It was his constant endeavour to understand the underlying motive in any phase of modern literature; and he believed that “what is new in literature is not so likely to be unfit for critics, as critics are likely to be unfit for what is new in literature.” Concerning the art of Criticism he expressed his belief in an unfinished article: “When I speak of Criticism I have in mind not merely the more or less deft use of commentary or indication, but one of the several ways of literature and in itself a rare and fine art, the marriage of science that knows, and of spirit that discerns.”
“The basis of Criticism is imagination: its spiritual quality is sympathy: its intellectual distinction is balance.”
The occasion of his visit to Mr. Ernest Rhys was in connection with a scheme for the publication of two series of cheap re-issues of fine literature—a comparatively new venture five-and-twenty years ago—to be published by Messrs. Walter Scott: The Camelot Classics to be edited by Ernest Rhys and to consist of selected prose writings, and The Canterbury Poets to be edited by William Sharp;—Each volume to be prefaced by a specially written introduction. For the Prose Series William Sharp prepared De Quincey’s Confessions of an Opium Eater, and Mrs. Cunningham’s Great English Painters. For a third series—Biographies of Great Writers edited by Eric S. Robertson and Frank T. Marzial, he wrote his monographs on Shelley in 1887, on Heine in 1888 and on Browning in 1890.
Meanwhile he contributed a volume from time to time to The Canterbury Poets, among others: Collections of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, Great Odes, American Sonnets, and his Collection of English Sonnets. In preparing the Edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets he consulted Mr. Edward Dowden on one or two points and received the following reply:
Davos Platz, Dec. 6, 1885.
Dear Mr. Sharp,
The most welcome gift of your Songs, Poems and Sonnets of Shakespeare reached me to-night. I have already looked it quickly through, and have seen enough to know that this volume will be my constant companion in future upon all my wanderings. Comparisons are odious. So I will not make a list of the other travelling companions, which your edition of Shakespeare’s lyrics is destined to supersede.
I will only tell you why yours has the right to supersede them. First and foremost, it is more scientifically complete.
Secondly, it is invaluable in its preservation of the play-atmosphere, by such introductory snatches as you insert e. g. on p. 20. Hitherto, we had often yearned in our Shakespearean anthologies for a whiff of the play from which the songs were torn. You have given this just where it was needed, and else not. That is right.
Thirdly, the Preface (to my mind at least) is more humanly and humanely true about Shakespeare’s attitude in the Sonnets than anything which has yet been written about them.