for proved, by the younger generation--to wit, the
complaint that Scott is 'commonplace' and 'conventional,' not merely in
thought, but in expression. As to the thought, that is best met by the
reply churlish, if not even by the reproof valiant. Scott's thought is
never commonplace, and never merely conventional: it can only seem so to
those who have given their own judgments in bondage to a conventional
and temporary cant of unconventionality. In respect of expression, the
complaint will admit of some argument which may best take the form of
example. It is perfectly true that Scott's expression is not
'quintessenced'--that it has to a hasty eye an air of lacking what is
called distinction; and, especially, that it has no very definite savour
of any particular time. At present, as at other periods during the
recorded story of literature, there is a marked preference for all these
things which it is not; and so Scott is, with certain persons, in
disfavour accordingly. But it so happens that the study of this now
long record of literature is itself sufficient to convince anyone how
treacherous the tests thus suggested are. There never, for instance, was
an English writer fuller of all the marks which these, our younger
critics, desiderate in Scott, and admire in some authors of our own day,
than John Lyly, the author of _Euphues_, of a large handful of very
charming and interesting court dramas, and of some delightful lyrics.
Those who have to teach literature impress the importance, and try to
impress the interest, of Lyly on students and readers, and they do
right. For he was a man not merely of talent, but (with respect to my
friend Mr. Courthope, who thinks differently), I think, of genius. He
had a poetical fancy, a keen and biting wit, a fairly exact proficiency
in the scholarship of his time. He eschewed the obvious, the commonplace
in thought, and still more in style, as passionately as any man ever has
eschewed it, and, having not merely will and delicacy, but power, he not
only achieved an immense temporary popularity, but even influenced the
English language permanently. Yet--and those who thus praise him know
it--he, the apostle of ornate prose, the model of a whole generation of
the greatest wits that England has seen, the master of Shakespeare in
more things than one, including romantic comedy, the originator of the
English analytic novel, the 'raiser' (as I think they call it) 'of his
native language to a hig