Adventures in Criticism

Adventures in Criticism, by Sir
Arthur Thomas

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Thomas Quiller-Couch
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Title: Adventures in Criticism
Author: Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Release Date: January 3, 2006 [eBook #17452]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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ADVENTURES IN CRITICISM***
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Transcriber's Note: Brief Greek phrases appear in the original text in
three places. They have been transliterated and placed between
+marks+.

ADVENTURES IN CRITICISM
by
A. T. QUILLER-COUCH

New York Charles Scribner's Sons Copyright, 1896 Trow Directory
Printing and Bookbinding Company New York

To
A.B. WALKLEY
MY DEAR A.B.W.
The short papers which follow have been reprinted, with a few
alterations, from The Speaker. Possibly you knew this without my
telling you. Possibly, too, you have sat in a theatre before now and seen
the curtain rise on two characters exchanging information which must
have been their common property for years. So this dedication is partly
designed to save me the trouble of writing a formal preface.
As I remember then, Adam, it was upon this fashion bequeathed us by
destiny to write side by side in The Speaker every week, you about
Plays and I about Books. Three years ago you found time to arrange a
few of your writings in a notable volume of Playhouse Impressions.
Some months ago I searched the files of the paper with a similar design,
and read my way through an astonishing amount of my own
composition. Noble edifice of toil! It stretched away in imposing
proportions and vanishing perspective--week upon week--two columns

to the week! The mischief was, it did not appear to lead to anything:
and for the first mile or two even the casual graces of the colonnade
were hopelessly marred through that besetting fault of the young
journalist, who finds no satisfaction in his business of making bricks
without straw unless he can go straightway and heave them at
somebody.
Still (to drop metaphor), I have chosen some papers which I hope may
be worth a second reading. They are fragmentary, by force of the
conditions under which they were produced: but perhaps the fragments
may here and there suggest the outline of a first principle. And I
dedicate the book to you because it would be strange if the time during
which we have appeared in print side by side had brought no sense of
comradeship. Though, in fact, we live far apart and seldom get speech
together, more than one of these papers--ostensibly addressed to
anybody whom they might concern--has been privately, if but
sub-consciously, intended for you.
A.T.Q.C.

CONTENTS
CHAUCER 1
"THE PASSIONATE PILGRIM" 29
SHAKESPEARE'S LYRICS 39
SAMUEL DANIEL 48
WILLIAM BROWNE 59
THOMAS CAREW 67
"ROBINSON CRUSOE" 75
LAWRENCE STERNE 90

SCOTT AND BURNS 103
CHARLES READE 124
HENRY KINGSLEY 131
ALEXANDER WILLIAM KINGLAKE 141
C.S.C. AND J.K.S 147
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 156
M. ZOLA 192
SELECTION 198
EXTERNALS 204
CLUB TALK 222
EXCURSIONISTS IN POETRY 229
THE POPULAR CONCEPTION OF A POET 235
POETS ON THEIR OWN ART 245
THE ATTITUDE OF THE
PUBLIC TOWARDS LETTERS 254
A CASE OF BOOKSTALL CENSORSHIP 267
THE POOR LITTLE PENNY DREADFUL 276
IBSEN'S "PEER GYNT" 283
MR. SWINBURNE'S LATER MANNER 297
A MORNING WITH A BOOK 306

MR. JOHN DAVIDSON 314
BJOERNSTERNE BJOERNSON 332
MR. GEORGE MOORE 341
MRS. MARGARET L. WOODS 349
MR. HALL CAINE 368
MR. ANTHONY HOPE 377
"TRILBY" 384
MR. STOCKTON 391
BOW-WOW 399
OF SEASONABLE NUMBERS 404

ADVENTURES IN CRITICISM

CHAUCER
March 17, 1894. Professor Skeat's Chaucer.
After twenty-five years of close toil, Professor Skeat has completed his
great edition of Chaucer.[A] It is obviously easier to be dithyrambic
than critical in chronicling this event; to which indeed dithyrambs are
more appropriate than criticism. For when a man writes Opus vitae
meae at the conclusion of such a task as this, and so lays down his pen,
he must be a churl (even if he be also a competent critic) who will
allow no pause for admiration. And where, churl or no churl, is the
competent critic to be found? The Professor has here compiled an
entirely new text of Chaucer, founded solely on the manuscripts and the
earliest printed editions that are accessible. Where Chaucer has

translated, the originals have been carefully studied: "the requirements
of metre and grammar have been carefully considered throughout": and
"the phonology and spelling of every word have received particular
attention." We