It is the same with the critic who sees the poet walking in the garden of poesy with its nine fair odalisques, and disporting himself indolently in the shade of tall green laurels. It is very hard for him not to pick up stones in the road to throw at him and wound him over the wall, if he is skilful enough to do it. The critic who has produced nothing of his own is a coward; he is like an abbé paying court to a layman's wife: the layman cannot pay him back in his own coin or fight with him. I think that an account of the different methods of depreciating any sort of work, resorted to during the last month, would be at least as interesting as the story of Tiglath-Pileser, or of Gemmagog, who invented peaked shoes. There would be enough matter to fill fifteen or sixteen folio volumes, but we will have pity on the reader and confine ourselves to a few lines--a favor for which we demand more than everlasting gratitude.--In a very remote age, lost in the darkness of time--it was fully three weeks ago--the romance of the Middle Ages flourished principally in Paris and the suburbs. The coat of arms was held in high esteem; _coiffures à la Hennin_ were not despised and party-colored trousers were thought well of; the dagger was priceless; the peaked shoe was adored as a fetich.--There was nothing but ogive windows, turrets, colonnettes, stained glass, cathedrals, and fortified châteaux;--the characters were all _damoiselles_ and _damoiseaux_, pages and varlets, beggars and swash-bucklers, gallant knights and ferocious castellans;--all of which were more innocent certainly than innocent games, and did absolutely no harm to anybody. The critic did not wait for the second romance before beginning his work of depreciation: as soon as the first appeared, he enveloped himself in his robe of camel's hair, and sprinkled a bushel of ashes on his head; then, in his loud, wailing voice, he began to cry: