The very striking merit of Sir Henry Newbolt's _New Study of English
Poetry_ is that he faces the ultimate problem of poetry with courage,
sincerity, and an obvious and passionate devotion to the highest
spiritual activity of man. It has seldom been our good fortune to read a
book of criticism in which we were so impressed by what we can only call
a purity of intention; we feel throughout that the author's aim is
single, to set before us the results of his own sincere thinking on a
matter of infinite moment. Perhaps better, because subtler, books of
literary criticism have appeared in England during the last ten
years--if so, we have not read them; but there has been none more truly
tolerant, more evidently free from malice, more certainly the product of
a soul in which no lie remains. Whether it is that Sir Henry has like
Plato's Cephalus lived his literary life blamelessly, we do not know,
but certainly he produces upon us an effect akin to that of Cephalus's
peaceful smile when he went on his way to sacrifice duly to the gods and
left the younger men to the intricacies of their infinite debate.
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