i6 
LAND & WATER 
itife anti Hcltcrs 
By J. C. Squire 
October 25, 1917 
Dr. George Saintsbury 
SAINTSBURVS retirement at 
liis hdmburgh 
D ,, ,„...„, „„„„,., 
books and parts of books to sink a slup. "*^: P'""^^''/ y-,,,,,/ he would write 1 
into one more large scheme, a History of '«' {J"»"' ;' ^. appreciates Cam 
of which the first volume has just been published (i8s. n ) Zx-<er(^c,^\, is as 
R. GKORGE 
sometliing over seventy, from 
Professorship, did not connote a 
authorship although lie had written 
farewell from 
enough 
bv MacmiUans. He suggests that this must '^ ^1 pr 
babilitv Ix- the last of some already, perhaps, too n^me ou> 
studies of literarv history," but I would lay odds th<rt lie 1 
wrong, and am happy in the conviction 1^^. bamtsbu > . 
although he has b.'en a Professor of Literature, and althoufe' 
he has all sorts of cranks and limitations (mcluding a depkn 
able inabilitv to see the beauty of some of the hnest modem 
literature), has never bt>en a pedant or a chillard. ]h'^' '" 
a Professor, is much. For literary history, like history of other 
kinds sufters from the operation of the general rule that 
people who could do the main job won't do the donkey work, 
Tnd that people who like the donkey work are quite unequal to 
the job. One of many bad results of this is that there is a 
terrible lot of copying'of opinions. Something.- labelled in a 
-ertain way, goes 'into a history, and gets transferred into ai 
the other "histories until some innovator comes along ana 
makes a fresh start. ^ 
• * * ♦ • 
Dr. Saintsbury, at least, is no respecter of persons or their 
views He has read almost everything that ever was written, 
and it is safe to say that his opinions' about it all are invariably 
his own. He even, perhaps, shows signs of a tendency to re- 
gard other people's judgments as challenges ; he is quite 
Sbviously happy when he is disagreeing— which he never does 
without a show of reason— with another critic or an accepted 
view This mav mean that he often goes astray ; but it has 
also meant that! in his studies both of French and of F.ngiish 
literature, he has frequently called attention to the merits ol 
neglected works and to the defects of belauded ones. Ihe 
H islory of the French Novel is i)ot a book to be attempted by 
anyone who knows nothing of the French novel ; but it 
could not fail to interest, stimulate, and provoke to thought 
any reader who has a general acquaintance with it, 
***** 
The volume covers the subject from the beginning up to 
. 1800, the only reallv richly productive century being left for 
later treatment ; and the (term " novel " is made to include 
anything which is written in prose, and which tells a story, 
wholly or mainly fictitious. No other system of classification 
. would have been so easily defensible. Dr. Saintsbury brings 
'in the Mediccval Romances and fabliaux (he admits verse 
tjius early), the works of Francis Rabelais, all sorts of short 
stories and collections of such, the fairy stories of Perrault, 
Madame d'Aulnoy, and others, as well as books jvhich would 
\te considered novels by the casual modern observer. The 
include— SHch as the authors of Les Liaisons Dangereiises 
and Les Amours dn Chevalier de 1'aiiblas—h.e is able to 
justify his action. 
* * • ♦ * 
■ His conclusion on the French Novel to 1800 is that France 
grew the seed of Romance for all countries ; and that " from 
1400 to 1800 she entered upon a curious kind of wilderness, 
studded with oases of a more curious character still." Con- 
tinually the French invented things which were more fully 
developed elsewhere : but they achieved few masterpieces, 
and they had no period which tor production could compare 
with our own eighteenth century with its Defoe, Swift. 
Richardson, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Goldsmith and Jane 
\usten. Dr. Saintsbury is enthusiastic enough when he 
-omes to anything indisputably good — Gil Bias, that remark- 
•ible accident Manon Lescaut, or the first part of Rousseau's 
/;///>, which he criticises with great discrimination. He has 
a favourable word for Telemaque, now less read perhaps than 
any work once so universally known ; he discovers and 
praises the merits of Crebillon fih, whose qualities, as a 
stylist, narrator and wit, have been in this country' 
smothered under the evil reputation of Le Sopha ; he gives 
precisely their due and no more to the early collections of 
contes, and he is almost lyrical about Hamilton's tales. But 
the mere reputation is nothing to him. Cyrano de Bergerac — 
whose Voyage has small meritorious patches which would 
bear quotation — he dismisses with almost too great a 
contempt, in spite of his factitious fame ; he is cold about 
Marivaiix ; and to \oltaire he is openly hostile. Of Voltaire 
(who " did a great deal of harm in the world, and perhaps no 
solid good") he. says that he was 'perhaps the. greatest 
talent— but— not— genius ever known. " There is some 
sense in this in mv opinion, but it is evidently a matter of 
opinion, as is also'the deci'sion that if a monkey could write 
like Voltaire. At all events, Dr. Saintsbury 
ndide as what it is : a skit which, however 
l>erficial, is as permanently entertaining as anything ever 
written— an almost perfect work of art. Possibilities of 
greatness as a novelist are detected in Scarron. Dr. Saints- 
bury's conclusion is that Rabelais was the greatest novelist 
(jf those dealt with here, and that Diderot might have 
been a second, possibly as great. These judgments, from 
which I for one should not dissent, are an instance of Dr. 
Saintsbury's habit of thinking for himself. On both authors > 
he is at his best, and the chapter on Rabelais may be com- 
mended to all who misunderstand\that gigantic story-teller. 
As for his meanings, and the struggles of modern allegory- 
hunters. Dr. Saintsbury is very sensible. It is generally 
supposed, he says, that 
there must be a general theme, because the writer is so 
obviously able to handle any theme he chooses. It may be 
wiser — it certainly ssems so to the present writer — to dis- 
believe in anything but occasional sallies — episodes, as it 
were, or even digressions — of political, religious, moral, 
social and other satire. 
Panurge he describes as " the first distinct and striking 
character in prose fiction-" As for Diderot (who, to my taste 
has like Rabelais something very English about him) Dr. 
Saintsbury's judgment, is not supported by that dull and 
mechanically nasty fantasia which he wrote for money and 
which is 30 uncharacteristic of him. And it is not founded 
upon Le Neveude Rameau, a work the subtlety and modernity 
of which has made it latterly the object of a cult. It is 
based entirely upon La Religieuse, and quite soundly. What 
Diderot knew about life in convents is more than I can say ; 
but that novel is astonishingly true to life in general. It 
is the work of a real novelist, whose men and women come 
alive to him and act of their own volition ; its unlaboured 
vividness, its- natural vigour, the spontaneous force of its 
dialogue, are unmatched in French eighteenth century 
literature. .\nd there is suffering behind it. 
« * * * * 
Dr. Saintsbury's is as readable a book as could be written 
on the subject. Biographical information is given only 
where it is likely to he needed ; the extracts are well and 
unconventionally chosen ; and Dr. Saii;tsbury does not pro- 
portion his book as a hide-bound scholar would have done. 
Tha,t is to say, mere names are nothing to him. If he 
thinks he can get a celebrated person successfully disposed of 
in a page or two, he does so, and if he thinks a book so well 
known that analysis of its contents is unnecessary, he passes 
on, leaving himself more space for the full treatment of books 
hich, though 
examples 
Scudery's 
Le Grand Cyrus, the prototypes of , seventeenth century ,j 
pastoral and historical romance. No history would omit 
them, but few historians would read them or, at any rate, do 
more than skim through them. Dr. Saintsbury is exhaustive 
on both ; he has done his duty like a man ; the book which ] 
would daunt him by its size has not yet been written, and that | 
chronicle of which Macaulay said that it might have been ■. 
read in the age of Hilpa and Shalum would have been child's | 
play to him. He seems, as a result of his researches, to haxej 
found Astree as charming as it used to be thought ; but hisi 
exploration of Le Grand Cyrus still leaves one completely; 
in the dark as to why our ancestors w:ere so devoted to it.-j 
His account, however, temporaril;^ invests the work with anl 
interest which (save archieologically) it does not possess :j 
and the same thing may be said of his remarks about even the J 
dullest and most " minor" items in his catalogue. He is| 
weU over seventy, but his zest for life, literature and con- 
troversy is unimpaired. He eats his way through the centuries 
like a hungry caterpillar. No serene and, reminiscent old agej 
for him : he is as eager as ever to form and formulate new! 
judgments, to maintain old ones against new opponents, tol 
infect the reader with his enjoyments and his detestations, anc 
to hit the twentieth century — which he seems to regard as 
the peculiar home of radicalism, paradox, morbidity and 
pretentiousness — -on the nose. But even one who does not 
share all his views can stand his thumps for the sake of theen-j 
livening spectacle he presents when delivering them. 
