To republish criticisms, especially such as relate to the works of cotemporaries, is certainly a more delicate task. It is easy to comment upon an author whose works have been long before the public, and frequently and diligently scanned. High criticism may discover beauties or detect faults which have escaped the notice of less keen and scrutinising observers; but, in the aggregate, certainly in the majority of cases, the broad opinion which has been expressed by others is allowed to remain unchallenged. The influence of previous judgment invariably sways the critic. None are rash enough to deny the genius of Shakspeare; at the same time, nothing is more certain than that, were another Shakspeare to arise amongst us at this moment, there would be no kind of unanimity as to his deserts. In all ages and in all countries this has been the rule. Personal spite, unacknowledged and possibly unperceived envy, party difference of opinion, disparity of station, prejudice of education—all these, in their turn, have passed, like so many clouds, between the sun of living genius and the critics who surveyed its orbit. Nor ought we to overlook the fact that, in many instances, meteors have been mistaken for suns, and the eyes of the critic been dazzled by a glare, to which his own willing imagination lent at least one half its brilliancy. Therefore it is that contemporary criticism, when republished in an abiding form, rarely satisfies the expectation of the reader. His own judgment has been formed, apart from the considerations and prejudices which are so apt to beset the critic; and he conceives an unfavourable impression of the literary acuteness of the writer, when he finds a gross discrepancy between the older and the later estimate. But far more trying to an author is the republication of political essays, composed during the progress of great national events. This branch of composition is peculiar to our own age, in which periodical literature is so marked and eminent a feature. Pamphleteering is of venerable date. Sir Thomas More, Milton, Marvell, Swift, and Defoe, were all notable pamphleteers; but periodical writing, in the highest sense of the term, is the invention of the present century. That great and influential organs of public opinion, ranking among their contributors the men of the highest intellect and the most laborious acquirements, should have been established in our time, marks not only the development of the influence of the press, but the importance of the events which such men are imperatively summoned to discuss. It marks even more, for it has established a power beyond the boundaries of the old constitution, which, as it is used or misused, cannot fail to affect materially the destinies of Great Britain.