Certainly, from some points of view, nobody can be a better judge of an author’s productions than the author himself. He alone knows fully the difficulties he had to contend with; he alone knows the places where he wrote with full knowledge and deep insight, and the places where he wrote carelessly and with no clear understanding; he alone can tell exactly how much he owes to other writers, and how far his work is the result of his own toil and thought. But that merciful dispensation of providence which prevents us from seeing ourselves as others see us, frequently so far affects an author’s judgment of his own writings, that it has become almost a commonplace of criticism that the greatest of writers occasionally prefer their own least worthy works. They are apt to measure the value of what they have done not by its intrinsic merit, but by the difficulty of doing it; and knowing the pains it has cost them, and being, as Hazlitt says, apprehensive that it is not proportionately admired by others, who know nothing of what it cost them, they praise it extravagantly. Moreover, severe criticism often tempts an author to praise some neglected work of his above what he is conscious to be its real deserts; just as, when her chickens are attacked by the kite, the fond hen rushes straightway to defend the one which seems most in danger. Milton’s preference of _Paradise Regained_ to _Paradise Lost_ has often been instanced as an example of the false judgments writers form of their works. As a matter of fact, however, this opinion attributed to Milton is overstated. As has recently been pointed out by Mr Mark Pattison, all we know about the matter is, that Milton ‘could not bear to hear with patience’ that it was inferior to _Paradise Lost_. Of a writer who formed the most exaggerated and erroneous notions about the merits of his works, no better example could be given than Southey. He was indeed, as Macaulay remarked in his Diary, arrogant beyond any man in literary history; for his self-conceit was proof against the severest admonitions, and the utter failure of one of his books only confirmed him in his belief of its excellence. When William Taylor asked him who was to read his massive quartos on Brazil, he replied: ‘That one day he should by other means have made such a reputation that it would be thought a matter of course to read them.’ About _Kehama_, he wrote: ‘I was perfectly aware that I was planting acorns while my contemporaries were planting Turkey beans. The oak will grow; and though I may never sit under its shade, my children will.’ To one of his contemporaries, he writes in 1805: ‘No further news of the sale of _Madoc_. The reviews will probably hurt it for a while; that is all they can do. Unquestionably the poem will stand and flourish. I am perfectly satisfied with the execution—now, eight months after its publication, in my cool judgment. William Taylor has said it is