Forgive the length of my discourse, Gentlemen. It is right, I think, that our sister-Universities should feel one for the other’s pride, one for the other’s wound.
I
To take up our tale—
It has already been objected against these lectures on Dickens—or against such parts of them as the newspapers honour me by quoting—that they treat Dickens as a genius of the first class. That term has little meaning for me who seldom or never think—can hardly bring myself to think—of great men in class-lists, in terms of a Tripos. (I reserve that somewhat crude method of criticism to practise it upon those who are going to be great men; and even so—if you will credit me—derive scant enjoyment from it.) But I foresaw the objection, and forestalled it by quoting a famous saying of Tasso, and I take my stand on that: as I take not the smallest interest in weighing Chaucer against Pope, Shakespeare against Milton, Scott against Burns, or Dickens against Thackeray. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Scott, Dickens—their other qualities apart—are grand creators, lords of literature all, by this specific virtue; and, were there sense in challenging, with this quadriga alone we could securely challenge any literature in any living tongue. Note you, moreover: it is to this creative power that other artists less creative, but great and therefore generous, instinctively pay homage: Dryden, for instance, or Byron:
’Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense that we endow
With form our fancy, gaining as we give
The life we image, even as I do now.
What am I? Nothing: but not so art thou,
Soul of my thought!...