The service of criticism to the layman is to furnish him a clue to the meaning of the work in hand, and by the critic's own response to its beauty to reveal its potency and charm. With technique as such the critic is not concerned. Technique is the business of the artist; only those who themselves practice an art are qualified to judge in matters of practice. The form is significant to the appreciator only so far as regards its expressiveness and beauty. It is not the function of the critic to tell the artist what his work _should be;_ it is the critic's mission to reveal to the appreciator what the work _is_. That revelation will be accomplished in terms of the critic's own experience of the beauty of the work, an experience imaged forth in such phrases that the pleasure the work communicates is conveyed to his readers in its true quality and foil intensity. It is not enough to dogmatize as Ruskin dogmatizes, to bully the reader into a terrified acceptance. It is not enough to determine absolute values as Matthew Arnold seeks to do, to fix certain canons of intellectual judgment, and by the application of a formula as a touchstone, to decide that this work is excellent and that another is less good. Really serviceable criticism is that which notes the special and distinguishing quality of beauty in any work and helps the reader to live out that beauty in his own experience. These generalizations may be made more immediate and practical by examples. In illustration of the didactic manner in criticism I may cite a typical paragraph of Ruskin, chosen from his "Mornings in Florence." First, look at the two sepulchral slabs by which you are standing. That farther of the two from the west end is one of the most beautiful pieces of fourteenth-century sculpture in this world. . . . And now, here is a simple but most useful test of your capacity for understanding Florentine sculpture or painting. If you can see that the lines of that cap are both right, and lovely; that the choice of the folds is exquisite in its ornamental relations of line; and that the softness and ease of them is complete,--though only sketched with a few dark touches,--then you can understand Giotto's drawing, and Botticelli's;--Donatello's carving, and Luca's. But if you see nothing in _this_ sculpture, you will see nothing in theirs, _of_ theirs. Where they choose to imitate flesh, or silk, or to play any vulgar modern trick with marble--(and they often do)--whatever, in a word, is French, or American, or Cockney, in their work, you can see; but what is Florentine, and for ever great--unless you can see also the beauty of this old man in his citizen's cap,--you will see never.