[20] Books Worth Reading. A Plea for the Best and an Essay towards Selection, with Short Introductions. By Frank W. Raffety, London.
Were it not for its melancholy significance, this would be one of the most amusing books which it has ever been our fortune to meet with. Of Mr. Frank W. Raffety we have not the honour to know anything, except what we have gathered from this little volume and from its title-page. But he must be a singularly interesting gentleman. His enthusiasm for books, his portentous ignorance of them; his strenuous desire to improve the popular taste by pleading for the best, his instinctive tendency to make in all cases for the worst; his sublime intolerance of everything in literature which falls short of excellence, his more than sublime indifference to the commonest rules of grammar and syntax in expressing that intolerance; the naïveté, the frankness, the recklessness with which he displays his incompetence for the task which he has undertaken—in these qualifications and accomplishments Mr. Raffety is not perhaps alone, but he has certainly no superior.
Mr. Raffety aspires to guide his readers through the chief literatures of the world. Now the task of a reviewer, who has a conscience, is not always a cheerful one, and we confess that, when we had generally surveyed Mr. Raffety's work, we resolved to amuse ourselves by trying to discover of which of the literatures, to which Mr. Raffety constitutes himself a guide, Mr. Raffety is probably most ignorant. It is a nice point. Let our readers judge. We will begin with Mr. Raffety and the Classics. Of Theognis, the most voluminous of the Greek Gnomic poets, it is said that "only a few sentences"—Mr. Raffety is presumably under the impression that Theognis wrote in prose—"quoted in the works of Plato and others survive." "The Greek Anthology," we are astounded to learn, "is by Lord Neaves" and "is one of the best volumes in the A.C.E.R. series." What Mr. Raffety no doubt means is, that Lord Neaves is the author of a monograph on the Greek anthology, as he certainly was. With regard to Herodotus, Mr. Raffety has evidently got some information not generally accessible. His History, we are told, "is a great prose epic.... The second book is of the most interest. In other works are the histories of Crœsus, Cyrus," etc. It would be interesting to know what other works besides his History Herodotus has left. Of the Prometheus Bound of Æschylus Mr. Raffety gives the following interesting account. It contains, he says, "the story of Prometheus and his defiance of Jupiter, who condemned him to be bound to a rock, where he died rather than yield." We exhort Mr. Raffety, before his work passes into a second edition, to consult his Classical Dictionary.
Of the translations recommended by Mr. Raffety we should very much like to get a sight of the translation of Pindar by Calverley, of the joint translation of the same classic by Messrs. E. Myers and A. Lang, and of the joint translation of Thucydides "by Jowett and Rev. H. Dale, 2 vols." Of Herodotus, of Æschylus, of Sophocles, of Pindar, of Polybius, of Demosthenes, what are, by general consent, esteemed the best translations are not so much as mentioned. Latin literature fares even worse in the hands of our guide. Mr. Raffety appears to know no more about Catullus than that he was a writer of epigrams. Such trifles as the Attis, the Peleus and Thetis, the Julia and Manlius marriage song, the Coma Berenices, the love lyrics and threnodies he does not condescend to notice. In "guiding" his readers to translations of Lucretius and Juvenal, Munro's version of the first in prose and Gifford's version of the second in verse—which Conington pronounced to be the best version of any Roman classic in our language—are not so much as referred to. Nor, again, in the case of Plautus and Terence, are the excellent versions of Thornton and Coleman noticed. Tacitus, who is oddly described as "the foremost man of the day," an estimate which might have pleased but which would certainly have surprised him, chronicled, we are told, "the foundation of the Christian religion." Mr. Raffety's assurance on this point will probably disappoint inquisitive readers. Equally surprising are the portions of the work dealing with the modern literatures. In the course of these we learn that "the Nibelungen Lied is the oldest drama in Europe"; that the Areopagitica and the Defence of the People of England are Milton's best prose writings—Mr. Raffety apparently not being aware that the second work is in Latin, and that if he means the first Defence, it is anything but one of the best of Milton's writings. We are also informed that Dryden was most valuable as a translator from the Greek and Latin; Dryden's versions from the Greek begin and end with paraphrases of four Idylls of Theocritus, the first book of the Iliad and the parting of Hector and Andromache from the sixth, and are notoriously the very worst things he ever did.
Sometimes Mr. Raffety fairly takes our breath away, as when he informs us that Gray's tomb can be seen in the little churchyard of Stoke Pogis "with the Elegy written upon it." Can Mr. Raffety be acquainted with the length of the Elegy and with the proportions of a tombstone? Chaucer, we are informed, wrote some poems in Italian. We should very much like to see them, and so probably would Professor Skeat, for they appear to have escaped the notice of all Chaucer's editors. Swift's Tale of a Tub was written, we are told, "against the teaching of Hobbes!"
It is indeed impossible to open this book anywhere without alighting on some most discreditable blunder or absurdity. Thus we are informed that Macaulay's essay on Burleigh treats of the time of James I.—Burleigh, as we need hardly say, dying nearly five years before James came to the throne, and Macaulay's essay having no reference at all to James I.'s time. "There is," says Mr. Raffety, "no more stirring lyric than The Cotter's Saturday Night," a remark which shows that Mr. Raffety does not know what a lyric poem is. But to look for blunders in Mr. Raffety's pages would be to look for leaves in a summer forest. His critical remarks and biographical notes are truly delightful. We wish we had space to quote some of them. Of their general quality the following profound remark is a fair specimen:—"Dante requires study, and an endeavour after appreciation." Mr. Raffety is always anxious to conduct his readers by short cuts and to save them trouble. Macaulay's Essays, for example, should be read before his History; "they will be more easily tackled," he says, "than the History in the first instance." But on the subject of Gibbon Mr. Raffety is adamant, being fully of the late Professor Freeman's opinion—"Whatever else is read, Gibbon must be read." How Gibbon is to be read, or why Gibbon is to be read, or in what edition he should be read, Mr. Raffety does not explain.
Now, what possible end can be served by books like these, except to misguide and misinform? Here is a writer, who certainly leaves us with the impression that he cannot read the Greek and Latin classics in the original, setting up as a director of classical study, and pronouncing ex cathedrâ on the merits of translations of these classics. His knowledge of the modern literature is, as is abundantly manifest, though we have neither space nor patience to illustrate, equally insufficient and unsubstantial, and yet he undertakes to initiate and guide the inexperienced in these studies. This book is presented to the public in a most attractive form, being excellently printed on excellent paper, and will naturally be taken seriously by those to whom it appeals. It is for this reason that we also have felt it our duty to take it seriously. And, as we believe that every bad book stands in the way of a good one, we can promise Mr. Raffety, and writers like Mr. Raffety, that we shall continue to take them seriously.