"Next, the critic must be a courageous and independent man. His judgment upon a book must be entirely irrespective of any popular outcry for or against it. If he is at all apt to float with the opinions of others, he cannot be the adviser and assistant of the public, but will only encourage accidental error or premeditated deception. For a similar reason, he will keep all personal and private considerations out of view. He must not be supposed to know the author, except as exhibited in his works. But while personality is the bane of criticism, partisanship, moral or political, is so far from being a hinderance to the critic, that it is actually an aid to him. If he has legitimate grounds for praising a coadjutor or condemning an opponent, he will write all the better for his partisanship; for, indulging that partisanship, he feels himself, if he be an honest partisan, to be also serving the public. We do not pretend to have enumerated all the requisites for a critic. There are some natural qualities, which, if not indispensable, are at least a great assistance. Thus we find men who have the same immediate perception of styles that portrait painters have of countenances, and can immediately assign to any anonymous writing its author, though the peculiarities which distinguish that author be so slight that it is not easy to illustrate, much less to explain them. And thus, if you ask such a man, 'How do you know that ---- wrote this? What turn of expression or traits of style can you point to?' He will reply, 'I can't give you any reason, only I am sure it is so;' and so you will find it to be. He knows it, as it were, by intuition." But we have already said quite enough on the general question; so let us leave our friend to wipe his spectacles, and come back to our particular case.