“‘To say this is good and that is bad,’ says La Bruyère, ‘is not morality.’ Very true, neither is it criticism. There is no criticism in this country—considering that word as the name of a science. A book comes out—it is capital, says one—it is detestable, says another. Its characters are unnatural—its characters are nature itself. On both sides there is affirmation, on neither proof. In fact no science requires such elaborate study as criticism. It is the most analytical of our mental operations—to pause—to examine—to say _why_ that passage is a sin against nature, or that plot a violation of art—to bring deep knowledge of life in all its guises—of the heart in all its mysteries to bear upon a sentence of approval or disapprobation—to have cultivated the feeling of beauty until its sense of harmony has grown as fine as the ear of a musician—equally sensitive to discord—or alive to new combinations:—these are no light qualities, and these are not qualities, it may be answered, to be lightly lavished away. Every new book, it may be said, does not deserve that we should so honor it. We need not invoke the Past, and summon all Nature to hear us praise a butterfly, or crush a bug. We may on slight works arrogate the censor—yes, but we must first have been chosen the censor, by the acumen we have testified on great ones. Now, when an author who has risen into eminence, who begins to produce an effect upon his age, whose faults it becomes necessary to indicate as a warning, whose beauties we should illustrate as an example—when such a man produces a new work, what is the cant cry of the critics? ‘The peculiar merits and failings of Mr. So and So are too well known for us at this time of day to repeat them. The present work has all the characteristics of the last—if it does not increase, it will not diminish the well-earned reputation of the author.’ Then come the extracts, and a word or two at the end as precise and lucid as those at the beginning, and——there’s THE CRITICISM!