very few instances in which the reviewer was justified in writing his critique after simply reading the titlepage of the book was that in which some author-(if the story is not true it is ben trovato)-great at fighting with shadows, wrote a pamphlet entitled, "Shakespeare not an Impostor." The critic, without troubling himself to read the arguments adduced, laconically wrote, "Who said he was?" Lack of special knowledge is sometimes concealed by a little adroit cramming, and the critic brings in a lot of references and authorities, so glibly and skilfully, that he appears quite a master of his subject to the bamboozled readers of the review. This is want of conscientiousness in another form. It is not practised to any great extent now, since all the best periodicals employ specialists, or at least writers of experience. But it seems to have been largely in vogue in Thackeray's day, if the career of Pendennis is to be taken as a faithful transcript of life. "The courage of young critics," he says, "is prodigious: they clamber up to the judgment-seat, and, with scarce a hesitation, give their opinion upon works the most intricate or profound. Had Macaulay's 'History' or Herschel's 'Astronomy' been put before Pen at this period, he would have looked through the volumes, meditated his opinion over a cigar, and signified his august approval of either author, as if the critic had been their born superior and indulgent master and patron. By the help of the Biographie Universelle' or the British Museum, he would be able to take a rapid résumé of an historical period, and allude to names, dates, and facts in such a masterly, easy way as to astonish his mamma at home, who wondered where the boy could have acquired such a prodigious store of reading, and himself too, when he came to read over his articles two or three months after they had been composed, and when he had forgotten the subject and the books which he had consulted. At that period of his life, Mr. Pen owns that he would not have hesitated, at twenty-four hours' notice, to pass an opinion upon the greatest scholars, or to give a judgment upon the Encyclopædia.'” This readiness to jump into the judgment-seat has been at all times a characteristic of young critics. It is such an easy matter to formulate opinion and to dash off decisions. One of the causes of bad criticism is this inexperience, which leads to flippancy and superficiality. As a rule, the younger the critic, the more stringent are his verdicts, and the greater the asperity with which he expresses them. The smartness of his article is often a more important consideration than the soundness of his judgment. He is beset by a dominating anxiety to "show off." He hurls Jove's thunderbolts with a magnificent carelessness of consequences. With age and experience he arrives at a more serious view of his responsibility, but in the days of his novitiate he often pronounces sentence with matchless effrontery, and decides upon the merit of authors with the splendid dogmatism of a literary Sir Oracle. The blame in such a case should rest, however, not so much with the youthful critic, who is but "feeling his feet," so to speak, and whose indiscretions are those of a rash inexperience, as with those who permit him to exercise such enormous powers. When a child inflicts some serious injury with firearms, the fault lies with the grown-up persons who, through carelessness or indiscretion, have allowed him to play with them. CHAPTER VII. BIAS. N certain kinds of criticism, especially political and religious criticism, and, perhaps, in a minor degree, the criticism of conflicting schools of art, the difficulty of divesting the mind altogether of bias is very great. The zeal of party or creed is prejudicial to the formation of an absolutely impartial judgment. Mr. Matthew Arnold, in laying down disinterestedness as the one great rule of criticism,—that is, keeping aloof from ulterior, political, practical considerations, says, "We have the 'Edinburgh Review,' existing as an organ of the old Whigs, and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the Quarterly Review,' existing as an organ of the Tories, and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that; we have the 'British Quarterly Review,' existing as an organ of the political Dissenters, and for as much play of mind. as may suit its being that. We have the 'Times,' existing as an organ of the common, satisfied, well-to-do Englishman, and for as much play of mind as may suit its being that. And so on, through all the various fractions, political and religious, of our society; every fraction has, as such, its organ of criticism." That is to say, critics with strong convictions look at all things through the spectacles of those convictions. Of course, each one, in such a case, writes for a sympathetic public. His readers expect to have things looked at and treated from their own point of view. They would feel that an outrage had been perpetrated on them if they were called upon to regard subjects looked at and treated from a contradictory point of view. For the public, as Mr. Ruskin has keenly pointed out, is an agglomeration of publics. There is, he tells us, a separate public for every picture and every book. "Appealed to with reference to any particular work, the public is that class of persons who possess the knowledge which it presupposes and the faculties to which it is addressed. With reference to a new edition of Newton's 'Principia,' the 'public' means little more than the Royal Society. With refer |