The Art of Letters

The Art of Letters, by Robert
Lynd

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Art of Letters, by Robert Lynd
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

Title: The Art of Letters
Author: Robert Lynd
Release Date: October 16, 2004 [eBook #13764]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ART
OF LETTERS***
E-text prepared by Produced by Ted Garvin, Barbara Tozier, and the
Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

THE ART OF LETTERS
by

ROBERT LYND
New York
1921

TO J.C. SQUIRE
My Dear Jack,
You were godfather to a good many of the chapters in this book when
they first appeared in the London Mercury, the New Statesman, and the
British Review. Others of the chapters appeared in the Daily News, the
Nation, the Athenæum, the Observer, and Everyman. Will it embarrass
you if I now present you with the entire brood in the name of a
friendship that has lasted many midnights?
Yours,
Robert Lynd.
Steyning,
30th August 1920

CONTENTS
I. MR. PEPYS
II. JOHN BUNYAN
III. THOMAS CAMPION
IV. JOHN DONNE
V. HORACE WALPOLE

VI. WILLIAM COWPER
VII. A NOTE ON ELIZABETHAN PLAYS
VIII. THE OFFICE OF THE POETS
IX. EDWARD YOUNG AS CRITIC
X. GRAY AND COLLINS
XI. ASPECTS OF SHELLEY (1) THE CHARACTER HALF-COMIC
(2) THE EXPERIMENTALIST (3) THE POET OF HOPE
XII. THE WISDOM OF COLERIDGE (1) COLERIDGE AS CRITIC
(2) COLERIDGE AS A TALKER
XIII. TENNYSON: A TEMPORARY CRITICISM
XIV. THE POLITICS OF SWIFT AND SHAKESPEARE (1) SWIFT
(2) SHAKESPEARE
XV. THE PERSONALITY OF MORRIS
XVI. GEORGE MEREDITH (1) THE EGOIST (2) THE OLYMPIAN
UNBENDS (3) THE ANGLO-IRISH ASPECT
XVII. OSCAR WILDE
XVIII. TWO ENGLISH CRITICS (1) MR. SAINTSBURY (2) MR.
GOSSE
XIX. AN AMERICAN CRITIC: PROFESSOR IRVING BABBIT
XX. GEORGIANS (1) MR. DE LA MARE (2) THE GROUP (3) THE
YOUNG SATIRISTS
XXI. LABOUR OF AUTHORSHIP
XXII. THE THEORY OF POETRY

XXIII. THE CRITIC AS DESTROYER
XXIV. BOOK REVIEWING

THE ART OF LETTERS

I.--MR. PEPYS
Mr. Pepys was a Puritan. Froude once painted a portrait of Bunyan as
an old Cavalier. He almost persuaded one that it was true till the later
discovery of Bunyan's name on the muster-roll of one of Cromwell's
regiments showed that he had been a Puritan from the beginning. If one
calls Mr. Pepys a Puritan, however, one does not do so for the love of
paradox or at a guess. He tells us himself that he "was a great
Roundhead when I was a boy," and that, on the day on which King
Charles was beheaded, he said: "Were I to preach on him, my text
should be--'the memory of the wicked shall rot.'" After the Restoration
he was uneasy lest his old schoolfellow, Mr. Christmas, should
remember these strong words. True, when it came to the turn of the
Puritans to suffer, he went, with a fine impartiality, to see General
Harrison disembowelled at Charing Cross. "Thus it was my chance," he
comments, "to see the King beheaded at White Hall, and to see the first
blood shed in revenge for the blood of the King at Charing Cross. From
thence to my Lord's, and took Captain Cuttance and Mr. Shepley to the
Sun Tavern, and did give them some oysters." Pepys was a spectator
and a gourmet even more than he was a Puritan. He was a Puritan,
indeed, only north-north-west. Even when at Cambridge he gave
evidence of certain susceptibilities to the sins of the flesh. He was
"admonished" on one occasion for "having been scandalously
overserved with drink ye night before." He even began to write a
romance entitled Love a Cheate, which he tore up ten years later,
though he "liked it very well." At the same time his writing never lost
the tang of Puritan speech. "Blessed be God" are the first words of his
shocking Diary. When he had to give up keeping the Diary nine and a
half years later, owing to failing sight, he wound up, after expressing

his intention of dictating in the future a more seemly journal to an
amanuensis, with the characteristic sentences:
Or, if there be anything, which cannot be much, now my amours to Deb.
are past, I must endeavour to keep a margin in my book open, to add,
here and there, a note in shorthand with my own hand.
And so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to
see myself go into my grave; for which, and all the discomforts that
will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare