Bear with me, gentlemen, while I return, not unrefreshed by an eight months’ interval--‘apart sat on a hill retired,’ to the argument of my last lecture but one, wherein we found that the Capital Difficulty of Criticism consisted in keeping to the matter in hand. ‘When you wander, as you often delight to do, you wander indeed, and give never such satisfaction as the curious time requires.’ So Bacon, in his letter of expostulation to Coke; and we shall do well to perpend the passage without taking to ourselves that plea of ‘having a large and fruitful mind’ which Bacon, in his wisdom, presented to Coke. Let us hold by the words of a writer whom our Tripos is gradually restoring to popular favour, Quintilian--‘it is enough for us to mind our present business.’ Suffer me then to proffer a personal experience. Once, when an undergraduate, I ... [_anecdote omitted_] ... an unforgettable experience, at least to one who is willing to pass among you as a sentimental old Victorian. But let us tune our instruments. And this brings me--for, believe me, gentlemen, I must eventually arrive somewhere--to the point I wish to make. It is this, that if we examine our literature curiously, we shall find there a certain thread, a cord of silver, twisting its way through all Letters and linking up one noble author with another. Let me remind you that this thread was first spun in Greece ... [_passages on compulsory Greek, the Education Act of 1870, and the Teaching of English in Schools--omitted_]. You may realise, gentlemen, how this tradition has been kept alive by men often sundered from one another by generations, if you allow me to bring before you several illuminating passages from diverse authors whose names are not pronounced here for the first time.... [_Quotations from Aristotle, Longinus, Cervantes, Lessing, Sainte-Beuve, Newman, and Walter de la Mare omitted._] One and all of these craftsmen, whom it is our business to study, tell us that we shall abjure the direct method only at our peril, that ultimately we shall come by more profit if we keep to the narrow road and leave the hedgerows and fields beyond innocent of our feet. It will not be easy. But--and I thank heaven for it!--literature is not easy; and even in these days, when the Correspondence School flourisheth and Pelman is in the land, no one, not I nor another, can make it so. LA BELLE DAME SANS MERCI: NEW STYLE. AS IT MIGHT POSSIBLY BE WRITTEN BY MR LASCELLES ABERCROMBIE _Snavel_ O what can ail you, Blogg? These days you sit Here with your pint as mum as a dead rat, And sick-faced too. Like an old man you look. The harvest’s in, the moon’s up, girls are out; What’s got you, man?