PALEOGRAPHIC PURISM

Ancient buildings certainly cannot be treated as ‘exhibits,’ to be cased in glass, and displayed in a museum. All their powers, their vitality and solemnity would disappear. They have in most cases to be kept fit for use; and in some rare cases they may have to be completed, where the kind of work they need is within our modern resources. As to Palladian work that may possibly be attempted; but as to true mediaeval work of the best periods, it is absolutely impossible. No fine carving of this age can be remotely reproduced or imitated by us now in feeling and manner.

The current of gradual growth for the best mediaeval work has been broken for centuries. And we cannot now recover the tradition. The archaic naive grace of a thirteenth-century relief, the delicate spring of foliage round capital or spandrel, are utterly irrecoverable. There does not exist the hand or the eye which can do it. To cut out old art-work wholesale, and insert new machine carving, is exactly like cutting out a Madonna in an altar-piece, or inserting a new head on to a Greek torso. What we have to do is to uphold the fabric as best we may, and preserve the decoration as long as we can.

There is need to educate the public, especially the official public, and above all the clergy, to understand all that is meant by the sacredness of ancient buildings. The business is not so much to discuss solecisms in style and blunders in chronology, as to make men feel that our national monuments are dedicated by the past to the nation for ever, and that each generation but holds them as a sacred trust for the future.

PALEOGRAPHIC PURISM

Iv this age of historical research and archaic realism there is growing up a custom which, trivial and plausible in its beginnings, may become a nuisance and a scandal to literature. It is the custom of re-writing our old familiar proper names; of re-naming places and persons which are household words private turkey tours: heirlooms in the English language.

At first sight there seems something to be said for the fashion of writing historical names as they were written or spoken by contemporary men. To the thoughtless it ‘ suggests an air of scholarship and superior knowledge, gathered at first hand from original sources. Regarded as the coatarmour of some giant of historical research, there is something piquant in the unfamiliar writing of familiar names; and it is even pleasant to hear a great scholar talk of the mighty heroes as if he remembered them when a boy, and had often seen their handwriting himself. When Mr. Grote chose to write about Kekrcps, Krete, Cleopatra, and Pennies, we were gratified by the peculiarity; and we only wondered why he retained Cyrus, Centaur, Cyprus, and Thucydides. And when Professor Freeman taught us to speak of ‘ Charles the Great,’ and the Battle of Senlac, we all feel that to talk of Hastings would be behind the age.

But, in these days, the historical schools are growin in numbers and range. There are no longer merely Attic enthusiasts, and Somersaetan champions, but other ages and races have thrown up their own historiographers and bards. There are ‘ Middle-English ’ as well as ‘ Old- English ’ votaries, — and Eliza-ists, and Jacob-ists, and Ann-ists. Then there are the French, the German, the Italian, the Norse schools, to say nothing of ^Egyptologists, Hebraists, Sanscritists, Accadians, Hittites, Moabites, and Cuneiform-ists. It becomes a very serious question, what will be the end of the English language if all of these are to have their way, and are to re-baptize the most familiar heroes of our youth and to re-spell the world-famous names.

Each specialist is full of his own era and subject, and is quite willing to leave the rest of the historical field to the popular style. But there is a higher tribunal beyond; and those who care for history as a whole, and for English literature in the sum, wonder how far this revival in orthography is to be carried. Let us remember that, both in space and in time, there is a vast body of opinion of which account must be taken. There is the long succession of ages, there is the cultivated world of Europe and America, in both of which certain names have become traditional and customary. And if every knot of students is to rename at will familiar persons and historic places, historical tradition and the custom of the civilised world are wantonly confused. This true filiation in literary history is of far more importance than any alphabetic precision.