Note 3 — 4—How There Was Babbling in Philistia

It is a gratifying tribute to the permanence of æsthetic canons to record that Dr. Brander Matthews (connected with Columbia University) has, in an article upon "Alien Views of American Literature," contributed to the New York Times of 14 November, 1920, accepted these three qualifications as the essential groundwork for a literary critic even to-day; although Dr. Matthews is inclined, as a concession to modernism, to add to the list an ability to recite Webster's Reply to Hayne. Since Dr. Matthews frankly states that he has been incited to this recital of a critic's needs by (in his happy wording) "the alien angle" of "standards domiciled in the midst of us," it is sincerely to be hoped that his requirements may be met forthwith.