John. All
that can be said by a modest and judicious reader is that any one of
these three effusions may unquestionably mean anything that anybody
chooses to read into the text; that a Luther is as safe as a Loyola,
that a Renan is no safer than a Cumming, from the chance of confutation
as a less than plausible exponent of its possible significance: but
that, however indisputable it may be that they were meant to mean
something, not many human creatures who can be trusted to go abroad
without a keeper will be likely to pretend to a positive understanding
of what that significance may be. To me, the most remarkable point in
Tourneur's problematic poem is the fact that this most monstrous example
of senseless and barbarous jargon that ever disfigured English type
should have been written--were it even for a wager--by one of the
purest, simplest, most exquisite and most powerful writers in the
language.
This extraordinary effusion is the single and certainly the sufficient
tribute of a great poet, and a great master of the purest and the
noblest English, to the most monstrous and preposterous taste or fashion
of his time. As the product of an eccentric imbecile it would be no less
curious than Stanihurst's Virgil: as the work of Cyril Tourneur it is
indeed "a miracle instead of wit.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285