Dr. Manwaring's Italian Landscape in Eighteenth Century England, A Study chiefly of the Influence of Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa on English Taste, 1700-1800,76 is another contribution to our knowledge of 'romantic' enthusiasm in the eighteenth century, with its love for nodding groves, Gothic ruins, and 'horrid' scenes. The picturesque' with all its implications, was a real factor in the growth of interest in rural landscape and even in the wilder beauties of mountain scenery. Dr. Manwaring has no difficulty in showing that the influence of Claude Lorrain and of Salvator Rosa, by their paintings and also by the engravings made from these, was of paramount importance in moulding English taste. The part played by painting in developing the love of landscape in England' was a subject that deserved the detailed treatment it has here obtained. Dr. Manwaring's careful study is of real importance to an understanding of that 'cult of the picturesque '-in nature, in gardens, and in poetry—which is an integral part of the background of eighteenth-century literature. Lady Pomfret's letters might have supplied Dr. Manwaring with some further illustrations, e.g. about the influence of Claude Lorrain or about English travellers in Rome, but curiously enough, they do not appear to have been consulted. Miss Mona Wilson,77 in her Preface, disarms criticism by her first sentence, which begins, 'This book is not intended for the student, but for the curious general reader'. She deals pleasantly with such literary ladies as Susannah Centlivre, Charlotte Lennox, and Mrs. Chapone, and, while her essays are not distinguished by great critical acumen, they show, at least, interest in and knowledge of their subjects. The book can be recommended to those who enjoy biographical chit-chat about literary ladies ' of importance in their day-and some of them deserve more respectful remembrance than is implied by such a phrase. The Oxford University Press does good service by the inclusion 76 Italian Landscape in Eighteenth Century England, by Elizabeth Wheeler Manwaring. The Wellesley Semi-Centennial Series. O.U.P. pp. xiv +244. 14s. net. "These were Muses, by Mona Wilson, Sidgwick & Jackson. 1924. pp. xii+236. 7s. 6d. net. of two more volumes of Austin Dobson's papers in the World's Classics,78 and by the addition in each case of an index and illustrations. Dobson's essays are perennially attractive, for he knew how to combine exact scholarship and knowledge of little-trodden by-ways with the lightness of touch which is beyond the attainment of most students. Perhaps it is because the eighteenth century was the recreation of his leisure hours that it becomes in his pages so delightful a resting-place. In R. E. S. (Oct.) Mr. Oswald Doughty gives an attractive account of Mary Chandler, A Bath Poetess of the Eighteenth Century. M. L. R. (April) opens with an excellent description (pp. 12546) of Elizabeth Elstob, the Learned Saxonist by Miss Margaret Ashdown, who does well to reintroduce to notice the pioneer woman philologist and the first compiler of an Anglo-Saxon Grammar in English. Elizabeth Elstob is one of the most interesting of the learned ladies of the eighteenth century. She did much solid work, and she suffered for her unfeminine accomplishments. The London Mercury (Jan.) contains an article by Mr. S. C. Roberts entitled An Eighteenth Century Gentleman, which is a brief record of the life and work of the first Lord Lyttelton author of the Persian Letters and of Dialogues of the Dead. 78 A Paladin of Philanthropy and other Papers, by Austin Dobson. O.U.P. pp. 362. At Prior Park and other Papers. Ditto. pp. 362. Each 28. net. XI THE NINETEENTH CENTURY AND AFTER I. 1800-1860 [By C. H. HERFORD] THOUGH the year has produced two large-scale biographical studies of major poets of this period, as well as the first adequate Life of Cary the translator of Dante, the Year's Work' upon these poets has mainly been devoted to single points of varying interest and importance. In a useful essay, Wordsworth since 1916 (Smith College Studies in Modern Languages, Jan. 1924), Mr. R. A. Rice gives a critical survey of the new epoch in WORDSWORTH criticism brought about by two decisive events, the discoveries of Professor Harper, and the War. The first complicated the interpretation both of the poetry and of the man by introducing the dilemma between moral and literary valuations so familiar elsewhere in poetic biography, but so irrelevant, apparently, to that of Wordsworth. The second recalled attention to the power and grandeur of his war poetry and of the great Cintra tractate. Mr. Rice concerns himself less with the Annette incident itself than with the character of Wordsworth's subsequent reaction from impulse and romance towards philosophy'. The poet played safe'; and his critic would connect his unromantic prudence in the matter with the steady subsidence of the temper of adventure, in his poetry as in his politics, from 1793 onwards. In a subsequent section ('the relation of Wordsworth's Romantic and Political experiences to his career as a Poet') Rice justly qualifies Professor Harper's too rigid nexus between the poet's politics and his poetry. Later sections discuss the notable volume of Professor Beatty, whose thesis he substantially accepts (with perhaps insufficient recognition of the extent of the transformation which Hartley's associationism underwent in Wordsworth's mind); and the clever anti-Words worth essay of Señor Maderinga; both noticed in previous issues of The Year's Work. In Wordsworth and German Literature (P. M. L. A. xl. 2) Mr. Max J. Herzberg surveys and sums up the produce of much critical and uncritical research in this confessedly meagre field. Wordsworth, among all our greater poets, best illustrates the quality of mind which resists foreign literary influence; and in his case resistance was, for poetry, all to the good. Yet for us, after the event, it is easy to surmise that Goethe, in 1798, could have offered Wordsworth something that, had he been more open to it, would have proved deeply congenial to him. German literature did not lack advocates in Wordsworth's circle. Not to speak of Coleridge, there was Crabb Robinson, a highly qualified exponent, in and out of season. One of the few piquant incidents in the record is Tieck's comment upon some of Wordsworth's sonnets shown him by Robinson: 'This is an English Goethe.' The inquiry is thus by no means idle: it involves a real problem, and Herzberg's somewhat elaborate handling is justified, despite its almost negative result. For it is much to establish a negative, and still more if it be also made clear that no other result was at bottom to be expected. After telling in detail the story of the Goslar residence, with study of Bürger as its one important fruit, Herzberg sketches the English knowledge of German literature up to Wordsworth's time, estimates the German culture of Wordsworth's circle, and summarizes the allusions to Germany in his writings. Such among these as are sympathetic are called forth, not by German literature, but by the tragic fortunes of 'the sons of mighty Germany' (Exc. viii) in the struggle with Napoleon. In the entire volume of his prose works not one German writer is actually mentioned, though one [Gessner, author of The Death of Abel] is alluded to' (Prel. vii. 564 f.). The memoirs of the day, carefully consulted by Herzberg, reflect chiefly Wordsworth's uniformly hostile attitude to Goethe. Even Bürger, the one German poet who in any degree interested him, he thought inferior to Percy. In his closing section Herzberg dismisses the case, warmly urged by Brandl and others, for regarding Gessner's idyll as a source of Guilt and Sorrow. He thinks it probable that Schiller's Robbers had some slight influence on the Borderers, and admits of course Wordsworth's acknowledged but unimportant borrowings from Frederica Brun and Bürger. The extremely abstruse question of an influence of Kant or Fichte derived by reflection, or refraction, through Coleridge, he leaves undecided, but leans strongly, we think with justice, to the negative side. The Kantian, no less than the Goethean, Wordsworth was inborn. In R. E. S. (April) Professor de Sélincourt anticipates the critical edition of the MSS. of The Prelude, which is one of the principal literary events of the current year, by a few examples of the corrections of the Vulgate text which access to the originals has enabled him to make. Detailed comment on the discovery-for such it virtually is-is reserved for next year's English Work'. It will suffice here to indicate one or two of the passages in which the masque of plausible blundering overlaying the authentic text is shown to be what it is. Some acute critics, in particular Professor Garrod and Mr. Nowell Smith, who had in some of these cases suspected the truth, will find their insight confirmed. In other cases, the current text excites no suspicion but is found nevertheless to have extruded a reading which we instantly recognize as peculiarly Wordsworthian. Thus in II. 148, no one could quarrel with 'a hut Proud of its own bright fire and sycamore shade'. But this dwelling more worthy of a poet's love' is, in the original, 'Proud of its one bright fire', as a Wordsworthian hut was likely to be. He was neither hermit nor socialist, but solitude meant more to him than property. A remarkably illuminating change (already proposed by Professor Garrod) is at XI. 331: for 'Whether in matters various, properties 'Whether in matter's various properties |