the period of their poetical commis sion; and with each the office in his country became extinct. They collected into immortal monuments the precious ore which the tide of time had thrown upon their shores; their successors must labour in the mines for the ore, and afterwards refine and polish it with patient industry and ingenious toil. Paradoxical as it may sound, the most original of poets were the greatest compilers. The discern ment and good sense which characterize their genius would, however, in different circumstances, have made them pre-eminently laborious and fastidious. Let not criticism be intoxicated and degraded from her throne, by the ill-tempered draughts, hastily handed to her by the rashness or folly of genius. If writings, like linens, are indeed to be adapted to the demand in the market, the liberal criticism of genius has no more to do with the writings than with the linens.

But the high and important office of the critic deserves more particular consideration, for it is his province to apply the test of reason and truth to the productions of fashion, and to distinguish temporary popularity from permanent merit.

The art of printing has introduced a complete revolution in the conduct of public intercourse. It has substituted publication for oral discourse, and advertisements for epistolary correspondence. Reviews, Magazines, and Literary Journals, now perform the duties of the ancient philosophers, teachers, and masters of schools. But the candidates for immortality must still labour in the same manner, and on the same terms, as of old. Our porters, and waggoners, and canalers, may carry on our domestic, that is, our contemporary commerce, but the same hardy industry in the tars, and the same adaptation of the sails to the wind of heaven, which conveyed Eneas to Latium, are still necessary to convey literary produce to distant generations. It is of infinite importance that cargoes which would sink the ship in its voyage, or be rejected as useless by the distant nations for whom they are intended, should never be suffered to leave our shores. we imagine the tide of time rolling its way along winding valleys and around precipitous cliffs, we are to consider the true critic as stationed

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on a lofty mountain, far above the mists and deceptions which affect the eyes of those who float along the current of the present age, and commanding a clear view of the course of the stream in ages to come.

The judgment of the crowd is often opposed to the decision of an ho nest critic. Vox populi, vox Dei, is utterly untrue in literature. It is in the very essence of study and labour to remove the objects of their care from the surface, to bury deep, to entrench and secure, to conceal from casual observation. Study and labour must ever be employed in selecting words, pointing allusions, and forming arrangements which are remote and unobserved at first view; consequently studied and elaborate works cannot be duly appreciated, without diligence and attention corresponding to their distance from the ordinary level. But the multitude are not apt to search deep or to fix attention long, and, therefore, the writer best entitled to critical praise escapes their appro bation. Language holds that peculiar relation to thought, that it cannot convey its real and full meaning to a mind unprepared to receive it. Language is but the index that conducts the reader's attention to the volume in his breast, and the more precise and definite the reference of the index happens to be, so much the greater attention is required to turn to the very page referred to, and to the image represented there. The most elaborate and finished discourse, or poem, may pass for a collection of obscure sentences without careful and continued attention; as the grandest delineation of cities, rivers, and mountains, may pass for coloured canvass without a fixed and continued view. Correct and polished writings, and unostentatious and recondite, because correct and polished, generally appear unin teresting, while the shallow glare and declamatory tautology of superficial writings strike at once, and obtain the preference. Good writers are neglected and undervalued, because they do not court attention, or expose their beauties to every idle passer by.

are left undiscovered and unprized, and the meretricious tawdriness and impudent pretensions of writers with out condensation of thought, choice of expression, or accuracy of arrangement, are preferred and praised, as distinguishing the brilliant and persuasive instructors of mankind.

These remarks are not the peevish expressions of disappointment or envy, they are the dictates of sound reason, of experience of human nature, and of ancient and approved criticism. Quinctilian recommends Cicero to the earliest attention of the student, as at once an agreeable and a diffuse writer, and adds, in the words of Livy, that the reader's affection for Cicero will increase with the increase of his resemblance to that great model. Amari potest, tum (quemadmodum Livius præcipit) ut quisque erit Ciceroni simillimus. Here the principle is recognized, that the reader's esteem for a good writer is in proportion to his progress in taste, and resemblance to the writer. The untutored multitude must, upon this principle, prefer the writer between whom and themselves there already exists the nearest resemblance. The same decisive authority directs that Livy should be put in the hands of youth before Sallust, and assigns this reason: hic historia major est auctor, ad quem tamen intelligendum jam profectu opus sit: "Sallust is the better historian, but to understand him, the reader must have made a proficiency in education." The very ground of excellence in Sallust was the cause of difficulty in understanding him. This difficulty of access to perfect but recondite beauties, is not for a moment to be confounded with the obscurity arising from indistinctness of perception in the writer, from the use of unappropriate terms and inelegant phrases, or from ambiguous and mystical allusions. A shallow and muddy pond is as obscure as a secluded and profound fountain, but the cause of the obscurity is widely different.

The condensation of thought and the pointed elegance of expression which distinguish the few writers whose real pride of genius and obstinate fastidiousness of taste qualify them for that immortality for which they pant, are infinitely meritorious, and worthy of the praises of the critic, and the gratitude of the public. The load of

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literature is increasing as time advances, and, therefore, no superfluity ought to be admitted. In levying an army for a distant and perilous expedition, all who have imperfections in their limbs or organs, whatever may be their merits, are excluded. Let criticism, therefore, let the exclusive and ardent admiration of the judicious reward writers of refined taste and laborious ingenuity, and console them for the temporary neglect of the mob, who celebrate and applaud a painted charlatan one day, and his successor the next. This is the peculiar and proudest province of criticism. The true critic is the representative of posterity, and the honest and independent performance of his duty is of the utmost importance to the production and the enjoyment of the richest pleasures allotted to man. The modern critic holds quite a different office, and performs a far different duty from those of the ancient critic. The critics of antiquity only gave lectures on taste and polite literature. Modern critics are messengers sent before the public to the land of promise, and their task is to report faithfully and bring back fair specimens of the fruits of the land. By the correct discharge of this duty, they do incalculable service to the public and to literature.

Long and thorough acquaintance with their manners, their habits, and their allusions, increases inconceivably the value of the books we read, as well as of the friends with whom we associate. The writings of the Greeks and Romans are unquestionably more finished and expressive than any modern writings, but who can be ignorant that their thoughts and their periods are rendered more sensibly just and forcible by the greater degree of attention which a dead language requires? The finest and most admired parts of Shakespeare owe half the magic of their power to the expansion of meaning and the fitness of delineation, with which early, constant, and growing familiarity with their minutest circumstances, and the thousand associations excited in our minds, endow them. Let the reader glance his eye over the scene in which Hamlet turns his mother's eyes into her very soul, and let him conceive if possible, its impression on a first perusal. Its force and beauty are abundantly obvious, but it is not till after repeat

ed readings and matured attention that one becomes fully sensible of the vehement avidity with which the awakened and wounded conscience of the queen renounces her own confession, and grasps at the hope that Hamlet was mad; or that we distinctly comprehend the awful combination of feeling and discretion in Hamlet, the terrific frenzy and sorrow which points at his father "in his habit as he lived," and the majestic sway of reason which proves that it was not the ecstasy of his fancy, but the reality of her guilt, that suggested the vision. Every word and image is clothed with an authority and force which originally belonged not to it.

Mother, for love of grace,

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul,

That not your trespass, but my madness speaks.

This admonition, which now presents itself with the vivid decision of lightning, might be heard for the first time with indifference, and forgotten as soon as heard.

The great duty of the critic, then, is to save attention from being wasted on compositions that are careless and jejune, and to direct its close and continued application to works that merit and that will reward an intimate acquaintance. It were too much to say that a writer of Shakespeare's intuition into the human heart could be neglected in the present day; but without contending for an extreme case, it may be confidently affirmed that the most profound observations, and the most faithful and comprehensive sketches of sentiment, character, or conduct, may pass unnoticed, only because sufficient attention does not happen to be given. The multitude of writers, therefore, adapt their exertions to the demand of their contemporaries, and supply what neither requires nor deserves attention. Like the successful impostor of Arabia, they go to the mountain, since they cannot make the mountain come to them. Hence we are inundated with poems, bistories, disquisitions, novels, and ten thousand other denominations of writings, that are in their nature as perishable as the ice-built palace of the Russian empress. Let it not be said that society is indebted to such mushroom-makers, for the food they

VOL. IX.

supply is always unsubstantial, and often poisonous, and they discourage others from providing better aliment. Human nature is the same in all ages, but criticism ought to derive instruc tion and arguments from the years that are gone.

Of all Swift's works, the most marvellously popular was "The Conduct of the Allies," and who reads it now? "Surely," says Dr Johnson," whoever surveys this wonder-working pamphlet with cool perusal, will confess that its efficacy was supplied by the passions of its readers.' The slow progress of Paradise Lost into popularity is well known. The exquisite Odes of Gray were indebted to the common-place of the Elegy for any favour at first. Mr Hume's sketch of his own life contains this passage: "I thought that I was the only historian that had at once neglected present power, interest, and authority, and the cry of popular prejudices; and as the subject was suited to every capacity, I expected proportional applause. But miserable was my disin a twelvemonth he sold only fortyappointment. Mr Millar told me that five copies of it." This was the recep

tion of the best volume of the best history of modern times, and at the time when Beattie's "Essay on Truth" was devoured by all classes of readers. Where was the critic sixty years ago?

We may, perhaps, on some future occasion, apply our theory of popula rity and merit to the publications of living authors. "We will a true inquest make into such matters as may be laid before us, and we promise to present no one from fear, favour, or reward." The partiality of a critic, is twice cursed; it curseth him that unlike the heavenly quality of mercy, gives and him that takes.