He had, moreover, the advantage of thoroughly
understanding the standpoint from which the tragedians expected
their work to be judged, and what was his conclusion? Briefly it was
little else than this, that they were a fraud or something very like
it. For my own part I cordially agree with him. I am free to confess
that with the exception perhaps of some of the Psalms of David I
know no writings which seem so little to deserve their reputation. I
do not know that I should particularly mind my sisters reading them,
but I will take good care never to read them myself.
This last bit about the Psalms was awful, and there was a great
fight the editor as to whether or not it should be allowed to stand.
Ernest himself was frightened at it, but he had once heard someone say
that the Psalms were many of them very poor, and on looking at them
more closely, after he had been told this, he found that there could
hardly be two opinions on the subject. So he caught up the remark
and reproduced it as his own, concluding that these psalms had
probably never been written by David at all, but had got in among
the others by mistake.
The essay, perhaps on account of the passage about the Psalms,
created quite a sensation, and on the whole was well received.
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