ABSTRACT
The successor to George Saintsbury in the Chair of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres at the University of Edinburgh, Grierson was instrumental in the revival of Donne, capitally through his edition of Donne’s poetry in 1912. Donne, indeed, became the norm; and when other poets were judged in the light of his performance – as Herbert was judged in the ensuing extract – they were invariably found wanting. Grierson was much too discriminating a scholar to be hostile to Herbert; but his reserve is unmistakable. See also above, p. 33.
Source: Grierson, from the introduction to his edition of ‘Metaphysical Lyrics and Poems of the Seventeeth Century: Donne to Butler’ (Oxford, 1921), pp. xl–xliv.
