As criticism had no share in producing the Homeric poems, so also did it contribute nothing to the perfection of the Greek tragedies. For those works-the most complete and highly finished, if not the most profound, of all human creations—there was no more previous warrant, than for the wildest dream of fantasy. No critic fashioned the moulds in which those exquisite groups were cast, or inspired them with Promethean life. They were struck off in the heat of inspiration-the offspring of moments teeming for immortality-though the slightest limb of each of the figures is finished as though it had been the labour of a life. These eternal works were complete-the spirit which inspired their authors was extinctwhen Aristotle began to criticise. The development of the art of poetry, by that great philosopher, wholly failed to inspire any bard, whose productions might break the descent from the mighty relics of the preceding years. After him, his disciples amused themselves in refining on his laws-in cold disputations and profitless scrutinies. The soil, late so fertile with the stateliest productions of nature, was overgrown with a low and creeping underwood, which, if any delicate flower struggled into day, oppressed and concealed it from view beneath its briary and tangled thickets.

1. It is evident, that the art of criticism is not requisite to the development of genius, because, in the golden ages of poetry it has had no portion. Its professors have never even constructed the scaffolding to aid the erection of the cloud-capped towers and solemn temples of the bard.. By his facile magic he has called them into existence, like the palace of Aladdin, as complete in the minutest graces of finishing as noble in design. Long before the art of criticism was known in Greece, her rhapsodists had attained the highest excellencies of poetry. No fear of a critic's scorn, no desire of a critic's praise, influenced these consecrated wanderers. Nature alone was their model, their inspirer, and their guide. From her did they drink in the feeling, not only of permanence and of grandeur, but of aërial grace and roseate beauty. The rocks and hills gave them the visible images of lasting might the golden clouds of even, "sailing on the bosom of the air," sent a feeling of evanescent loveliness into their souls-and the delicate branchings of the grove, reflected in the calm waters, imbued them with a perception of elegance beyond the reach of art. No pampered audiences thought themselves entitled to judge them: to analyze their powers; to descant on their imperfections; to lament their failures; or to eulogize their sublimities, 2. The instances already given refute not as those who had authority to praise. Their only the notion that criticism is requisite to hearers dwelt on their accents with rapturous prepare the way for genius, but also the opiwonder, as nature's living oracles. They nion that it is necessary to give it a right diwandered through the everywhere commu- rection and a perfect form. True imagination nicating joy, and everywhere receiving reve- is in itself "all compact." The term irregurence exciting in youth its first tearful ecsta-lar, as absolutely applied to genius, is absurd, sy, and kindling fresh enthusiasm amidst the and applied relatively, it means nothing but withered affections of age. They were revered that it is original in its career. There is as the inspired chroniclers of heroic deeds-properly no such thing as irregular genius. A the inspirers of national glory and virtue-the depositories of the mysteries and the philosophic wisdom of times which even then were old. They trusted not to paper or the press for the preservation of their fame. They were contented, that each tree beneath which they had poured forth their effusions, should be loved for their sake-that the forked promontory should bear witness of them-and the "brave o'erhanging firmament, fretted with golden fire," tell of those who had first awakened within the soul a sense of its glories. Their works were treasured up nowhere but in the soul-spread abroad only by the enthusiasm of kindred reciters-and transmitted to the children of other generations, while they listened with serious faces to the wondrous tales of their fathers. Yet these poems, so produced, so received, so preserved, were not only instinct with heavenly fire, but regular as the elaborate efforts of the most polished ages. In these products of an era of barbarism, have future bards not only found an exhaustless treasury of golden imaginations, but critics have discovered all those principles of order which they would establish as unalterable laws. The very instances of error and haste in their authors have been converted into figures of rhetoric, by those men, who represent nature herself as irregular and feeble, and a minute attention to rules as essential to the perfection of genius.

man endowed with "the vision and the faculty divine," may choose modes of composition unsuited to the most appropriate display of his powers;-his images may not be disposed in the happiest arrangement, or may be clustered around subjects, in themselves, dreary or mean, but these fantasies must be in themselves harmonious, or they would not be beauteous, would not be imaginations. Genius is a law unto itself. Its germs have, within them, not only the principles of beauty, but the very form which the flower in its maturity must expand. As a wavy gleam of fire rises from the spark, in its own exquisite shape, so does imagination send forth its glories, perfect by the felicitous necessity of their nature, exquisite in form by the same impulse which gives them brightness and fervour. But how can the critic, in reality, acquire any jurisdiction over the genuine poet? Where are the lines by which he can fathom the depths of the soul; where the instrument by which he can take the altitude of "the highest heaven of invention ?" How can he judge of thoughts which penetrate the mysteries of humanity, of fancies which "in the colours of the rainbow live, and play in the plighted clouds," of anticipations and foretastes by which the bard already" breathes in worlds, to which the heaven of heavens is but a veil ?" Can he measure a sunbeam, or constrain a cloud, or count the steps of the bounding stag of the forest, to judge whether they are grace

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who aspire, without just claim, to the honours of genius. This, indeed, in so far as it is unfavourable, is its chief object in modern times. The most celebrated of literary tribunals takes as the motto of its decrees, "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur;" assuming that to publish.a dull book is a crime, which the public good requires should be exposed, whatever laceration of the inmost soul may be inflicted on the offender in the process. This damnatory principle is still farther avowed in the following dogma of this august body, which deserves to be particularly quoted as an explicit declaration of the spirit of modern criticism:

"There is nothing of which nature has been more bountiful than poets. They swarm like the spawn of the cod-fish, with a vicious fecundity that invites and requires destruction To publish verses is become a sort of evidence that a man wants sense; which is repelled, not by writing good verses, but by writing excellent verses;-by doing what Lord Byron has done;-by displaying talents great enough to overcome the disgust which proceeds from satiety, and showing that all things may become new under the reviving touch of genius." -Ed. Rev., No. 43, p. 68.

ful? Has he power even to define those gigantic | useful in putting down the pretensions of those shadows reflected on the pure mirror of the poet's imagination, from the eternal things which mortal eyes cannot discern? At best, he can but reason from what has been to what should be; and what can be more absurd than this course in reference to poetic invention? A critic can understand no rules of criticism except what existing poetry has taught him. There was no more reason, after the production of the Iliad, to contend that future poems should in certain points resemble it, than there was before the existence of that poem to lay down rules which would prevent its being what it is. There was antecedently no more probability that the powers of man, harmoniously exerted, could produce the tale of Troy divine, than that, after it, the same powers would not produce other works equally marvellous and equally perfect, yet wholly different in their colouring and form. The reasons which would prevent men from doing any thing unlike it, would also have prevented its creation, for it was doubtless unlike all previous inventions. Criticism can never be prospective, until the resources of man and nature are exhausted. Each new world of imagination revolves on itself, in an orbit of its own. Its beauties create the taste which shall relish them, and the very critics which shall extol their proportions. The first admirers of Homer had no conception that the Greek tragedies would start into life and become lasting as their idol. Those who lived after the times when these were perfected, asserted that no dramas could be worthy of praise, which were not fashioned according to their models and composed of similar materials. But, after a long interval, came Shakspeare—at first, indeed, considered by many as barbarous and strange-who, when his real merits are perceived, is felt to be, at the least, equal to his Greek predecessors, though violating every rule drawn from their works. Even in our short remembrance, we can trace the complete abolition of popular rules of criticism, by the new and unexpected combinations of genius. A few years ago, it was a maxim gravely asserted by Reviews, Treatises, and Magazines, that no interesting fiction could effectively be grafted on history. But "mark how a plain tale" by the author of Waverley "puts down" the canon for ever! In fact, unless with more than angel's ken a critic could gaze on all the yet unpossessed regions of imagination, it is impossible that he should limit his discoveries which yet await the bard. He may perceive, indeed, how poets of old have by their magic divided the clouds which bound man's ordinary vision, and may scan the regions which they have thus opened to our gaze. But how can he thus anticipate what future bards may reveal-direct the proportions, the colours and the forms, of the realities which they shall unveil-fix boundaries to regions of beauty yet unknown; determine the height of their glory-stricken hills; settle the course of their mighty waters; or regulate the visionary shapes of superhuman grace, which shall gleam in the utmost distance of their far perspectives?

3. But it may be urged, that criticism is

It appears to us, that the crime and the evil denounced in this pregnant sentence are entirely visionary and fantastic. There is no great danger, that works without talent should usurp the admiration of the world. Splendid error may mislead; vice linked to a radiant angel, by perverted genius, may seduce; and the union of high energy with depravity of soul may teach us to respect where we ought to shudder. But men will not easily be dazzled by insipidity, enchanted by discord, or awed by weakness. The mean and base, even if left to themselves unmolested, will scarcely grow immortal by the neglect of the magnanimous and the wise. He who cautions the public against the admiration of feeble productions, almost equals the wisdom of a sage, who should passionately implore a youth not imprudently to set his heart on ugliness and age. And surely our nerves are not grown so finely tremulous, that we require guardians who may providently shield us from glancing on a work which may prove unworthy of perusal. It is one high privilege of our earthly lot, that the best pleasures of humanity are not balanced by any painful sensations arising from their contraries. We drink in joy too deep for expression, when we penetrate the vast solitudes of nature, and gaze on her rocky fortresses, her eternal hills, her regions "consecrate to eldest time." But we feel no answering agony while we traverse level and barren plains; especially if we can leave them at pleasure. Thus, while we experience a thrilling delight, in thinking on the divinest imaginations of the poet, we are not plunged, by the dullest author, into the depths of sorrow. At all events, we can throw down the book at once; and we must surely be very fastidious if we do not regard the benefit conferred on printers and publishers, and the gratification of the author's innocent and genial vanity, as

amply compensating the slight labour which we have taken in vain.

which may prevent minds, gifted with the richest faculties, from exerting them at the But, perhaps, it is the good of the aspirants first with success. The very number of themselves, rather than of their readers, which images, crowding on the mirror of the soul, the critic professes to design. Here, also, we may for a while darken its surface, and give think he is mistaken. The men of our gene- the idea of inextricable confusion. The young ration are not too prone to leave their quest poet's holiest thoughts must often appear to after the substantial blessings of the world, in him too sacred to be fully developed to the order to pursue those which are aërial and world. His soul will half shrink at first from the shadowy. The very error of the mind, which disclosure of its solemn immunities and strange takes the love for the power of poetry, is more joys. He will thus become timid and irresolute goodly than common wisdom. But there are tell but a slight part of that which he feels— certain seasons, we believe, in life-some few and this broken and disjointed communication golden moments at least-in which all men will appear senseless or feeble. The more have really perceived, and felt, and enjoyed, deep and original his thoughts-the more dazas poets. Who remembers not an hour of zling his glimpses into the inmost sanctuaries serious ecstasy, when, perhaps, as he lay be- of nature,-the more difficult will be the task neath some old tree and gazed on the setting of imbodying these in words, so as to make sun, earth seemed a visionary thing, the glo- them palpable to ordinary conceptions. He ries of immortality were half revealed, and will be constantly in danger, too, in the ferthe first notes a universal harmony whispered vour of his spirit, of mistaking things which to his soul?-some moment, when he seemed in his mind are connected with strains of dealmost to realize the eternal, and could have licious musing, for objects, in themselves, been well contented to yield up his mortal stately or sacred. The seeming commonbeing some little space, populous of high place, which we despise, may be to him the thoughts and disinterested resolves-some index to pure thoughts and far-reaching detouch upon that "line of limitless desires," sires. In that which to the careless eye may along which he shall live in a purer sphere? seem but a little humble spring-pure, perhaps, -And if that taste of joy is not to be renewed and sparkling, but scarce worthy of a glanceon earth, the soul will not suffer by an attempt the more attentive observer may perceive a to prolong its memory. It is a mistake, to depth which he cannot fathom, and discover suppose that young beginners in poetry are that the seeming fount is really the breaking always prompted by a mere love of worldly forth of a noble river, winding its consecrated fame. The sense of beauty and the love of way beneath the soil, which, as it runs, will the ideal, if they do not draw all the faculties soon bare its bosom to the heavens, and glide into their likeness, still impart to the soul in a cool and fertilizing majesty. And is there something of their rich and unearthly colour-not some danger that souls, whose powers of ing. Young fantasy spreads its golden films, expression are inadequate to make manifest slender though they be, through the varied their inward wealth, should be sealed for ever tenour of existence. Imagination, nurtured by the hasty sentences of criticism? The name in the opening of life, though it be not de- of Lord Byron is rather unfortunately introveloped in poetic excellence, will strengthen duced by the celebrated journal which we the manly virtue, give a noble cast to the have quoted, into its general denunciation thoughts, and a generous course to the sympa- against youthful poets. Surely the critics thies. It will assist to crush self-love in its must for the moment have forgotten, that at first risings, to mellow and soften the heart, the outset of the career of that bard, to whose and prepare it for its glorious destiny. Even example they now refer, as most illustriously if these consequences did not follow, surely opposed to the mediocrity which they condemn, the most exquisite feelings of young hope are they themselves poured contempt on his ennot worthy of scorn. They may truly be deavours! Do they now wish that he had worth years of toil, of riches, and of honour. taken their counsel? Are they willing to run Who would crush them at a venture-short the hazard, for the sake of putting down a and uncertain as life is-and cold and dreary thousand pretenders a few months before their as are often its most brilliant successes? time, of crushing another power such as they What, indeed, can this world offer to compare esteem his own? Their very excuse—that, at with the earliest poetic dreams, which our the time, his verses were all which they had admodern critics think it sport or virtue to judged them—is the very proof of the impolicy destroy? of such censures. If the object of their scorn has, in this instance, risen above it, how do we know that more delicate minds have not sunk beneath it? Besides, although Lord Byron was not repelled, but rather excited by their judgment, he seems to have sustained from it scarcely less injury. If it stung him into energy, it left its poison in his soul. It first instigated his spleen;-taught him that spirit of scorn which debases the noblest faculties-and impelled him, in his rage, to attack those who had done him no wrong, to scoff at the sanctities of humanity, and to pretend to hate or deride his species!

Such views the youthful hard allure,
As, mindless of the following gloom,
He deems their colours shall endure
Till peace go with him to the tomb.

And let him nurse his fond deceit,

And what if he must die in sorrow;Who would not cherish dreams so sweet,

Though care and grief should come to-morrow?" But, supposing for a moment that it were really desirable to put down all authors who do not rise into excellence, at any expense of personal feeling, we must not forget the risk which such a process involves, of crushing undeveloped genius. There are many causes

And, even if genius is too deep to be suppressed, or too celestial to be perverted, is it nothing that the soul of its possessor should be wrung with agony ́ ? For a while, criticism may throw back poets whom it cannot annihilate, and make them pause in their course of glory and of joy, "confounded though immortal." Who can estimate those pangs, which on the "purest spirits" are thus made to prey

the most divine. The very trade of the critic himself-the necessity of his being witty, or brilliant, or sarcastic, for his own sake-is sufficient to disqualify him as a judge. Sad thought!-that the most sensitive, and gentle, and profound of human beings, should be dependent on casual caprice, on the passions of a bookseller, or on the necessities of a period! 4. It may be perceived, from what we have already written, that we do not esteem criticism "as on entrails, joint, and limb, as a guide more than as a censor. The general With answerable pains but more intense?" effect on the public mind is, we fear, to dissiThe heart of a young poet is one of the most pate and weaken. It spoils the freshest charms sacred things on earth. How nicely strung even of the poetry which it praises. It destroys are its fibres-how keen its sensibilities-how all reverence for great poets, by making the shrinking the timidity with which it puts forth world think of them as a species of culprits, its gentle conceptions! And shall such a heart who are to plead their genius as an excuse for receive rude usage from a world which it only their intrusion. Time has been when the poet desires to improve and to gladden? Shall its himself-instead of submitting his works to nerves be stretched on the rack, or its appre- the public as his master-called around him hensions turned into the instruments of its tor- those whom he thought worthy to receive his ture? All this, and more, has been done to- precepts, and pointed out to them the divine wards men of whom "this world was not lineaments, which he felt could never perish. worthy." Cowper, who, first of modern poets, They regarded him, with reverence, as most restored to the general heart the feeling of favoured of mortals. They delighted to sit in healthful nature-whose soul was without one the seat of the disciple, not in that of the particle of malice or of guile-whose suscep- scorner. How much enjoyment have the peotible and timorous spirit shrunk tremblingly ple lost by being exalted into judges! The from the touch of this rough world-was ascent of literature has been rendered smooth chilled, tortured, and almost maddened, by and easy, but its rewards are proportionably some nameless critic's scorn. Kirke White-lessened in value. With how holy a zeal did the delicate beauties of whose mind were destined scarcely to unfold themselves on earthin the beginning of his short career, was cut to the heart by the cold mockery of a stranger. A few sentences, penned, perhaps, in mere carelessness, almost nipped the young blossoms of his genius "like an untimely frost;" palsied for awhile all his faculties-imbittered his little span of life-haunted him almost to the verge of his grave, and heightened his dying agonies! Would the annihilation of all the dulness in the world compensate for one moment's anguish inflicted on hearts like these?

We have been all this time considering not the possible abuses, but the necessary tendencies, of contemporary criticism. All the evils we have pointed out may arise, though no sinister design pervert the Reviewer's judgment-though no prejudice, even unconscious ly, warp him-and, even, though he may decide fairly from the evidence before him." But it is impossible that this favourable supposition should be often realized in an age like ours. Temper, politics, religion, the interests of rival poets, or rival publishers—a thousand influences, sometimes recognised, and sometimes only felt-decide the sentence on imaginations

the aspirant once gird himself to tread the unworn path; how delectably was he refreshed by each plant of green; how intensely did he enjoy every prospect, from the lone and embowered resting-places of his journey! Now, distinctions are levelled-the zest of intellectual pleasures is taken away; and no one hour, like that of Archimedes, ever repays a life of toil. The appetite, satiated with luxuries cheaply acquired, requires new stimulants-even criticism palls-and private slander must be mingled with it to give the necessary relish. Happily, these evils will, at last, work out their own remedy. Scorn, of all human emotions, leaves the frailest monuments behind it. That light which now seems to play around the weapons of periodical criticism, is only like the electrical flame which, to the amazement of the superstitious, wreathes the sword of the Italian soldier on the approach of a storm, vapourish and fleeting. Those mighty poets of our time-who are now overcoming the derision of the critics-will be immortal witnesses of their shame. These will lift their heads, "like mountains when the mists are rolled away," imperishable memorials of the true genius of our time, to the most distant ages.

MODERN PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

[NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE.]

LITTLE did the authors of the Spectator, all sympathize; without a command of images, the Tattler, and the Guardian, think, while he has a glittering radiance of words which gratifying the simple appetites of our fathers the most superficial may admire; neither too for our periodical literature, how great would | hard-hearted always to refuse his admiration, be the number, and how extensive the influence, of their successors in the nineteenth century. Little did they know that they were preparing the way for this strange era in the world of letters, when Reviews and Magazines supersede the necessity of research or thought -when each month they become more spirited, more poignant, and more exciting-and on every appearance awaken a pleasing crowd of turbulent sensations in authors, contributors, and the few who belong to neither of these classes, unknown to our laborious ancestors. Without entering, at present, into the inquiry whether this system be, on the whole, as beneficial as it is lively, we will just lightly glance at the chief of its productions, which have such varied and extensive influences for good or for evil.

nor too kindly to suppress a sneer, he has been enabled to appear most witty, most wise, and most eloquent, to those who have chosen him for their oracle. As Reviewers, who have exercised a fearful power over the hearts and the destinies of young aspirants to fame, this gentleman, and his varied coadjutors, have done many great and irreparable wrongs. Their very motto, “Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur," applied to works offending only by their want of genius, asserted a fictitious crime to be punished by a voluntary tribunal. It implied that the author of a dull book was a criminal, whose sensibilities justice required to be stretched on the rack, and whose inmost soul it was a sacred duty to lacerate! They even carried this atrocious absurdity farther-represented youthful poets as prima facie guilty; "swarming with a vicious fecundity, which invited and required destruction:" and spoke of the publication of verses as evidence, in itself, of want of sense, to be rebutted

The Edinburgh Review-though its power is now on the wane-has perhaps, on the whole, produced a deeper and more extensive impression on the public mind than any other work of its species. It has two distinct characters-only by proofs of surpassing genius." Thus that of a series of original essays, and a criti- the sweetest hopes were to be rudely brokencal examination of the new works of particular the loveliest visions of existence were to be authors. The first of these constitutes its dissipated-the most ardent and most innocent fairest claim to honourable distinction. In this souls were to be wrung with unutterable anpoint of view, it has one extraordinary merit, guish-and a fearful risk incurred of crushing that instead of partially illustrating only one genius too mighty for sudden development, or set of doctrines, it contains disquisitions equally of changing its energies into poison-in order convincing on almost all sides of almost all that the public might be secured from the pos questions of literature or state policy. The sibility of worthlessness becoming attractive, “bane and antidote" are frequently to be found or individuals shielded from the misery of in the ample compass of its volumes, and not looking into a work which would not tempt unfrequently from the same pen. Its Essays their farther perusal! But the Edinburgh Reon Political Economy display talents of a very view has not been contented with deriding the uncommon order. Their writers have con- pretensions of honest, but ungifted, aspirants; trived to make the dryest subjects enchanting, it has pursued with misrepresentation and and the lowest and most debasing theories ridicule the loftiest and the gentlest spirits of beautiful. Touched by them, the wretched the age, and has prevented the world, for a dogmas of expediency have worn the air of little season, from recognising and enjoying venerable truths, and the degrading specula- their genius. One of their earliest numbers tions of Malthus have appeared full of benevo- contained an elaborate tissue of gross derision lence and of wisdom. They have exerted the on that delicate production of feeling and of uncommon art, while working up a sophism fancy-that fresh revival of the old English into every possible form, to seem as though drama in all its antique graces—that piece of they had boundless store of reasons to spare-natural sweetness and of wood-land beautya very exuberance of proof-which the clear- the tragedy of John Woodvil. They directed ness of their argument rendered it unnecessary the same species of barbarous ridicule against to use. The celebrated Editor of this work, the tale of Cristabel, trying to excite laughter with little imagination-little genuine wit-and no clear view of any great and central principles of criticism, has contrived to dazzle, to astonish, and occasionally to delight, multitudes of readers, and, at one period, to hold the temporary fate of authors at his will. His qualities are all singularly adapted to his office. Without deep feeling, which few can understand, he has a quick sensibility with which

by the cheap process of changing the names of its heroines into Lady C. and Lady G., and employing the easy art of transmuting its romantic incidents into the language of frivolous life, to destroy the fame of its most profound and imaginative author. The mode of criticism adopted on this occasion might, it is

*See Ed. Rev., No. 43, p. 68.