VII

CRITICAL DEPRECIATION

INCE the foregoing pages were written,

SINCE the foregoing pages were surt of

I have turned over the "Treasury of Irish Poetry," edited by Stopford A. Brooke and T. W. Rolleston, and it is but fair to say, a compilation admirable in most respects. I should, however, like to mark some exception to Mr. Brooke's disparaging estimate of Moore.

To speak with due candour, the worst thing in this book of Irish poetry is the Rev. Mr. Brooke's prose Had that been omitted, or, at least, the section dealing critically with Moore, the present anthology would offer no serious blemish. Mr. Brooke is a distinctly minor poet himself, as this collection bears evidence, but as a critic and commentator, he is not without honour; and in a long life of literary plodding it is only fair to say that he has done some respectable work.

It is true also that he is not without feeling for Irish poetry; many of his observations in the preface to this volume are in a high degree illuminating. But in his treatment of the largest figure in Irish poetical literature (who is also a true world-poet), he reveals all the one-sidedness of a small-beer critic. In his attempted belittling of Moore he offers nothing new, and there is a note of personal acerbity in his writing which is difficult to understand, except on the trite theory that the mere critic who cannot create literature usually hates the man who can. Allowance should also be made for the fact that Mr. Brooke is an Irishman-an observation not in the least enigmatical, in view of certain painful truths already touched upon.

"No one dreams," says the Rev. Mr. Brooke, "of comparing Moore with the greater men, or of giving his poetry too important a place in the history of English song; but the man whose work Byron frankly admired, whom Scott did not dispraise, who

received letters of thanks and appreciation from readers in America, Europe and Asia; who fulfilled Matthew Arnold's somewhat foolish criterion of greatness by being known and accepted on the Continent; whom the Italians, French, Germans, Russians, Swedes and Dutch translated; whose 'Lalla Rookh' was partly put into Persian and became the companion of Persians in their travels and in the streets of Ispahan; to whom publishers like Longmans gave three thousand pounds for a poem before they had even seen it as a tribute to reputation already acquired—cannot surely be treated with the indifferent contempt which some have lavished upon

him."

I have italicised the last quoted words in order the more strongly to mark the dishonesty of Mr. Brooke's critical method. Here he would have you believe he is making a great show of liberality before he proceeds to his own inept and unwarranted disparagement of Moore.

Mr. Brooke is at least a practised literary hand, with a good share of the knowledge that goes with the craft. One is therefore surprised to find him guilty of such a stroke of bungling malice as the statement that Scott did not dispraise Moore! Is not Sir Walter's Journal open to us as to the Rev. Brooke? Do we not read therein the noble Scot's tribute to the Irish lyrist-to that union of genius, versatility and learning, the most brilliant with the most solid parts, which astonished Byron-and on many a page the record of his sincere friendship and profound admiration?

But pray, Mr. Brooke, what critic of decent reputation ever ventured to treat Moore with indifferent contempt? Did Jeffrey or Gifford, did Hazlitt or Macaulay? Was he not loved and admired by Sydney Smith and Dr. Parr-by even the captious Leigh Hunt and the learned Mackintosh? How were those acute and powerful minds deceived since it falls to Stopford Brooke to assign

Moore his true status in literature?

Mr. Brooke emits the invidious opinion that Moore's "poetry is the translation of music into as pretty and melodious words as possible." "Music was first, and poetry followed," observes Mr. Brooke; and he adds, with seeming profundity, "This is not the case with a great poet."

The truth is, Moore's unexampled blend of musical and poetical genius has confounded the critics. Pragmatical persons like the Rev. Brooke resent the intrusion into Moore's work of a quality with which they know not how to deal, and yet which, in some indefinable way, imparts a most rare and distinctive excellence to his poetry. It never seems to occur to such myopic critics that Moore's gift of music supplies a clue to his singular superiority as a lyrical poet. Yet the poet himself puts the clue into their hands, for he tells us, as I have already quoted: "I only know that in a strong and inborn feeling for music lies the source of whatever talent I may have