r waning; he has surrendered
for it the strength of his right hand, he has yielded the light of his
eyes, and complains not, nor need he, "for so were Milton and Maeonides."
What tears this final devotion may have caused to flow, come from other
eyes than his own. And so, with gratulation void of all regrets, let us
drink to the continued years, service, happiness of our strong and
tender-hearted elder comrade, our white-haired minstrel, Richard Henry
Stoddard.

LESLIE STEPHEN

THE CRITIC

[Speech of Leslie Stephen at the annual banquet of the Royal
Academy, London, April 29, 1893, in response to the toast,
"Literature." Sir Frederic Leighton, President of the Academy,
spoke of Literature as "that in which is garnered up the heat that
feeds the spiritual life of men." In the vein of personal
compliment he said: "For literature I turn to a distinguished
writer whose acute and fearless mind finds a fit vehicle in clear
and vigorous English and to me seems winged by that vivid air which
plays about the Alpine peaks his feet have in the past so dearly
loved to tread--I mean my friend, Mr. Leslie Stephen."]

MR. PRESIDENT, YOUR ROYAL HIGHNESS, MY LORDS, AND
GENTLEMEN:--When a poet or a great imaginative writer has to speak
in this assembly he speaks as to brethren-in-arms, to persons with
congenial tastes and with mutual sympathies, but when, instead of the
creative writer, the Academy asks a critic to speak to them, then
nothing but your proverbial courtesy can conceal the fact that they must
really think they are appealing to a natural enemy. I have the
misfortune to be a critic [laughter], but in this assembly I must say I
am not an art critic. Friends have made a presumptuous attempt to fathom
the depth of my ignorance upon artistic subjects, and they have thought
that in some respects I must be admirably qualified for art criticism.
[Laughter.]

As a literary critic I have felt, and I could not say I was surprised to
find how unanimously critics have been condemned by poets and artists of
all generations. I need only quote the words of the greatest authority,
Shakespeare, who in one of his most pathetic sonnets reckons up the
causes of the weariness of life and speaks of the spectacle of--

"Art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly (doctor-like), controlling skill."

The great poet probably wrote these words after the much misrepresented
inter