lads would take no interest in the comparison of similar words in different languages and in the exhibition of an unsuspected connexion between dissimilar words in the same language. The detective instinct is strong in boys. There are some classical students who could speak from experience of the fascination exercised over them by the discovery from the chance perusal of an article in an encyclopedia, that the vocabularies of various languages are not a number of cast-iron masses, produced simultaneously and once for all from distinct moulds in a huge international linguistic foundry.

Some knowledge of the methods and results of textual criticism is also a desirable acquisition for the classical scholar, though it would not be a profitable study for school-boys. It is obvious that the most subtle literary criticism of the works of the classical authors requires as a necessary preliminary an approximate knowledge, at least, of what the classical authors really wrote, and this foundation can only be laid by minute textual criticism. So far, then, from sneering at textual critics, the man who cherishes any sincere love for the Classics should rather feel himself deeply indebted to them as to pioneers entrusted with an honourable though irksome task. "That wide reading and erudition," wrote Bentley, "that knowledge of all Greek and Latin antiquity, in which the commentaries have their very essence, are merely subordinate aids to textual criticism. A man should have all that at his fingers' ends, before he can venture, without insane rashness, to pass criticism on any ancient author. But, besides this, there is need of the keenest judgment, of sagacity and quickness, of a certain divining tact and inspiration, as was said of Aristarchus, a faculty which can

13

be acquired by no constancy of toil or length of life, but comes solely by the gift of nature and the happy star." Seeing that it would be "insane rashness to assume the rôle of a textual critic without a profound knowledge of all Greek and Latin antiquity, it would evidently be the very height of madness for any one not so qualified to attempt to indicate the precepts that should guide all scholars who undertake the revision of the

classical texts.

But there is such a thing as a Greek literature as well as a Greek language. The exquisite workmanship of the key should not tempt us to forget the priceless treasures concealed in the casket. If Socrates and Plato talked nonsense, as Bentham thought, they talked it in such a delightful style that their example may be commended to the attention of talkers of sense, the wide world over, who may wish their own words of wisdom to reach the ear of posterity. Since, therefore, we have in the writings of classical antiquity the noblest models of literary perfection, that classical culture would hardly deserve the name which should be concerned about the study of the classical authors as monuments of language and neglect to regard them as an unrivalled expression of genius and art. The chief objections to the study of the Classics as literature are not based upon any disrespect for their literary value, but arise from a conception of the difficulties which exist, or are supposed to exist, in the actual teaching of literature. It has been urged that it is impossible to examine in literature as distinct from language, and this, in an age when the examiner is a person of far greater authority than the teacher, is considered to be a fatal objection. The framers of schemes of examination, however, have already shown so great ingenuity that it would be an undeserved aspersion on the keenness of their faculties to suggest that they would find this difficulty insuperable, if they were once to give their minds to a serious study of the problem. At any rate, an attempt at the solution of this question does not necessarily come within the purview of an essay on the right method of studying—and not, it may be well to add at the risk of tautology, of examining and being examined in-the classical authors. It is from the care and thought of teachers of Greek and Latin that most is to be hoped for in the direction of promoting the study of literature as literature. As a rule, the editors of school editions of the Classics shrink nervously from the responsibility of committing themselves to any opinion on the merits of their author except such as the student himself could adequately form by reference to his grammar and dictionary. Attempts to point out the aesthetic value of classical writers, both in ancient and modern tongues, have been contemptuously scouted as "sign-post criticisms" and as "turning the commentator into a showman." And what alarming results would follow if the commentator were turned into a showman?

14

As though, forsooth, it would be a degradation to an honourable man to act as showman to Homer or Virgil! The most cultivated scholar might well be proud of the office. As a matter of fact, every grammatical commentator is already a showman, showing not how far the thought or execution of the author is a model for such modern readers as aspire to some worthy performance in literary art, but how far his grammatical constructions may be safely imitated by a candidate who aims at high marks for prose composition. The attendant who relates to a gaping crowd at a menagerie the amount of meat and drink consumed daily by the giraffe under his care, or the proportion between its waking and sleeping hours, is as much a showman as the zoologist who introduces an audience of scientific students to the higher criticism of the same animal. Of course, it would be absurd to publish comments which simply declared of a passage in Sophocles "This is a very fine chorus," or of a line in Aristophanes "This is an extraordinarily funny joke," but surely all the possibilities of literary criticism are not exhausted by annotations of this nature. The fact that literary abilities considerably above the average are needed for the compilation of editions of the desired type is not an argument against the undertaking of such a task: the moral that it points is simply that the possession of a good degree is not a sufficient qualification for the preparation of satisfactory editions of the classics, even for school use. There can be no doubt that any loudlyexpressed demand would not fail to bring to light a supply of competent editors. Even at present, men who have won distinction by original literary work of a very high order have not considered it beneath them to compile working editions of French and English Classics, and it can hardly be supposed that they would take less interest in the promotion of an intelligent appreciation of the masterpieces of antiquity. As to the fear that has sometimes been expressed lest such criticism would substitute, for the independent effort of a reader to understand an author, a second-hand opinion greatly inferior in educational value, that, too, is an argument not against literary criticism but against literary criticism of the wrong sort. Readers who aim at attaining a correct taste in literature must have some guidance, and all guidance comes from without. Otherwise, the right method of education would be to let a student loose in a large library, in order that after indulging in the promiscuous reading of everything that came nearest his hand, he might emerge with a well-formed literary taste, the result of purely independent study and reflection. The question "Understandest thou what thou readest?" must still provoke the reply "How can I, except some man should guide me? No doubt it would

be possible for a literary commentary to be written in such a way as to save the student the trouble of thinking for himself, just as it is possible for a grammatical or historical commentary

15

to make original application a thing to be dispensed with; but that is no reason for a ruthless exclusion of literary, any more than grammatical or historical, exposition. Even in the supposed case of a commentary that informs without suggesting, it would be better for a student to know, merely on the authority of an editor, that the poet he happens to be studying possesses such-and-such literary merits, than to go right through the author without having the least glimmering of an idea that poetry is concerned about literary merits at all. But the most useful and stimulating aesthetic instruction, however excellent might be the editions in use, must always be that which the student gains from reading an author with a schoolmaster or tutor of fine literary feeling. No printed criticism can be such a powerful instrument of education as the living voice of a teacher who has felt the pulse of his pupil and can feed him with strong meat or with milk, as may be more expedient for him. By students who for any reason are deprived of this privilege much insight into the true meaning of classical literature may be gained from reading, in conjunction with the study of the classical texts, the best of the many recent volumes dealing with the literary side of the Greek and Latin authors. Such a course might easily be made to lead up to a study of more profound critics, such as Lessing. The ordinary educational curriculum should, at any rate, admit to a more prominent place the critical writings of Aristotle, Longinus, Quintilian and other showmen and sign-post critics of antiquity.

The representation of the classical dramas upon the stage may be mentioned as an aid to their true appreciation. The experiment has been tried often enough to show that it communicates a new and living interest to classical study. It drives into the heads of the spectators the wholesome knowledge that Aeschylus and Sophocles did not write for the special purpose of being read by a man seated at a table, with a Liddell and Scott " at one elbow, a note-book at the other, and a student's lamp in front of him. To make the Greek plays live again upon the boards is to bring out unsuspected beauties, and to give some insight into what they were when first produced before a crowded theatre of Athenians.

66

The advantage that the study of classical literature may derive from a co-ordinate study of the literatures of modern Europe, and especially of that of our own country, deserves some consideration, A confirmed sufferer from the not extinct disease of neophobia might suggest that the only effect of an acquaintance with modern literature would be to send the student back to the ancient Classics with a stronger conviction that no subsequent writings are worthy to be named in the same breath with them. But the literature of modern times is something more than a foil to set off the superior wisdom of the ancients. This is not the place to discuss the desirability of the

16

study of English literature in itself as part of an Englishman's education, or to enquire whether such a study should or should not be based on that of the Greek and Latin classics; but it may appropriately be considered whether the study of classical literature, as literature, would gain from association with it. Professor Huxley has expressed the opinion that English literature would supply those models of style in which the classical literatures are unfortunately lacking. "I mark,” he says, "among distinguished contemporary speakers and writers of English, saturated with antiquity, not a few to whom, it seems to me, that (sic) the study of Hobbes might possibly have taught dignity; of Swift, concision and clearness; of Goldsmith and Defoe, simplicity." We may naturally ask whether, if a man has failed to acquire dignity from Virgil and Cicero, he is likely to learn it from Hobbes; whether, if he has caught neither "concision" from Tacitus nor clearness from Livy, he may be expected to imbibe both these qualities simultaneously from Swift; and whether Goldsmith and Defoe have any power to reveal the secret of simplicity to him that has had no skill to find it in Homer. Whatever opinions may be held, however, respecting the value of the study of English literature as supplying the imperfections of a classical course, it should be recognised that classical study itself would probably be quickened and expanded by being associated with a course of reading which must be treated as literature if it is not to become entirely odious and intolerable. There is a unity of literature as well as of history. The combined study of ancient and modern literatures will remind the student that the masterpieces of antiquity "are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of Life in them to be as active as that Soule was whose progeny they are;" that the influence of their writers was not ephemeral; that Homer and Plato were no meteors, lighting up with dazzling brightness one fortunate age of the world's history and then disappearing for ever into blackness of darkness, but that the light which they kindled has been handed on from generation to generation by faithful successors for the illumination of later days. He will learn that there is in Greek and Latin literature a spirit that has vitalized and a spell that has charmed the noblest minds of all following times; that nearly every revival in modern literature has drawn much of its inspiration from some renewal of love for the ancient Classics. He will not wonder that a modern critic summed up his account of the Renaissance by saying that then "for the first time men opened their eyes and saw."

What keen interest, for instance, would be imparted to the study of Plato's exposition of the doctrine of avάurnois by comparison with Wordsworth's Ode on Immortality! How vividly Pindar could be illustrated by Gray, Sophocles by Shakespeare, Horace and Ovid by Pope, Cicero by Burke, and