It is time for some one to speak out. When we compare the condition and prospects of Science in all its branches, its organization, its standards, its aims, its representatives with those of Literature, how deplorable and how humiliating is the contrast! In the one we see an ordered realm, in the other mere chaos. The one, serious, strenuous, progressive, is displaying an energy as wonderful in what it has accomplished as in what it promises to accomplish; the other, without soul, without conscience, without nerve, aimless, listless and decadent, appears to be stagnating, almost entirely, into the monopoly of those who are bent on futilizing and degrading it.

Science stands where it does, not simply by virtue of the genius, the industry, the example of its most distinguished representatives, but because by those representatives the whole sphere of its activity is being directed and controlled. The care of the Universities, the care of learned societies, the care of devoted enthusiasts, its interests and honour are watchfully and jealously guarded. The qualifications of its teachers are guaranteed by tests prescribed by the highest authorities on the subjects professed. To standards fixed and maintained by those authorities is referred every serious contribution to its literature. Even a popular lecturer, or a popular writer, who undertook to be its exponent would be exploded at once if he displayed ignorance and incompetence. Such, indeed, is the solidarity of its energies that it is rather in the degrees and phases of their manifestation than in their essence and characteristics that they vary. There is not a scientific institution in England the regulations and aims of which do not bear the impress of such masters as Huxley and Tyndall and their disciples; not a work issuing from the scientific Press which is not a proof of the influence which such men have exercised and are exercising, and of the high standard exacted and attained wherever Science is taught and interpreted.

It is far otherwise with Literature. Those who represent it, in a sense analogous to that in which the men who have been referred to represent Science, have neither voice nor influence in its organization, as a subject of instruction, at the centres of education. They neither give it the ply, nor in any way affect its standards and its character in practice and production. As examples few follow them, as counsellors no one heeds them. They constitute what is little more than an esoteric body, moving in a sphere of its own.

And yet there is no reason at all why there should not be the same solidarity in the activity of Literature as there is in the activity of Science, and why the standard of aim and attainment in the one should not be as high as in the other. But this can never be accomplished until certain radical reforms are instituted, and the first step towards reform is to demonstrate the necessity for it. I have done so here. I have drawn attention to the state of things in our Universities,—in other words, to what I must take leave to call the scandalous and incredible indifference of the Councils of those Universities to the appeals which have, during the last fifteen years, been made to them to place the study of Literature, in the proper sense of the term, upon the footing on which they have placed other studies. I have pointed out what have been, and what must continue to be, the effects of that indifference. I have given specimens of the books to which the Universities are not ashamed to affix their imprimatur, and I have shown that, so far from them considering even their reputation involved in such a matter, they do not scruple to circulate works teeming with blunders and absurdities of the grossest kind, blunders and absurdities to which their attention has been publicly called over and over again. I have given specimens of the kind of works which the occupants of distinguished Chairs of Literature can, with perfect impunity, address to students; and I would ask any scientific man what would be thought of a Professor, say, of the Royal Naval College, or of the City and Guilds of London Institute, who should put his name to analogous publications—to publications, that is to say, as unsound in their theories, as inaccurate in their facts, as slovenly and perfunctory in general execution, as those to which I have here directed attention? If such things are done in the green tree, what is likely to be done in the dry? or, as Chaucer puts it, "if gold ruste, what schal yren doo?" That is one of the questions on which these essays may, perhaps, throw some light.

To be misrepresented and misunderstood is the certain fate of a book like this, and I am well aware of the responsibilities incurred in undertaking it. It is very distasteful to me to give pain or cause annoyance to any one, and, whether I am believed or not, I can say, with strict truth, that I have not the smallest personal bias against any of those whom I have censured most severely. I believe, for the reasons already explained, that Belles Lettres are sinking deeper and deeper into degradation, that they are gradually passing out of the hands of their true representatives, and becoming almost the monopoly of their false representatives, and that the consequence of this cannot but be most disastrous to us as a nation, to our reputation in the World of Letters, to taste, to tone, to morals. It is surely a shame and a crime in any one, and more especially in men occupying positions of influence and authority, to assist in the work of corruption, either by deliberately writing bad books or by conniving, as critics, at the production of bad books; and I am very sure it has become a duty, and an imperative duty, to expose and denounce them.

These essays are partly a protest and partly an experiment. As a protest they explain, and, I hope, justify themselves; as an experiment they are an attempt to illustrate what we should be fortunate if we could see more frequently illustrated by abler hands. They are a series of studies in serious, patient, and absolutely impartial criticism, having for its object a comprehensive survey of the vices and defects, as well as of the merits, characteristic of current Belles Lettres. I do not suppose that anything I have said will have the smallest effect on the present generation, but on the rising generation I believe that much which has been said will not be thrown away. In any case, what I was constrained to write I have written. And it is my last word in a long controversy.

It remains to add that most of these essays appeared originally in the Saturday Review, and I desire to express my thanks to the late and present Editors, not merely for permission to reproduce the essays, but for much kindness besides. Three appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette, and one, the first essay on "English Literature at the Universities," in the Nineteenth Century; and my thanks are due to the Editor of the Pall Mall Gazette and to Mr. Knowles. But all of them have been carefully revised and greatly enlarged, in some cases to more than double their original form. The introductory essay is, with the exception of the opening pages, in which I have drawn on an old article of mine in the Quarterly Review, quite new; and, indeed, that may be said of a great part of the volume.

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

I regret to find that I have done M. Jusserand grave injustice in censuring him for being ignorant of the existence of the Speculum Meditantis, the MS. of which was identified after the publication of his work.