ing to end; and hence a worse evil afflicts us, that
the English schoolboy starts with a false perspective of any given
masterpiece, his pedagogue urging, obtruding lesser things upon his
vision until what is really important, the poem or the play itself, is
seen in distorted glimpses, if not quite blocked out of view.

This same temptation--to remove a work of art from the category for which
the author designed it into another where it can be more conveniently
studied--reaches even above the schoolmaster to assail some very eminent
critics. I cite an example from a book of which I shall hereafter have to
speak with gratitude as I shall always name it with respect--"The History
of English Poetry," by Dr Courthope, sometime Professor of Poetry at
Oxford. In his fourth volume, and in his estimate of Fletcher as a
dramatist, I find this passage:--

But the crucial test of a play's quality is only applied when it is
read. So long as the illusion of the stage gives credit to the
action, and the words and gestures of the actor impose themselves on
the imagination of the spectator, the latter will pass over a
thousand imperfections, which reveal themselves to the reader, who,
as he has to satisfy himself with the drama of silent images, will
nor be content if this or that in any way fall short of his
conception of truth and nature,

--which seems equivalent to saying that the crucial test of the frieze of
the Parthenon is its adaptability to an apartment in Bloomsbury. So long
as the illusion of the Acropolis gave credit to Pheidias' design, and the
sunlight of Attica imposed its delicate intended shadows edging the
reliefs, the countrymen of Pericles might be tricked; but the visitor to
the British Museum, as he has to satisfy himself with what happens
indoors in the atmosphere of the West Central Postal Division of London,
will not be content if Pheidias in any way fall short of _his_ conception
of truth and nature. Yet Fletcher (I take it) constructed his plays as
plays; the illusion of the stage, the persuasiveness of the actor's
voice, were conditions for which he wrought, and on which he had a right
to rely; and, in short, any critic behaves uncritically who, distrusting
his imagination to recreate the play as a play, elects to consider it in
the category of something else.

In sum, if the great authors never oppress us with airs of condescension,
but, like the great lords they