men, and genius is but the gift of few), that we can lay down rules by the observance of which any one can become a virtuous man; but we can lay down no rules by which any one can become a man of genius. No technical rules can enable a student to become a great dramatist or a great novelist; but there is in art an inherent distinction between broad general principles and technical rules. In all genuine art there is a sympathetic, affectionate, and often quite unconscious adherence to certain general principles. The recognition of these principles is obtained through the philosophy of criticism; first, by a wide and patient observation of masterpieces of art, which are to criticism what evidences of fact are to science; and next, by the metaphysical deduction, from those facts, of the principles which their concurrence serves to establish. By the putting forth of these principles we cannot make bad writers good, nor mediocre writers great; but we may enable the common reader to judge with more correctness of the real quality of merit, or the real cause of defect, in the writers he peruses; and by directing and elevating his taste, rectify and raise the general standard of literature. We may do more than that—we may much facilitate the self-tuition that all genius has to undergo before it attains to its full development, in the harmony between its freedom and those elements of truth and beauty which constitute its law. As to mere technical rules, each great artist makes them for himself; he does not despise technical rules, but he will not servilely borrow them from other artists; he forms his own. They are the by-laws which his acquaintance with his special powers lays down as best adapted to their exercise and their sphere. Apelles is said to have made it a by-law to himself to use only four colours in painting: probably Apelles found his advantage in that restraint, or he would not have imposed it on his pallet. But if Zeuxis found that he, Zeuxis, painted better by using a dozen colours than by confining himself to four, he would have used a dozen, or he would not have been Zeuxis.