like Macaulay, who crowds his pages with instances and illustrations. It is profitable to follow him in the process of bringing together a dozen things to enforce his point, but it is not profitable to reverse the process and allow ourselves to be led away from the subject in hand into a multitude of unrelated matters. Such practices are ruinous to the intellect. We must concentrate attention, not dissipate it. Only when we fail to catch the full significance of an allusion, should we look it up. Then we must see to it that we bring back from our research just what occasioned the allusion, just what bears on the immediate passage. Other facts will be picked up by the way and may come useful in good time, but for the purpose of our present study we should insist on the vital relation of every fact contributed. So earnest am I upon this point that I must illustrate. At one place Macaulay writes: "Do we believe that Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote Latin as well as Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote English? And are there not in the Dissertation on India, the last of Dr. Robertson's works, in Waverley, in Marmion, Scotticisms at which a London apprentice would laugh?” Why should we be told (to pick out one of these halfdozen allusions) that Dr. Robertson's first name was William, that he lived from 1721 to 1793, and that he wrote such and such books? With all respect for the memory of Dr. Robertson, I submit that this is not the place to learn about him and his histories. Macaulay's allusion to him is not explained in the least by giving his date. Yet there is something here to interpret, simple though it be. Let us put questions until we are sure that the pupil understands that Dr. Robertson, being a Scot, could not write wholly idiomatic EnglishEnglish, say, of the London type-and that this is one illustration of the general truth that a man can write with purity only in his native tongue. It is such exercises in interpretation that I should like to see substituted for the disastrous game of hunting allusions. I cannot flatter myself that I have achieved consistency in my own notes and glossary. To recur to the illustration above, I have omitted the name of Dr. Robertson, because Macaulay seems to tell us enough about him, while I have added a few words about Fracastorius in order that he may be to the reader something more than a name. But I cannot help suspecting that it is a waste of energy for any one to try to impress even this name on his mind, and I should be quite satisfied that a pupil of mine should never look it up, provided he had alertness enough to see that Fracastorius wrote in Latin though he was not a Roman, and discrimination enough to feel that there are other allusions of an entirely different character which must be looked up. The glossary aims to include only names and terms not familiar or easily found (provided they need explaining), and also names which, though easily found, call for some special comment. In general, when allusions are self-explaining, we should rest content with our text. In the first paragraph of the essay on Milton, for example, one Mr. Lemon is mentioned. Doubtless the Dictionary of National Biography would tell us something more about him, but Macaulay tells us all we need to know. Again, there is a reference to a fairy story told by Ariosto. But all the necessary details are given and it will be idle to hunt the story up in order to cite chapter and verse for it, though of course if one wants to read Ariosto, let him do so by all means—that is a different thing. On the other hand, an allusion to the lion in a certain fable is not made so clear, because Macaulay takes it for granted that we know the fable. If we do not, we must look it up. So, also, with such phrases as "the Ciceronian gloss,' "the doubts of the Academy,” “the pride of the " Portico." I could have wished to insert into the glossary nothing which an intelligent pupil could find for himself, though here an editor must sin a little in excess for the sake of schools and homes not well equipped with libraries. I have tried to decide each case upon its merits in the interest of genuine education, and only those who have attempted a similar task will understand its difficulties. |