4).
Addressing himself to the former, Lanier attempts to prove (1) that our time,
when compared with that of Aeschylus, shows an "enormous growth
in the personality of man" (p. 5); (2) that what we moderns
call Physical Science, Music, and the Novel, all had their origin at
practically the same time, about the middle of the seventeenth century (p. 9);
and (3) "that the increase of personalities thus going on has brought about
such complexities of relation that the older forms of expression
were inadequate to them; and that the resulting necessity
has developed the wonderfully free and elastic form of the modern novel
out of the more rigid Greek drama, through the transition form
of the Elizabethan drama" (p. 10). In fulfilment of his second purpose,
the author gives a detailed study of several of the novels of George Eliot,
whom he takes to be the greatest modern English novelist. Even this
brief synopsis of the book must indicate its broad and stimulating character,
in which respect it is a worthy successor of `The Science of English Verse'.
Despite the limitations induced by failing life, which necessitated
the cutting down of the course of lectures from twenty to twelve,**
I know of few more life-giving books; and I venture to assert
that it cannot safely be overlooked by any careful student of the subject.
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