406 ENGLISH LITERATURE 



notes for the crowing of a cock, and is illustrated by pictures of the 

 ear. Similar illustrations, showing the invasion of literary criticism 

 by scientific minds, can be found in the anonymous De Poematum 

 Cantu et Viribus Rythmi, really the work of Is.aac Vossius who died 

 in 1673 as canon of Windsor. The Abbe du Bos. who knew the 

 book and who is himself so surprisingly modern in his conception of 

 his task, suggests for the student of literature a closer study of 

 phonetics. The extreme phase of this scientific method is doubtless 

 to be sought, in Marmontel's Natural History of Poetry Considered 

 as a Plant, the title of a section of his essay on that art. 1 Beattie, 

 in an otherwise dull essay, 2 would consider the physiognomy of 

 a land in relation to the character of its poetry, a task which 

 was undertaken for English literature only a few years ago by the 

 Romanes lecturer at Oxford. 



Here, of course, the scientific spirit has called in actual science as 

 an ally in literature; and here too, very obviously, is a phase of that 

 long and famous discussion about the influence of climate. From 

 climate to social conditions is a short step. The older controversy 

 was begun in its modern form by Du Bos; but questions of the kind 

 go far back. Galen says that Posidonius taught this doctrine; 3 and 

 it was current in Plato's day. Du Bos, remarking that Fontenelle 

 suggested the idea and ought to have developed it, undertakes to give 

 proof for it; arguing from individuals to nations, and from a nation 

 to its literature, he makes out a fair case for physical environment. 

 The arguments grew warm, with the critics, as one might expect, 

 mainly in opposition. Blackwell, by his studies on Homer, out- 

 stripped Du Bos in enthusiasm for the idea; Dr. Johnson, in his life 

 of Milton, sneers at it. A temperate summary of the case occurs in 

 a book neither deep nor original, and now quite neglected, but valu- 

 able for its cosmopolitan note, Denina's Discorso sopra le Viccndc 

 flrlla Lctteratura, published in Turin in 1760, translated in 1771 into 

 English by John Murdoch in a small volume called An Essay on the 

 Revolutions of Literature, and republished not only twice in Italy, but 

 also in Berlin in 1784, under the auspices of Frederick the Great, to 

 whom it was dedicated; the author uses German as well as French 

 writings, and has a very modern sort of chapter 4 entitled "Influenza 

 dell' Inghilterra nella Letteratura del Continentc," a neat supple- 

 ment to the still limited ideas of Du Bos on the scope of comparative 

 literature, and not without interest for the student of to-day. Like 

 the modern critic, Denina is inclined to lay more stress on the coni- 



1 Po/s-ic, in vol iv of his Elements de la Literature, contributed to the Ency- 

 rlopidie. 



2 Poetry and Music as they affect the Mind, in Essays, Edinburgh, 1776, but 

 \vrittrn in 1762. 



3 Gudeman, Sources of the Gcrmania, in Transactions of the American Philolog- 

 ical Association, xxxi, 108. 



4 In the Naples edition of 1792, n, 230. 



