That an unskilful hand had carved this print
You'd say at once, seeing the living face;
But, finding here no jot of me, my friends,
Laugh at the botching artist's mis-attempt.
P. 106. Fletcher.—The subject of this poem was Giles Fletcher, the author of Christ's Victory and Triumph, 'equally beloved of the Muses and Graces.'
P. 106. Crashaw.—From The Flaming Heart. 'His masterpiece, one of the most astonishing things in English or any literature, comes without warning at the end of The Flaming Heart. For page after page the poet has been playing on some trifling conceit ... and then in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, without warning of any sort, the metre changes, the poet's inspiration catches fire, and then rushes up into the heaven of poetry the marvellous rocket of song: "Live in these conquering leaves," &c. The contrast is perhaps unique as regards the colourlessness of the beginning and the splendid colour of the end. But contrasts like it occur all over Crashaw's work.'—Professor Saintsbury. History of Elizabethan Literature.
As an interesting example of Crashaw's conceits it may be noted that, when alluding to Mary Magdalene, he speaks of her eyes as 'Portable and compendious oceans.'
P. 107. Voltaire.—The philosopher also remarks, in the same article, that 'there is hardly a single philosophical or theological book in which heresies and impieties may not be found by misinterpreting, or adding to, or subtracting from, the sense'.
P. 112. Carlyle.—Abelard, born 1079, died 1142, is less known now as a famous teacher at the University of Paris than as the lover of Héloise.
P. 113. Trapp and Browne.—When George I sent a present of some books, in November 1715, to the University of Cambridge, he sent at the same time a troop of horse to Oxford. This inspired Dr. Trapp and provoked the rejoinder from Sir William Browne.
P. 114. Earle.—Mr. A. S. West, in his edition of Earle's Microcosmographie; or a Piece of the World discovered; in Essayes and Characters, says: 'The critic supposed that omneis was the original form of the accusative plural of omnis, and that the forms omnes and omnis had taken its place. In order to adhere to the older spelling "he writes omneis at length". Quicquid is cited as an instance of pedantry because the ordinary man wrote the word as quidquid, and doubtless so pronounced it. The critic's gerund may be described as "inconformable" because it resists attraction—remains a gerund and does not become a gerundive. Or Earle may have had in view passages in which the gerund of transitive verbs with est govern an object.'
P. 115. Goldsmith.—'When Dr. Johnson is free to confess that he does not admire Gray's Elegy, and Macaulay to avow that he sees little to praise in Dickens and Wordsworth, why should not humbler folks have the courage of their opinions?' Such is the question asked by James Payn in the Nineteenth Century (March 1880), his article being entitled 'Sham Admiration in Literature'. Mr. Payn noted that 'curiously enough, it is women who have the most courage in the expression of their literary opinions', instancing the authoress of Jane Eyre, who 'did not derive much pleasure from the perusal of the works of the other Jane [Austen]', and Harriet Martineau, who confessed to him that she could see no beauties in Tom Jones.
'There is no ignorance more shameful than to admit as true that which one does not understand: and there is no advantage so great as that of being set free from error.'—Xenophon. Memorabilia.