Literary criticism occupies a portion of these pages. Here also there is a singular air of pretension, but _nothing done_. A vague indefinite claim is made to very superior taste, and an exclusive appreciation of the great poets, but nothing is ever attempted to support this claim. The solitary criticism on a passage in Milton, where the poet says of the great palace of Pandemonium, that it "rose like an exhalation," is the only instance we remember where these authors have put forth any positive criticism; and this example does not appear to evince any very delicate or refined appreciation of poetic imagery. A comparison is drawn (where there is very little room for one) between this passage and the expression νυκτι εοικως, which Homer uses in describing the coming of Apollo,--and the ηυτ' ομιχλη, which he employs when speaking of Thetis rising from the sea. "How inferior," says the writer, "in grandeur, in simplicity, in beauty and grace, to the Homeric! which moreover has better caught the spirit and sentiment of the natural appearances. For Apollo does come with the power and majesty, and with the terrors of night; and the soft waviness of an exhalation is a much fitter image for the rising of the goddess, than for the massiness and hard stiff outline of a building." It is the hard stiff outline which the very image of Milton conceals from us, as the angel-built structure rises gradually, continuously, like an exhalation from the earth. Of Shakspeare we are, of course, told that neither we, nor any other Englishmen, understand him. "How many Englishmen admire Shakspeare? Doubtless all who understand him, and, it is to be hoped, a few more; for how many Englishmen understand Shakspeare? Were Diogenes to set out on his search through the land, I trust he would bring home many hundreds, not to say thousands, for every one I should put up. To judge from what has been written about him, the Englishmen who understand Shakspeare are little more numerous than those who understand the language spoken in Paradise. You will now and then meet with ingenious remarks on particular passages, and even in particular characters, or rather in particular features in them. But these remarks are mostly as incomplete and unsatisfactory as the description of a hand or foot would be, unless received with reference to the whole body. He who wishes to trace the march and to scan the operations of this most marvellous genius, and to discern the mysterious organisation of his wonderful works, will find little help but what comes from beyond the German Ocean." (P. 267.)