The peace of the Augustans; a survey of eighteenth century literature as a place of rest and refresh

by George Saintsbury

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

412 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

George Edward Bateman Saintsbury was an English scholar, writer, literary historian and critic.

Reviews

[Christopher (Donut) · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Sainstbury's perroration:

Their facts may be antiquated, their opinions sometimes may be shown to be not only erroneous,
but made even a little ridiculous, by that most unsportsmanlike operator Time. But over the whole,
or at worst again and again at intervals throughout the whole, there will be found something of those delectable and profitable qualities on which we have endeavoured to insist here the calm unhurried judgment, the absence of excitement and flurry and phantasm and fad, the curiously all-pervading good nature which, combined as it was with rough " knock-about " manners, contrasts so strikingly with our own ill-blooded effeminacy and humanitarianism. We can indeed still fight (it will be a total Finis Angliae indeed when we cannot do that) and they could already cant, for that less admirable faculty was a development of all Teutonic nations at a very early date. But they made much less fuss about their fighting than we do, and their cant had less of the disgusting quality about it which is too evident in most of ours.

This book was mentioned by Edmund Wilson, in Classics and Commercials, almost at random, as the nearest book of Saintsbury he had to hand. When I found that I could get in for Kindle via the Internet Archive, I determined to read it, although that was four or five Kindles ago.

As a survey of a century's worth of literature, it is not dry. On the other hand, no one, however enthusiastic about "Augustan" literature, is going to dive as deeply as George S.