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CritiC 3 are not the legislators , bixt the judges and police of literature . They do Dot make laws-tney interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Heviiio .
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* ' . Nothing is easier than criticism . " A more popular or more foolish saying it is not easy to find ; The currency of the fallacy is seemed by the obviousness , of the fact that men find , it easy , to criticise . But this no more proves criticism to be easy , than the abundance of bad painters , bad sculptors , bad architects , bad musicians , and detestable poets , proves Art to be easy . Np one doubts the facility with which bad criticism may be produced ; but good criticism is as rare , perhaps even rarer , than good art .
La critique est aise * e , l'art esfc difficile , saidDESToucHES , in a neat epigram which has been incessantly quoted ; and quoted even by Frenchmen as having been said by Boiled u ; though if the reader will turn to the comedy of Le Glorieux , he will find the line there , with many other happy lines : among them , this also usually attributed to BoiLBAU Chassez le nature ] , il reyient au galop { how superior to the naturam , expellas fared tamen usque recurret , which is miserably weak )! To return to Criticism , which Longinus
—Who was himself the great sublime he drew ^—( % ^ sn-t » J » Ut * he line is a . good one ) declares to be the "last result of abundant experience / ' and which every one who reflects awhile will see to be a very rare and admirable result , we cannot wonder if its reputation has been tarnishedsomewhat , and itself pronounced a thing easy , futile , and impertinent , seeing on the one hand ; that bad specimens have been abundant , arid on the other that bad artists have had an interest in decrying it When some one in the presence of Sophie Arnold said , " AujourdhmVesprit covrtles rues /? the witty creature retorted , ' C ' estun bruit qweles sots font courir . " When we hear , as we often hear , that " Criticism is easy ; art difficulty we are tempted to exclaim , " that is an opinion which bad artists P ^^ S ^ e * " Iti&natural that the criticised should think meanlv of the flWess thei critic
c is complaisant . But consider whavt an union of faculties good criticism demands : it must understand clearly aad feel keenly j it must be almost as sensitive to beauty as the artist , and must be able to expiafhjvhat'the artist is ' ; &bleonlyto feel . A great critic is a marvel ; a good " critic is rarer than a good artist ; bad eritics are indeed no rarity , but the bad artists outnumber them . Does any one suppose that a Ruskin , for ^| ^ . ^ : ^ ^ f P ^ il ^' ^ * w % body of RA . ' s ? Will any one maintain that Germ ^ reat names in art th an in ; criticisin g and tbLat a Lessing and a Winckelmann are not rarer pro-^^ ^¦ f ? -OOB ^ EIilCSi ; a SCTO 4 NTHAM R , a HUBNEB , Or a KAULBACH ? '^^^^^ : f ^^ - ' : ^^^>^ f e \^^ ' ^^^^ ?» any degree on a level with -i ^; ,:-: ; W ^ , a # svnot greatly impressed : with the value of criticism , even when most admirable ; We point simply to the fact that it is rareand not easv
, . In truth criticism , even of a mediocre kind , is not very abundant i abundant , indeed , are the essays and reviews « about and about » a book , picture , statue , or opera j but judgments thereon formed after thorough examination , aud pronounced with clear honest calmness , are naturally rare . Journals cannot pretend to deliver suchi judgments . Even supposing we , the journalists , were gifted with the requisite . knpvyledge and the requisite faculties ; the limits of a journal , and the necessary haste of journalismwould
present generation , we dare say , have ever perused Tristram Shandy , " a sur position which actually leads him to give a biographical sketch of Stern by way of instructing an ignorant public . In what hermitage can this write have lived that he should fall into such gratuitous suppositions as this ? 1 In BlacTcwood there is an acconnt of Monteil , the author of VHistoir des Frangais des Divers itats , which is extremely interesting , partly for th glimpse it gives us of Monteil , and partly for the description of his history which we have often seen noticed , but which this article , by giving us a dis tmct idea of what the book is , has made us anxious to read . Here is ai example of " literary tasting " and its service . Before spending money an patience on a history , one is glad to know what manner of book it is ; am there are books of a certain kind which are always worth their cost , no matte how poor the mere literature may be .
In Putnam ' s Monthly we were , not unnaturally , attracted by an article o the Life of Goethe , it being instructive to see what our Transatlantic friend have to say on that subject . The writer has a profound admiration fc Goethe , and a slightly mitigated contempt for the biographer , whoj * shallowTiess ' he thus discriminatingly rebukes : — The critical parts of it we cannot estimate very highly . Mr . Lewes ' a principle of art are so superficial , founded as they are on the shallowest of all philosophie when applied to the deeper problems of artthat his judgments of Goethe ' worl
, s are not ^ always worthy . Their more obvious rhetorical qualities he feels nu appreciates ; but their interior significance , their real artistic value , he ofte misses . Cherishing a kind of phobia , as every Positivist must , against every thk that does not he on the Surface as plain as the nose on your face , and havh adopted , at the outset , tliat stupid commonplace of some of the Germans th Goethe ^ vas ^ Realist , while Schiller was an Idealist , he flumes and flottnde : before "the Wilhelin Meister and the Faust , like a frail coasting shallop sudden ^ it . ? v 5 ^ . to Sea ^ , ? P ?™ * ' * °° . in trying to measure the vast billowy wate mtli the lane and lead that may have served him so well among Ms native cree andmlets . °
And subsequently : — Without dwelling , however , upon the mere literary ex-cellence of GbetTie ' s p . formanees , or even attempting a general characterisation of his literary genius 1 us proceed to explain why he is called so emphatically the artist of his acre It the more important because his biographer , true to the behests of an incompett philosophy , seems to ignore this as part of the matter altogether , aud stan dumbfounded in the presence of the pervading symbolism of Goethe ' s writin A work of art , as well as a product of nature , is to him a simple fact , having lations to other facts , but no inward spiritual meaning . He is , therefore , p petually quarrelling with what he terms the mysticism of Goethe ( although he 1 already pronounced him a great realist ) , and is pained at the obvious lapse his faculties in the latter parts of the Meister and the Faust . But fchi 3 " mysticisi is as much a part of his being as his clearness of vision , or his serene wisdom , a : demands as much the nicest study on the part of his critics .
And that our readers may not lose the benefit of the profound insight whi this critic has himself attained we conclude with a passage which follows ] description of the second part of Faust - •—< Thia is , of course , the very meageresjt outline of Goethe ' s richly varied magnifici representation—like a single thread drawn from a tissue of cloth of gold andy we venture to say , that it will not fall upon the reader with a stronger sense the impotence ofl 7 ie * conclusion than the original does , amid all its splendid accessor of music and picture . For everybody must feel , how much soever he may be i pressed by the miracu lous vigour and variety of the poem , that it nowhere stril the hi ghest key ; that it nowhere utters the demiitrt / ic word ; and that the mase and beautiful world it builds up in th © realm of thought i 3 , after all , a but world , destined to no continuous life , aa in gorgeous sunset we see inuumera coloured lights dart and flash among the gold and silver-edged clouds , "bu ' not behold the sun . Glimpses there are of the great open secret of destiny , that high doctrine of spontaneous labotir for the good of others , in that immo :
line—Das Ewig-Weiblic 7 ic zieht unshinanj " but the author has not surrendered himself fully and joyously to its divine spiration . Neither he nor his age felt , thou gh it might have seen , nor does age feel while it sees , what was proclaimed eighteen hundred years ngo , that of the heart are the issues of life ; that goodness ia g reater than truth ; that ai tion is better than culture ; that wisdom is only wisdom in so far as it ia a m festation of love . We are sure Mr . Lewes will share the critic ' s regret that Goethe " novvl utters the demiurgic word " ( whatever that may be—perhaps the kovK o / x of the Eleusinian mysteries as practised in America ?) and we trust that Lewics will at once discard his incompetent philosophy in favour of demiurgic depth . The only difficulty which strikes us ia geometric , nam how , in that case , will he correlate the Infinite ?
, p prevent our judging ; every work according to fixed principles ; and the broad impartialities of evidence . We arc but " tasters" for the public our criticisms are but " printed talk . " If we can say what we have to say honestly , and let it stand for no more than the opinion of one man , our office is performed . Nor are writers in Magazines and Quarterlies much better They have indeed the requisite leisure and the requisite space , but they seldom occupy the one or fill the other with real criticism . It is ea 3 ier to
write an essay . It is easier to write about a subject . The ease is seduction and / criticism is seldom attempted . ' Th ^ s p ^ irfo ^ r in faVour of criticism suggests an excuse for the shortcomings which we foresee in our notice of the Magazinea this month . Perhaps the r ?^ r ^ ^ 3 ' monthl y task of inagazine-reviewrng is an easy one . Strange ecgqfe ; 1 Easy ? Why , over and % bove the inherent difficulties in « U criticism there are other extraneous difficulties worth mentioning . The Magazines Si ™ , * ? ' 1 ? rea < l ; and that is not ea 8 v ' anyone will vouch who tries Then the multiplicity of subjects , and tlie exiguity of our limits would Mp . P <* oppress the most . confident mind . We have but one resource . i&f ra ? lu ' 8 correspondence beconica unmanageable he adopts the simple Jffitfft ?? ' answering letters ; and the majority of letters then answer thMn shm
8 eiv ^ , r w ; e i adopt this plan , and instead ot criticising , simply note here WTO arftcl < - ! whic ^ suggests a comment . ' ^^^^ T ^ ' " thero is a curioua P P <* ° » " The Caxtons and W ^ SlfW ^ . tytioua , « s showing with minute detail how cloacly SS ^ iS ^^ S * * WW , characters , and incidents of Stkune whicfSSS ^ t ^ T «*< *««<*>«« of in a general way , but <^ dm ^^ and « lmo « i ^^ P ^ wpti with whwih the writer starts , that " few of the
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AFTER BARK . After Dark . Jiy Wilklo Collins , nuthor of Basil , Hide and Sock , # . Two void ,, ^ Smith , Kldor am After Doric ia nova a many may suppose from the title , a novel reprcRon scenes of life which shun the daylight—a aeries of pictures representing haunts ana ways-of the night-bivda vvhoac existence ia the scandal of civilisi --but a series of stories told by an Avtist to his wife , when the day is done , the ctyldren are in bed . The stories , with one exception , have air appeared in print , and having been much admired , Mr . Collins very nntu thought of republishing them in some convenient form . But judging the luckless attempts almost , uniformly made to frame a series of stories connected narrative , it would seem that next to the rnrity of a new invei in the shape of a story , is the rarity of a new and acceptable invention ii Bliape ot a fiction which shall introduce a series of stones . Instead of I an extra clmrm , aw additional interest , the canvns is usually u ncc impertinonco , n screen of opaque verbiage . Mr . Wilkio Collins has nappy in lua choice of a thread whereon to string the pearls . Without corning the main difficulty , without making us forget that the thread is n
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»* T H E L E A D E R . [ No . 311 > &ATDRPAV
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Leader (1850-1860), March 8, 1856, page 232, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2131/page/16/
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