have inherited something greater than Sparta. Let us strive, each in his
little way, to adorn it.

But here at the close of my hour, the double argument, that Literature is
an Art and English a living tongue, has led me right up to a fourth
principle, the plunge into which (though I foresaw it from the first) all
the coward in me rejoices at having to defer to another lecture. I
conclude then, Gentlemen, by answering two suspicions, which very likely
have been shaping themselves in your minds. In the first place, you will
say, 'It is all very well for this man to talk about "cultivating an
increased sensibility," and the like; but we know what that leads to--to
quackery, to aesthetic chatter: "Isn't this pretty? Don't you admire
that?"' Well, I am not greatly frightened. To begin with, when we come to
particular criticism I shall endeavour to exchange it with you in plain
terms; a manner which (to quote Mr Robert Bridges' "Essay on Keats") 'I
prefer, because by obliging the lecturer to say definitely what he means,
it makes his mistakes easy to point out, and in this way the true
business of criticism is advanced.' But I have a second safeguard, more
to be trusted: that here in Cambridge, with all her traditions of austere
scholarship, anyone who indulges in loose distinct talk will be quickly
recalled to his tether. Though at the time Athene be not kind enough to
descend from heaven and pluck him backward by the hair, yet the very
_genius loci_ will walk home with him from the lecture room, whispering
monitions, cruel to be kind.

'But,' you will say alternatively, 'if we avoid loose talk on these
matters we are embarking on a mighty difficult business.' Why, to be sure
we are; and that, I hope, will be half the enjoyment. After all, we have
a number of critics among whose methods we may search for help--from the
Persian monarch who, having to adjudicate upon two poems, caused the one