Now this fable does very well as a hit at the critics; but I am by no means sure that the Deity was in the right. The fact is, that the limits of the strict critical duty are grossly misapprehended. We may go so far as to say that, while the critic is _permitted_ to play, at times, the part of the mere commentator—while he is _allowed_, by way of merely _interesting_ his readers, to put in the fairest light the merits of his author—his _legitimate_ task is still, in pointing out and analyzing defects and showing how the work might have been improved, to aid the general cause of Letters, without undue heed of the individual literary man. Beauty, to be brief, should be considered in the light of an axiom, which, to become at once evident, needs only to be distinctly _put_. It is _not_ Beauty, if it require to be demonstrated as such:—and thus to point out too particularly the merits of a work, is to admit that they are _not_ merits altogether. When I say that both Mr. Jones and Mr. Whipple are, in some degree, imitators of Macaulay, I have no design that my words should be understood as disparagement. The style and general conduct of Macaulay’s critical papers could scarcely be improved. To call his manner “conventional,” is to do it gross injustice. The manner of Carlyle _is_ conventional—with himself. The style of Emerson is conventional—with himself _and_ Carlyle. The style of Miss Fuller is conventional—with herself and _Emerson_ and Carlyle that is to say, it is a triple-distilled conventionality:—and by the word “conventionality,” as here used, I mean very nearly what, as regards personal conduct, we style “affectation”—that is, an assumption of airs or _tricks_ which have no basis in reason or common sense. The quips, quirks, and curt oracularities of the Emersons, Alcots and Fullers, are simply Lyly’s Euphuisms revived. Very different, indeed, are the _peculiarities_ of Macaulay. He has his mannerisms; but we see that, by dint of them, he is enabled to accomplish the extremes of unquestionable excellences—the extreme of clearness, of vigor (dependent upon clearness) of grace, and very especially of thoroughness. For his short sentences, for his antitheses, for his modulations, for his climaxes—for every thing that he does—a very slight analysis suffices to show a distinct reason. His manner, thus, is simply the perfection of that justifiable rhetoric which has its basis in common-sense; and to say that such rhetoric is never called in to the aid of _genius_, is simply to disparage genius, and by no means to discredit the rhetoric. It is nonsense to assert that the highest genius would not be benefited by attention to its modes of manifestation—by availing itself of that Natural Art which it too frequently despises. Is it not evident that the more intrinsically valuable the rough diamond, the more gain accrues to it from polish?