But to return to Mr. Worsfold. A very serious defect in his work is his omission of all notice of Boileau and Dryden, and of the critics contemporary with them in France and England. The consequence is, that much is attributed to Addison which belongs to them, and Addison’s importance as a critic is much overrated. Again, of the many memorable contributions to this branch of literature in England, in France, in Italy, and in Germany, which were made between the appearance of the Abbé Dubos’s _Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et la peinture_ in 1719, and the lectures of Coleridge and Schlegel about 1812, all that is said is represented by what is said of Lessing. Though a long chapter is given to Matthew Arnold, Matthew Arnold’s master, Sainte-Beuve, is, if we remember rightly, not so much as named. Dr. Johnson divided critics into three classes--those who know the rules and judge by them, those who know no rules but judge entirely by natural taste, those who know the rules but are above them. This has been true in all ages, and sufficiently disposes of Mr. Worsfold’s hypothesis about the stages through which criticism has passed. All that can be said is, that at certain times there has been a tendency, determined of course by the character of the particular age, towards the predominance of a particular critical method and of particular points of view. Further than this it would be perilous to go. It has been the task of the present age to develop each of these methods to the full, and the most authoritative critics of the last twenty years might easily be ranged under one of those classes. The soundest and most valuable part of Mr. Worsfold’s book is the part dealing with the criticism of the last few years. His chapter on Matthew Arnold, in particular, is admirable, and his remarks on the functions of criticism at the present time, deduced as they have been from Wordsworth, Arnold and Ruskin, are in a high degree instructive and interesting. In pointing out that criticism should not confine itself merely to the investigation of technical excellence, and to all that is implied in the doctrine of Art for Art’s sake, but should recognise that there are limits beyond which the artist should not exercise his technical skill, he recalls us to principles which it is well that criticism should not forget. We quite agree with him that there is now an increasing tendency to recognise these limits, and to lay most stress on the interpretation of the ideal element in literature and art. That is certainly the modern note. We have expressed our reasons for dissenting from Mr. Worsfold’s historical view of the evolution of criticism, but his book is full of interest, and will amply repay the attention of serious readers. It is a book which does not deserve to be lost in the crowd. FOOTNOTES: