[1002]. 2 vols., London, 1887.

[1003]. Such as even Gautier.

[1004]. This sensibleness, no doubt, ought always to characterise the “Tertium Quid” or “cross-bench” mind. It is equally indubitable that it most commonly does not.

[1005]. T. Q., vol. ii.

[1006]. I do not take special notice of R. L. Stevenson here, because his criticism, in any formal shape, belongs mainly to the earlier and tentative stage of his work, and never, to my fancy, had much fixity or grip, interesting and stimulating as it is. I ventured to tell him, when I met him first, after the appearance of The New Arabian Nights in London, that here was Apollo waiting for him, not there: and I hold to the view. Others, such as Mr Henley (with whom also I rowed in that galley—a tight and saucy one, if not exactly a galère capitaine), Mr Robert Buchanan, Sir Leslie Stephen, Prof. Bain, have passed away too recently; and yet others must fall into the numerus.

CHAPTER IV.
LATER GERMAN CRITICISM.

[HEINE: DECEPTIVENESS OF HIS CRITICISM]—[IN THE ‘ROMANTISCHE SCHULE,’ AND ELSEWHERE]—[THE QUALITIES AND DELIGHTS OF IT]—[SCHOPENHAUER]—[VIVIDNESS AND ORIGINALITY OF HIS CRITICAL OBSERVATION]—[‘DIE WELT ALS WILLE,’ ETC.]—[GRILLPARZER]—[HIS MOTTO IN CRITICISM]—[HIS RESULTS IN APHORISM], [AND IN INDIVIDUAL JUDGMENT]—[A CRITIC OF LIMITATIONS: BUT A CRITIC]—[CARRIÈRE: HIS ‘ÆSTHETIK’]—[LATER GERMAN SHAKESPEARE-CRITICS]—[GERVINUS: HIS “GERMAN POETRY”]—[ON BÜRGER]—[THE SHAKESPEARE-HERETICS: RÜMELIN]—[FREYTAG]—[HILLEBRAND AND COSMOPOLITAN CRITICISM]—[NIETZSCHE]—[‘ZARATHUSTRA,’ THE ‘BIRTH OF TRAGEDY,’ AND ‘DER FALL WAGNER’]—[‘UNZEITGEMÄSSE BETRACHTUNGEN’]—[‘LA GAYA SCIENZA’]—[‘JENSEITS VON GUT UND BÖSE,’ ETC.]—[‘GÖTZEN-DÄMMERUNG’]—[HIS GENERAL CRITICAL POSITION].

The volume of critical writing in Germany since Goethe’s death, and the deaths of those younger contemporaries of his, like Tieck and A. W. Schlegel, who were mentioned in our last chapter on the subject,[[1007]] has been, of course, very great. The unceasing literary and scientific industry of the nation (with, in particular, the habit of the doctoral thesis forming almost an obligatory part of the regular education of any man pretending to culture) has made books of more or less critical intent and content as the sands of the sea. Yet the determination of the national critical temperament towards abstract æsthetic, or towards the most rudimentary and literal duties of Quellenforschung, of tabulation of rhyme and word-form, and the like, together with the custom (most fatal of all those encouraged by the thesis habit) of constantly “shoddying-up” former inquiries into fresher form, has prevented much of the very best kind of work from being done. If it were not for Heine, Schopenhauer, and one other who may come more as a surprise, in the earlier part, and the singular, erratic, and mainly wasted genius of Nietzsche in the later, this chapter would cut a very rueful figure beside most others in the book. Nor was any one of these primarily a literary critic.[[1008]]

Heine: deceptiveness of his criticism.