Criticism is an art that undergoes a great variety of changes, and aims
at different objects at different times.
At first, it is generally satisfied to give an opinion whether a work is
good or bad, and to quote a passage or two in support of this opinion:
afterwards, it is bound to assign the reasons of its decision and to
analyse supposed beauties or defects with microscopic minuteness.
A critic does nothing nowadays who does not try to torture the most
obvious expression into a thousand meanings, and enter into a circuitous
explanation of all that can be urged for or against its being in the
best or worst style possible. His object indeed is not to do justice to
his author, whom he treats with very little ceremony, but to do himself
homage, and to show his acquaintance with all the topics and resources
of criticism. If he recurs to the stipulated subject in the end, it is
not till after he has exhausted his budget of general knowledge; and he
establishes his own claims first in an elaborate inaugural dissertation
_de omni scibile et quibusdam aliis,_ before he deigns to bring forward
the pretensions of the original candidate for praise, who is only the
second figure in the piece. We may sometimes see articles of this sort,
in which no allusion whatever is made to the work under sentence of
death, after the first announcement of the title-page; and I apprehend
it would be a clear improvement on this species of nominal criticism to
give stated periodical accounts of works that had never appeared at all,
which would save the hapless author the mortification of writing, and
his reviewer the trouble of reading them. If the real author is made of
so little account by the modern critic, he is scarcely more an object of
regard to the modern reader; and it must be confessed that after a dozen
close-packed pages of subtle metaphysical distinction or solemn didactic
declamation, in which the disembodied principles of all arts and
sciences float before the imagination in undefined profusion, the eye
turns with impatience and indifference to the imperfect embryo specimens
of them, and the hopeless attempts to realise this splendid jargon in
one poor work by one poor author, which is given up to summary execution
with as little justice as pity. 'As when a well-graced actor leaves the
stage, men's eyes are idly bent on him that enters next'--so it is here.
Whether this state of the press is not a serious abuse and a violent
encroachment in the republic of letters, is more than I shall pretend to
determine. The truth is, that in the quantity of works that issue from
the press, it is utterly impossible they should all be read by all
sorts of people. There must be _tasters_ for the public, who must have
a discretionary power vested in them, for which it is difficult to make
them properly accountable. Authors in proportion to their numbers become
not formidable, but despicable. They would not be heard of or severed
from the crowd without the critic's aid, and all complaints of
ill-treatment are vain. He considers them as pensioners on his bounty
for any pittance or praise, and in general sets them up as butts for
his wit and spleen, or uses them as a stalking-horse to convey his own
favourite notions and opinions, which he can do by this means without
the possibility of censure or appeal. He looks upon his literary
_protege_ (much as Peter Pounce looked upon Parson Adams) as a kind of
humble companion or unnecessary interloper in the vehicle of fame, whom
he has taken up purely to oblige him, and whom he may treat with neglect
or insult, or set down in the common footpath, whenever it suits his
humour or convenience. He naturally grows arbitrary with the exercise of
power. He by degrees wants to have a clear stage to himself, and would
be thought to have purchased a monopoly of wit, learning, and wisdom--
Assumes the rod, affects the God,
And seems to shake the spheres.
Besides, something of this overbearing manner goes a great way with the
public. They cannot exactly tell whether you are right or wrong; and if
you state your difficulties or pay much deference to the sentiments of
others, they will think you a very silly fellow or a mere pretender. A
sweeping, unqualified assertion ends all controversy, and sets opinion
at rest. A sharp, sententious, cavalier, dogmatical tone is therefore
necessary, even in self-defence, to the office of a reviewer. If you
do not deliver your oracles without hesitation, how are the world to
receive them on trust and without inquiry? People read to have
something to talk about, and 'to seem to know that which they do not.'
Consequently, there cannot be too much dialectics and debatable matter,
too much pomp and paradox, in a review. _To elevate and surprise_ is
the great rule for producing a dramatic or critical effect. The more you
startle the reader, the more he will be able to startle others with a
succession of smart intellectual shocks. The most admired of our Reviews
is saturated with this sort of electrical matter, which is regularly
played off so as to produce a good deal of astonishment and a strong
sensation in the public mind. The intrinsic merits of an author are
a question of very subordinate consideration to the keeping up the
character of the work and supplying the town with a sufficient number of
grave or brilliant topics for the consumption of the next three months!
This decided and paramount tone in criticism is the growth of the
present century, and was not at all the fashion in that calm, peaceable
period when the _Monthly Review_ bore 'sole sovereign sway and
masterdom' over all literary productions. Though nothing can be said
against the respectability or usefulness of that publication during its
long and almost exclusive enjoyment of the public favour, yet the
style of criticism adopted in it is such as to appear slight and
unsatisfactory to a modern reader. The writers, instead of 'outdoing
termagant or out-Heroding Herod,' were somewhat precise and prudish,
gentle almost to a fault, full of candour and modesty,