: Ephemera Critica; Or Plain Truths About Current Literature by Collins John Churton - Literature History and criticism; Criticism; English literature History and criticism

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THE PRESENT FUNCTIONS OF CRITICISM

As long as men of letters continue to form an intellectual aristocracy, and, stimulated by mutual rivalry, strain every nerve to excel, and as long also as they have no temptation to pander to the crowd, so long will Literature maintain its dignity, and so long will the standard attained in Literature be a high one. In the days of Dryden and Pope, in the days even of Johnson and Gibbon, the greater part of the general public either read nothing, or read nothing but politics and sermons. The few who were interested in Poetry, in Criticism, in History, were, as a rule, those who had received a learned education, men of highly cultivated tastes and of considerable attainments. A writer, therefore, who aspired to contribute to polite literature, had to choose between finding no readers at all, and finding such readers as he was bound to respect--between instant oblivion, and satisfying a class which, composed of scholars, would have turned with contempt from writings unworthy of scholars. A classical style, a refined tone, and an adequate acquaintance with the chief authors of Ancient Rome and of Modern France, were requisites, without which even a periodical essayist would have had small hope of obtaining a hearing. Whoever will turn, we do not say to the papers of Addison and his circle in the early part of the last century, or to those of Chesterfield and his circle later on, but to the average critical work of Cave's and Dodsley's hack writers, cannot fail to be struck with its remarkable merit in point of literary execution.

And as it has grown in favour, it has grown in ambition. It is no longer satisfied with the humble province which it once held, but is extending its dominion in all directions. It has its representatives in every department of Art and Letters. It has its poets, its critics, its philosophers, its historians. It crowds not our club-tables and news-stalls only, but our libraries. Thus what was originally a mere excrescence on literature, in the proper sense of the term, has now assumed proportions so gigantic, that it has not merely overshadowed that literature, but threatens to supersede it.

No thoughtful man can contemplate the present condition of current literature without disgust and alarm. We have still, indeed, lingering among us a few masters whose works would have been an honour to any age; and here and there among writers may be discerned men who are honourably distinguished by a conscientious desire to excel, men who respect themselves, and respect their calling. But to say that these are in the minority, would be to give a very imperfect idea of the proportion which their numbers bear to those who figure most prominently before the public. They are, in truth, as tens are to myriads. Their comparative insignificance is such, that they are powerless even to leaven the mass. The position which they would have occupied half a century ago, and which they may possibly occupy half a century hence, is now usurped by a herd of scribblers who have succeeded, partly by sheer force of numbers, and partly by judicious co-operation, in all but dominating literature. Scarcely a day passes in which some book is not hurried into the world, which owes its existence not to any desire on the part of its author to add to the stores of useful literature, or even to a hope of obtaining money, but simply to that paltry vanity which thrives on the sort of homage of which society of a certain kind is not grudging, and which knows no distinction between notoriety and fame. A few years ago a man who contributed articles to a current periodical, or who delivered a course of lectures, had, as a rule, the good sense to know that when they had fulfilled the purpose for which they were originally intended, the world had no more concern with them, and he would as soon have thought of inflicting them in the shape of a volume on the public, as he would have thought of issuing an edition of his private letters to his friends. Now all is changed. The first article in the creed of a person who has figured in either of these capacities, appears to be, that he is bound to force himself into notice in the character of an author. And this, happily for himself, but unhappily for the interests of literature, he is able to do with perfect facility and with perfect impunity. Books are speedily manufactured and as speedily reduced to pulp. A worthless book may be as easily invested with those superficial attractions which catch the eye of the crowd as a meritorious one. As the general public are the willing dupes of puffers, it is no more difficult to palm off on them the spurious wares of literary charlatans, than it is to beguile them into purchasing the wares of any other kind of charlatan. No one is interested in telling them the truth. Many, on the contrary, are interested in deceiving them. As a rule, the men who write bad books are the men who criticise bad books; and as they know that what they mete out in their capacity of judges to-day is what will in turn be meted out to them in their capacity of authors to-morrow, it is not surprising that the relations between them should be similar to those which Tacitus tells us existed between Vinius and Tigellinus--"nulla innocentiae cura, sed vices impunitatis."

Meanwhile all those vile arts which were formerly confined to the circulators of bad novels and bad poems are practised without shame. It is shocking, it is disgusting to contemplate the devices to which many men of letters will stoop for the sake of exalting themselves into a factitious reputation. They will form cliques for the purpose of mutual puffery. They will descend to the basest methods of self-advertisement. And the evil is fast-spreading. Indeed, things have come to such a pass, that persons of real merit, if they have the misfortune to depend on their pens for a livelihood, must either submit to be elbowed and jostled out of the field, or take part in the same ignoble scramble for notoriety, and the same detestable system of mutual puffery. Thus everything which formerly tended to raise the standard of literary ambition and literary attainment has given place to everything which tends to degrade it. The multitude now stand where the scholar once stood. From the multitude emanate, to the multitude are addressed two-thirds of the publications which pour forth, every year, from our presses.

Viviamo scorti Da mediocrit?: sceso il sapiente, E salita ? la turba a un sol confine Che il mondo agguaglia.

Matthew Arnold very truly observed, that one of the most unfortunate tendencies of our time was the tendency to over-estimate the performances of "the average man." The over-estimation of these performances is no longer a tendency, but an established custom. Literature, in all its branches, is rapidly becoming his monopoly. As judged and judge, as author and critic, there is every indication that he will proceed from triumph to triumph, and establish his cult wherever books are read. Now the only sphere in which "the average man" is entitled to homage is a moral one, and he is most venerable when he is passive and unambitious. But if ambition and the love of fame are awakened in him, he is capable of becoming exceedingly corrupt and of forfeiting every title to veneration. He is capable of resorting to all the devices to which men are forced to resort in manufacturing factitious reputations, to imposture, to fraud, to circulating false currencies of his own, and to assisting others in the circulation of theirs. Even when he is free from these vices, so far as their deliberate practice is concerned, he is scarcely less mischievous, if he be uncontrolled. To say that his standard is never likely to be a high one, either with reference to his own achievements or with reference to what he exacts from others, and to say that the systematic substitution of inferior standards for high ones must affect literature and all that is involved in its influence, most disastrously, is to say what will be generally acknowledged. And he has everything, unhappily, in his favour--numbers, influence, the spirit of the age. For one who sees through him and takes his measure, there are thousands who do not: for one who could discern the justice of an exposure of his shortcomings, there are thousands who would attribute that exposure to personal enmity and to dishonest motives. His power, indeed, is becoming almost irresistible. The one thing which he and his fellows thoroughly understand is the formidable advantage of co-operation. The consequence is that there are probably not half a dozen reviews and newspapers now left which they are not able practically to coerce. An editor is obliged to assume honesty in those who contribute to his columns, and also to avail himself of the services of men who can write good articles, if they write bad books. In the first case, it is not open to him to question the justice of the verdict pronounced; in the second case, the courtesy of the gentleman very naturally and properly predominates, under such circumstances, over public considerations--and how can truth be told? Nor is this all. Assuming that an editor is free from such ties, he has to consult the interests of his paper, to study popularity, and not to estrange those who are, from a commercial point of view, the mainstays of all our literary journals, those who advertise in them,--the publishers. "If," said an editor to me once, "I were to tell the truth, as forcibly as I could wish to do, about the books sent to me for review, in six months my proprietors would be in the bankruptcy court." It is in the power of the publishers to ruin any literary journal. There is probably not a single Review in London which would survive the withdrawal of the publishers' advertisements.

A more honourable class of men than those who form the majority of the London publishers does not exist, nor have the interests of Literature, as distinguished from commercial interests, ever found heartier and more ungrudging support, than they have long found in three or four of the leading firms, and as they are now finding in two or three of the firms which have been more recently established. But, unhappily, this is not everywhere the case. While the firms, to which I have referred, have never, in any way, attempted to interfere with the independence of reviewers, others have made no secret of their intention to make their patronage in advertisement dependent on favourable notices of their publications. The strain of temptation and peril to which editors are thus exposed may be estimated by the fact that, a flattering review may, if supplemented by similar ones, put some three hundred a year into the pockets of their proprietors, while severity and justice would involve a corresponding loss. It need hardly be said that no editor of a respectable review would allow any definite understanding of this kind to exist, or that any publisher would ever dare to suggest it, but there can be no doubt that such considerations have to be taken into account almost universally, and place serious restraint on freedom of judgment.

Another circumstance very favourable to the encouragement of inferiority, and not of inferiority only, but of charlatanism and imposture, is the increasing tendency to regard nothing of importance compared with the spirit of tolerance and charity. An all-embracing philanthropy exempts nothing from its protection. Every one must be good-natured. Severity, we are told, is quite out of fashion. Such censors as the old reviewers are now mere anachronisms. It is vain to plead that tolerance and charity must discriminate; that, like other virtues, they may be abused, and that in their abuse they may become immoral; that there are higher considerations than the feelings of individuals; and that, if to give pain or annoyance admits of no justification but necessity, necessity may exact their infliction as an exigent duty.

If we go a little higher, things are almost as bad, if not quite so ridiculous. In everything but in criticism it is necessary to specialize. A man who posed as an authority on all the literatures of the world, and on the history of every nation in the world, would be very justly set down as an impostor. And yet pretentions which men would be the first to ridicule, as private individuals, they do not scruple to claim, as critics. An historical student enriches History with a volume throwing new and important light on some obscure episode or period; a classical student deserves the gratitude of scholars for an invaluable monograph; English Literature or one of the Continental Literatures is illustrated by a series of dissertations as instructive as they are original; or a truly memorable contribution has been made to political philosophy, to aesthetics, or to ethics. What is their fate? It is by no means improbable that they will be 'reviewed,' in the course of a few days, by the same man for three or four, or it may be for five or six, daily and weekly journals, and their fortune in the market made or marred by a censor who has probably done no more than glance at their half-cut pages, and who, if he had studied them from end to end, would have been no more competent to take their measure than he would have been to write them. This leads, it is needless to say, to every kind of abuse: to works which deserve to be authorities on the subjects of which they treat dropping at once into oblivion, to works which every scholar knows to be below contempt usurping their places; to the deprivation of all stimulus to honourable exertion on the part of authors of ability and industry; to the encouragement of charlatans and fribbles; to gross impositions on the public. A very amusing and edifying record might be compiled partly out of a selection of the various verdicts passed contemporaneously by reviews on particular works, and partly out of comparisons of the subsequent fortunes of works with their fortunes while submitted to this censorship.

But it is not these causes only which contribute to the degradation of criticism. A very important factor is the prevalence, or rather the predominance, of mere prejudice, the prejudice of cliques in favour of cliques, the prejudice of cliques against cliques, the prejudice of the veteran against or in favour of the novice, the subsequent compensation, in corresponding prejudice on the part of the novice, when his novitiate is over. The two things which never seem to be considered are the interests of Literature and the interests of the public. The appearance of a work by the member of a particular coterie is the signal, on the one hand, for a series of preposterously intemperate eulogies, and for a series, on the other hand, of equally intemperate depreciations, in such organs as are accessible to both parties. If a work, with any pretension to originality, by a previously unknown author makes its appearance, it is pretty sure to fare in one of three ways: it will scarcely be noticed at all; it will be made the theme of a philippic against innovating eccentricities and newfangled notions; or it will fall into the hands of a critic who is on the look-out for a "discovery." Its fortune, so far as notoriety is concerned, will, in that case, be made. The critic, thus on his mettle and with his character for discernment at stake, will not only become proportionately vociferous but will rally his equally vociferous partisans. Hyperbole will be heaped on hyperbole, rodomontade on rodomontade, till real merit will be made ridiculous, and the unhappy author awake at last, to assume his true proportions, in a Fool's Paradise.

And to this pass has criticism come, and Literature generally, in almost all its branches, is necessarily following suit. It would be no exaggeration to say, that the sole encouragement now left to authors to produce good books is the satisfaction of their own conscience, and the approbation of a few discerning judges; and this attained, they must starve if their bread depends upon their pen. It is not that a good book will not be praised, but that bad books are praised still more; it is not that it will fail to find fair and competent reviewers, but that for one fair and competent reviewer it will find fifty who are unfair and incompetent. It is on its acceptance, not with the few who can estimate its merits, but with the many who take that estimate on trust from judges, whose competence or incompetence they are equally unable to gauge, that the possibility of a book yielding any return to its author depends. The public neither can nor will distinguish. A book which has two or three favourable press notices which are merited cannot stand against a book having twenty or thirty which are unmerited. Nor is this all. Measured and discriminating eulogy, which means precisely what it expresses, and which is always the note of sound and just criticism, is to the uninitiated poor recommendation compared with that which has no limitation but extremes. How can the still small voice of truth expect to get a hearing amid a bellowing Babel of its undistinguishable mimic? What inducement has an author to aim at excellence, to spend three or four years on a monograph or a history that it may be sold for waste paper, when some miserable compilation, vamped up in as many weeks, will, with a little management, give him notoriety and fill his purse? There is not a scholar, not a discerning reader in England who will not bear me witness when I say that, as a rule, the best books produced in Belles Lettres are those of which the general public knows nothing, and that he has been guided to them sometimes by pure accident, and sometimes, it may be, by a depreciatory notice or curt paragraph in "our library table" limbo. And what does this mean? It means that a writer has discovered that it is impossible for him to have a conscience, or aim at an honourable reputation, unless he can afford to lose money. It means more; it means that publishers are obliged to discourage the production of solid and scholarly works. It is notorious that the Delegates of the Clarendon Press at Oxford, and one or two firms in London, having regard to the honourable traditions of their predecessors, have wished to maintain those traditions by encouraging the production of such works, and have, at a great pecuniary loss, persevered in this ambition. But no publisher can continue to multiply books which do not pay their expenses, and whose sale begins and ends in the remainder market.

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