On a School of English by Arthur Quiller-Couch

(a) To begin with, then, these valiant fighters, intent on pushing their cause to the front, kept no sense of proportion. All their geese were swans, and Beowulf a second Iliad. I think it scarcely too much to say that, of these men, all so staunch in fighting for the claims of English Literature, not one (with the exception of Dr. Hales) appears to have had any critical judgment whatever, apart from the rhyme, verse and inflectional tests on which they bestowed their truly priceless industry. Criticism, as Sainte-Beuve, Matthew Arnold or Pater understood and practised it, they merely misprized.

(b) I think it was of true scholarly desire to vindicate English Literature from the charge of being "too easy," that -- as their studies advanced -- they laid more and more stress on Middle-English and Old English writings than on what our nations of England and Scotland have written since they learned to write. I dare to think also that we may attribute to this dread of "easiness" their practice of cumbering simple texts with philological notes; on which, rather than on the text, we unhappy students were carefully examined. For an example supplied to Dr. Corson -- I take those three lines of Cowper's Task (Book I, 86-–-88):