This is the truth with

and becomes a miniature classic. our best men, but a vast herd continue writing worse and worse, until at last the severest punishment for them would be to read their own works, under which they have buried the little spirit or the small faculty with which they set out. From these hasty remarks one may readily infer the following conclusions: that our writers have been in general men of talent, and rarely men of genius; relying too much upon artificial aids, and by far too little on the everfresh resources of nature. That their greatest intellectual defect, too often with the best, has been want of independence; and the leading moral defect occasionally with others, a want of honesty.

III.

HOME CRITICISM.

CRITICISM Should flourish in this country, if no other form of prose writing meet with favor, for Americans are confessedly an acute and shrewd race. These faculties applied to the judgment of books and authors, by educated men, ought to be made the most of in the absence of original power and creative genius. Goldsmith has remarked in one of his Essays, that criticism is more highly cultivated in the decline of the higher productions of art and genius; which opinion, with those who consider American to form a supplement of English Literature, itself in their view effete, and in its very weakest phase, should be allowed as an argument in favor of our position. In the judgment of some of the ablest writers, American critics stand in the most favorable attitude for judging English authors, as perfectly free from bias of any kind, not blinded by patriotism or party, beyond the reach of rivalry, and uninfluenced by malevolence or friendship. Many portions of English Literature are to be recriticised, and that from a new point of view, such as is afforded only to American writers. Especially the contemporary literature of England can be best estimated here, where distance and difference of government place the American critic in the position which would

naturally be filled by an English writer of the succeeding generation. In this surely we are the posterity of the present race of English authors, and consequently, can judge more dispassionately and clearly than might be expected of contemporaries.

But we do not intend to go further into this question at present. Our object now is, to point out the prevailing character of our home critics to depict the general defects of our criticism, rather than to paint the portraits of the few fine critics we have; to show what ought to be avoided more than what we should seek to attain: this is our present endeavor.

What is the character of our criticism? Is it reliable, is it sincere or thoroughly just? We may safely and truly answer, no! It is not reliable because it is not sincere : it is unjust because deficient in thoroughness. Morally and intellectually it is unsound. Much of it is paltry and shallow, more is spurious and mercenary. From personal or party reasons, on some private ground of pique or partiality, from prejudice or from prepossession, almost all of our written criticism is either directly hostile or friendly towards and on account of the writer, not his book. It is the man, not the author or his book that conciliates or repels, makes friends or enemies, and keeps them through a literary career. This is manifestly wrong. Criticism absolutely just, we hardly have at all.

Puffing and abuse form the two extremes of criticism; the two strings upon which its professors love to play, and incited to either much more from impulse than any settled design; and so well is this understood, that most newspaper notices have just the influence and tendency of the advertisements for quack medicines, to deceive nobody but

the ignorant and simple. "Mr. Orator Puff had two tones to his voice," and so with the newspaper critics, they have but two also, the one up high," eulogium, and the other

"down low," detraction.

name.

It is not intelligent. Few of those who sit in the seat of judgment are fit for the office; they rather sit in the seat of the scornful. And they generally do both, which is the reason their judgments are unjust and ridiculous. Themselves wanting in true literary feeling, in honest enthusiasm, or as honest indignation, in independence, in knowledge, we should not wonder at the vile subterfuges and miserable apologies for criticism, that pass under its How many professed literary critics, conductors of literary journals, are adapted to their duties? From laziness, or want of training, we have few educated critics; a class of writers requiring knowledge of books more than any other. The poet may rely upon his fancies, the historian on oral tradition, the philosopher may study only his own mind, but the critic must have learning to compare and contrast, to distinguish and divide, to apprehend a variety of talents and topics, authors and manners of writing, and forms of composition.

The want of knowledge has led to the most prominent defect of our criticism-indiscrimination. This is shamefully common. The good are all good alike: the bad no worse than the worst. Everything like nicety or refinement is lost in a wide and sweeping confusion of epithets. Wycherly has said, in his manly way, that it is wicked to speak well of those who don't deserve to be well spoken of, since the good men are thereby indirectly depreciated. good man, or writer, can but be so called; while if a knave passes for a gentlemen, the gentleman passes for no better than the knave himself.

A

The character of the critic is misunderstood. He is not to be carping at every petty fault, but must be able to praise with judgment. He must have a natural capacity for his office. The true critic is as much fitted, by nature and education, for his office, as the poet is for his. With him, too, he must have a cordiał sympathy, and a heart open to all the impulses of goodness and beauty. Truth and justice should be his leading guides, not pleasure or fancy; yet, to express the noblest truth, he must be much more than an exact didactic writer: an able critic of Locke will prove but an indifferent judge of Milton. Locke himself made sad havoc when he attempted poetical criticism. To be truly fair, the critic must have an intimate sympathy with his authors; Lamb, only, could write cordially of Donne and Burton. Hazlitt is the best expounder of Abraham Tucker, and John Buncle, Rousseau, the novelists and essayists. Hunt is best in writing on Chaucer and Milton's minor poems.

American criticism should be principally directed to American writers and their contemporaries, as well as to living European authors. American criticism of an English book should be so far impartial, that no review or notice of it should be read by the critic before he has finished his work, which should be entirely individual.

We have had as much imitation and plagiarism of foreign criticism as of foreign original writing. The reviewers have shown, at least, as much deference as the poets to their English brethren, and we are not sure that they have not been still more servile and dependent.

The reader can readily enumerate, on his fingers, the good, the fine, the just critics we have, while to enumerate the trifling, the malignant, the shallow, the illiterate, almost transcends the powers of numbers.