A still more noteworthy characteristic of Lanier's scholarship is the modernness of his work. It is a striking fact that every subject he wrote about has more and more engaged the attention of scholars since his time. One may not agree with any of his ideas, and may be convinced of the superficiality of his treatment of literature, but there is no question of the insight manifested by him in seizing upon those subjects that have been of notable interest to recent scholars. When he lectured about Shakespeare, for instance, he did not indulge in any of the moralizing that had been characteristic of German commentators. On the other hand, he put himself in thorough accord with the work outlined by Dr. Furnivall and his fellow workers in their efforts to study and interpret Shakespeare as a whole. "The first necessity," said Dr. Furnivall in the introduction to the Leopold Shakespeare (1877), "is to regard Shakespeare as a whole, his works as a living organism, each a member of one created unity, the whole a tree of healing and of comfort to the nations, a growth from small beginnings to mighty ends." And again: "As the growth is more and more closely watched and discerned, we shall more and more clearly see that his metre, his words, his grammar and syntax, move but with the deeper changes of mind and soul of which they are outward signs, and that all the faculties of the man went onward together. . . . This subject of the growth, the oneness of Shakespeare . . . is the special business of the present, the second school of Victorian students . . . as antiquarian illustration, emendation, and verbal criticism were of the first school. The work of the first school we have to carry on, not to leave undone; the work of our own second school we have to do." Into this study, thus outlined by the founder of the New Shakespeare Society, Lanier threw himself with unabated zeal.

The fact is all the more remarkable when we compare his writing on Shakespeare with Swinburne's book published during the same year. Swinburne has only words of contempt for the investigations of the New Shakespeare Society, whom he characterizes as "learned and laborious men who could hear only with their fingers. They will pluck out the heart, not of Hamlet's, but of Shakespeare's mystery by the means of a metrical test; and this test is to be applied by a purely arithmetical process. . . . Every man, woman, and child born with five fingers on each hand was henceforward better qualified as a critic than any poet or scholar of time past." He calls them "metre-mongers" and the "bastard brood of scribblers". Lanier, however, while carefully avoiding the methods and principles of a mere dry-as-dust, spiritualizes all their facts, and works out in passages of remarkable beauty and eloquence the growth of Shakespeare's mind and art. To Lanier a metrical test or a date is no insignificant thing. "Many a man," he says, "may feel inclined to say, Why potter about your dates and chronologies? . . . But it so happens that here a whole view of the greatest mind the human race has yet evolved hangs essentially upon dates." Lanier's reverence for exact scholarship and his application of seemingly technical standards do not interfere at all with his deeper appreciation of Shakespeare's plays. While he overstated the autobiographical value of a chronological study of the plays, -- reading into this study meanings that are not warranted by the facts, -- it must be said that it is difficult to find in the writings of Americans on Shakespeare more significant passages than chapters xx-xxiv of "Shakspere and His Forerunners".

Other illustrations of the modernness of Lanier's scholarly work are easy to cite. His plan for the publication of a book of Elizabethan sonnets, while not realized by him, has been carried out during the past year in a far more extensive and scholarly way than he could have done it by Mr. Sidney Lee. In the light of the recent scholar's investigation, many of Lanier's ideas with regard to the autobiographical value of the sonnets vanish, but his insight into the need of the study of the Elizabethan sonnets is none the less notable. He was the first American to indicate the necessity for the study of the novel as a form of literature that was worthy of serious thought. Lecture courses and books on the novel have multiplied at a rapid rate during the past decade. Whatever may be one's idea of the permanent value of the "Science of English Verse", it is evident that it was a pioneer book in a field which has been much cultivated within recent years. The thesis of the book will be discussed in a later chapter; here it needs to be said that it is one of the best pieces of original work yet produced by an English scholar in America, -- in it are seen at their best the qualities that have been noted as distinctive in the author's work.

All these very essential characteristics of a scholar Lanier had. He had not the time to secure results from the plans that he clearly saw. He was moving in the right direction. No scholar should ever speak of him but with reverent lips. Without the training, or the equipment, or the time, of more fortunate scholars of our own day, he should be an inspiration to all men who have scholarly ideals. If not a great scholar himself, he wanted to be one, and he had the finest appreciation of all who were. And besides, did he not have something which is often lacking in scholars? There is more science, more criticism now in American universities, but it would be well to keep in view the ideals of men who saw the spiritual significance of scholarship. President Gilman realized this when he wrote to Lanier: "I think your scheme (of winter lectures) may be admirably worked in, not only with our major and minor courses in English, but with all our literary courses, French and German, Latin and Greek. The teachers of these subjects pursue chiefly LANGUAGE courses. We need among us some one like you, loving literature and poetry, and treating it in such a way as to enlist and inspire many students. . . . I think your aims and your preparation admirable."