[Eliot] uses his historical studies for the sake of literary understanding, and therefore might be called a historical critic. If the title conferred upon him seems quaint, I mean the formality to stand for the fact that he is learned in the precise learning of the scholars, a Pharisee of the Pharisees. I have not heard of any serious impeachment of his learning coming out of the universities. If the academic scholars do not recognize him as one of themselves, it is because he turns his scholarship to pointed critical uses, whatever they may do with theirs. Perhaps it is also because he writes prose of great suppleness and charm, for his criticism of literature has some of the value of literature.
It must look strange, except that we are far too used to the dullness of the official custodians of literature, that a critical achievement like Eliot's should be a phenomenon so rare, and seem so fabulous when it comes. The learning behind it is perfectly regular, and based generally on the academic sources of learning…. Eliot is a critical scholar on the order of Dryden, or Doctor Johnson; but that is a kind of scholar which our wonderfully organized Departments of Literature, offering advantages far greater than those earlier scholars ever possessed, have simply not turned out, nor dreamed of turning out. We should in the future expect better of them, I imagine, assuming that Eliot with his unvaryingly correct learning has won their respect. As for the comparative intelligence of Eliot beside Dryden or Johnson, or other famous critics in our language, I think surely he does not yield to any of them; he is "closer" and more patient than the two mentioned. It is likely that we have had no better critic than Eliot. And if Eliot is one of the most important sources of a new criticism, it is because here the new criticism is in part the recovery of old criticism. (pp. 139-40)
