What possible claim can contemporary criticism set up to respect--that criticism which crucified Jesus, stoned Stephen, hooted Paul for a madman, tried Luther for a criminal, tortured Galileo, bound Columbus in chains, drove Dante into a hell of exile, made Shakespeare write the sonnet, "When in disgrace of fortune and men's eyes," gave Milton L5 for "Paradise Lost," kept Samuel Johnson cooling his heels on Lord Chesterfield's doorstep, reviled Shelley as an unclean dog, killed Keats, cracked jokes on Gluck, Schubert, Beethoven, Berlioz, and Wagner, and committed so many other impious follies and stupidities? Lanier's charges are not all quite true. He mixed up the sins of criticism with the sins of politics, economics, and other dreadful affairs. But his outburst is a good illustration of the quarrel between the "author" and the "critic." Especially when the author has for the moment lost his sense of humour. The best treatment of the critic by the author, as also, perhaps, of the author by the critic, is humourous. In "One of Our Conquerors," Meredith lays out the art critics: He had relied and reposed on the dicta of newspaper critics; who are sometimes unanimous, and are then taken for guides, and are fatal. Washington Irving, in a delightful little paper called "Desultory Thoughts on Criticism," quietly places the reviewer in the low seat where he belongs. I shall not quote from the essay, but merely refer the reader to it and especially to the introductory quotation from Buckingham's "Rehearsal," in which the critic is set in a still lower seat. Finally--for these quotations--Dr. Holmes, who lived all his life surrounded by praise and comfort, puts his finger gently on the parasitism of the critic. The passage is in "The Poet at the Breakfast Table": Our _epizoic_ literature is becoming so extensive that nobody is safe from its _ad infinitum_ progeny. A man writes a book of criticisms. A _Quarterly Review_ criticises the critic. A _Monthly Magazine_ takes up the critic's critic. A _Weekly Journal_ criticizes the critic of the critic's critic, and a daily paper favours us with some critical remarks on the performance of the writer in the _Weekly_, who has criticised the critical notice in the _Monthly_ of the critical essay in the _Quarterly_ on the critical work we started with. And thus we see that as each flea "has smaller fleas that on him prey," even the critic himself cannot escape the common lot of being bitten.