"Cousin I pronounce beyond all doubt the most unreadable thing that ever appeared in the _Review_. The only chance is, that gentle readers may take it to be very profound, and conclude that the fault is in their want of understanding. But I am not disposed to agree with them. It is ten times more _mystical_ than anything my friend Carlyle ever wrote, and not half so agreeably written. It is nothing to the purpose that he does not agree with the worst part of the mysticism, for he affects to understand it, and to explain it, and to think it very ingenious and respectable, and it is mere gibberish. He may possibly be a clever man. There are even indications of that in his paper, but he is not a _very_ clever man, nor of much power; and beyond all question he is not a good writer on such subjects. If you ever admit such a disquisition again, order your operator to instance and illustrate all his propositions by cases or examples, and to reason and explain with reference to these. This is a sure test of sheer nonsense, and moreover an infinite resource for the explication of obscure truth, if there be any such thing." Now, the writer of the article in question was Sir William Hamilton. "He may possibly be a clever man, but beyond all question he is not a good writer on such subjects." So much for Jeffrey. "Nec sibi cœnarum quivis temere arroget artem, Non prius exacta tenui ratione saporum." Poor Mr. Carlyle is again dragged in, and Sir William is pronounced "ten times more _mystical_" than he--"mystical" in italics. When a writer, using the word mystical opprobriously, prints it in italics, it is usually safe to decide that he knows nothing of metaphysics. The concluding sentences are instructive examples of editorial self-confidence: "If ever you admit such a disquisition again, _order your operator to_" do so-and-so. Thus, the treatment of Mill and Hamilton being equally ignorant and inept, there is no escape for the ex-editor. Both verdicts were after the too-celebrated "this-will-never-do" manner, and that is all. In the communications from literary men there are some fine instances of just self-consciousness. Tom Campbell writes, with great warmth and alertness, to promise an article upon a new work about the Nerves; but shortly afterwards writes again, candidly confessing that he had found, upon looking again at the work, that his aptitude for scientific detail was not great enough to enable him to do justice to the subject. A letter from William Hazlitt is so striking, both for its truthfulness and its clear-headedness, as to deserve quoting in full. He had been written to by Mr. Napier for some contributions to the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, and he replies, from his well-known retreat at Winterslow Hut, in these terms:--