CURIOSITIES OF CRITICISM. CHAPTER I. THE UTILITY OF CRITICISM. RITICS are not altogether a popular race. out, necessitates much fault-finding, and fault-finders are not universally liked. Critics have come to be thought, rightly or wrongly, exacting in their requirements, and exceedingly difficult to please; and people of this kind, whether in public or private life, are not, as a rule, much cared for. Your thoroughly popular man is he who likes everything, who is easily satisfied, who never grumbles, who sets up for himself no rigid standard of perfection, who is fettered by no severe canons of taste, and whose judgment is characterised by an elastic and accommodating comprehensiveness. Critics have, by common consent, come to be re Α garded as a species of grumblers. They have none of this genial tolerance for faults, none of this good-natured blindness to shortcomings. The very essence of their function, on the contrary, is to sit in judgment, and distinguish between what is praiseworthy and what is indifferent. They are, for this very reason, regarded with but little affection; perhaps even, so far as professional criticism is concerned, with something akin to dislike. Mr. Ruskin says very truly, "A strong critic is every man's adversary; men feel that he knows their foibles, and cannot conceive that he knows more. His praise, to be acceptable, must be always unqualified; his equity is an offence instead of a virtue; and the art of correction, which he has learned so laboriously, only fills his hearers with disgust." If this is true of the strong critic, what must be the effect of unfair criticism? This feeling of dislike has undoubtedly been increased by the errors of judgment, the sins of asperity, and the vices of ignorance of which critics have too often been guilty. Still the race is scarcely deserving of the harsh verdict which has become current, not only among those whose lot it is to be criticised, but among the hastily judging public, who, catching their tone from dissatisfied and resentful authors, heedlessly echo the cant cry about the unfairness and incompetence of critics. Critics are indispensable. It would be impossible, even if their faults were greater than they are, to do altogether without them. If criticism was useful in the days of the ancients, it is an absolute necessity in these times of a teeming press and multitudinous productions. It has grown with civilisation. As Literature, aided by the invention of printing, began to expand in influence, criticism asserted itself with corresponding vigour. Often coarse, often virulent, often inspired by envy and malice, yet it rapidly assumed a position of recognised authority, and shaped itself into a special department of letters, and subsequently of Art. Before considering the question of the utility of critics, it may be worth while to inquire what criticism is. According to the etymological meaning of the word, it signifies the art of judging with correct taste. Since, however, instances have occurred of the irresponsible judges in Literature and Art being unable to hold the balance with fairness, and being deficient in that fine taste without which criticism, properly called, is impossible, it is clear that the term critic has undergone considerable abuse, and that it is frequently applied, for want of another word, to persons whose function is rather cavilling than criticism, and who, in their rash and ill-considered judgments, are too prompt to condemn the beauties they are incompetent to appreciate. It will be necessary, for the present, to use the word in its widest signification, not simply as meaning the art of judging well, but rather the business of passing judgment. Matthew Arnold defines criticism as "a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world; " but although this definition fits in well enough with a lofty view of the functions of criticism in the abstract, it will scarcely serve as the basis of the more practical considerations to be dealt with in actual experience of critical work. Critics, to use a trite but useful simile, are public tasters. In olden times, corporations and townships had their ale-tasters, whose duty it was to sample the various brewings, and pass judgment upon their quality. Literature and Art have had their tasters in the same way, whose duty, none the less stringently performed because often self-imposed, it has been to try the various "taps," and pronounce on their potency or flatness, as the case might be. The parallel might be pursued still farther, and a comparison drawn between the ale-taster overcome with his |