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By Root 16473 0

intellectual element. It is a composition which delights through the glow of its imagination, but which repels (comparatively, of course) through the niaiseries of its general conduct and construction. As a critic, Professor Wilson has derived, as might easily be supposed, the greatest aid from the qualities for which we have given him credit — and it is in criticism especially, that it becomes very difficult to say which of these qualities has assisted him the most. It is sheer audacity, however, to which, perhaps, after all, he is the most particularly indebted. How little he owes to intellectual prëeminence, and how much to the mere overbearing impetuosity of his opinions, would be a singular subject for speculation. Nevertheless it is true, that this rash spirit of domination would have served, without his rich ideality, but to hurry him into contempt. Be this as it may, in the first requisite of a critic the Scotch Aristarchus is grossly deficient. Of one who instructs we demand, in the first instance, a certain knowledge of the principles which regulate the instruction. Professor Wilson’s capability is limited to a keen appreciation of the beautiful, and fastidious sense of the deformed. Why or how either is either, he never dreams of pretending to inquire, because he sees clearly his own inability to comprehend. He is no analyst. He is ignorant of the machinery of his own thoughts and the thoughts of other men. His criticism is emphatically on the ­surface — superficial. His opinions are mere dicta — unsupported verba magistri — and are just or unjust at the variable taste of the individual who reads them. He persuades — he bewilders — he overwhelms — at times he even argues — but there has been no period at which he ever demonstrated anything beyond his own utter incapacity for demonstration.

­ CLXXXII. [[CLXXXIII.]]

One of the most singular styles in the world — certainly one of the most loose — is that of the elder D’Israeli. For example he thus begins his Chapter on Bibliomania: “The preceding article [that on Libraries] is honorable to literature.” Here no self-praise is intended. The writer means to say merely that the facts narrated in the preceding article are honorable, etc. Three-fourths of his sentences are constructed in a similar manner. The blunders evidently arise, however, from the author’s pre-occupation with his subject. His thought, or rather matter, outruns his pen, and drives him upon condensation at the expense of luminousness. The manner of D’Israeli has many of the traits of Gibbon — although little of the latter’s precision.

­ CLXXXIII. [[CLXXXIV.]]

Words — printed ones especially — are murderous things. Keats did (or did not) die of a criticism, Cromwell of Titus’s pamphlet “Killing no Murder,” and Montfleury perished of the “Andromache.” The author of the’’Parnasse Réformé” makes him thus speak in Hades — “L’homme donc qui voudrait savoir ce dont je suis mort qu’il ne demande pas s’il fût de fieve ou de podagre ou d’autre chose, mais qu’il entende que ce fut ce L’Andromache.” As for myself, I am fast dying of the “Sartor Resartus.”

­ CLXXXIV. [[CLXXXV.]]

Captain Hall is one of the most agreeable of writers. We like him for the same reason that we like a good drawing-room conversationist — there is such a pleasure in listening to his elegant nothings. Not that the captain is unable to be profound. He has, on the contrary, some reputation for science. But in his hands even the most trifling personal adventures become interesting from the very piquancy with which they are told. ­

­ CLXXXV. [[CLXXXVI.]]

How truthful an air of deep lamentation hangs here upon every gentle syllable! It pervades all. It comes over the sweet melody of the words, over the gentleness and grace which we fancy in the little maiden herself, even over the half-playful, half-petulant air with which she lingers on the beauties and good qualities of her favorite — like the cool shadow of a summer cloud over a bed of lilies and violets, and “all sweet flowers.” The whole thing is redolent with poetry of the very loftiest