"This for the novelists. "There were also some general maxims in the form of memorandums, very useful as a key, and also to prevent getting into scrapes. For example: "Mem. 1st. If the author not patronized by our shop, or not of our party in politics or religion, should the work be favoured by the town, and too good to pull to pieces, find what fault you can with small things, confine yourself to generals, and leave out all the chief scenes and characters.' "Mem. 2nd. If you criticize a particular word, always look into Johnson first, for fear you should be wrong; but if, for want of this, you should be proved guilty of ignorance yourself, never retract ; and if in any of your assertions you are convicted of a lie, repeat it, and you are safe. Besides, nobody knows who you are, so you fight comfortably behind a wall.' "Mem. 3rd. If you write against a critic of another concern, remember he has no resources, no independence of his own, but is a bookseller's hack; a venal scribe; a tool, et cætera. If against a lawyer, be sure to quote Cicero, leguleius, præco actionum, cantor formularum, anceps syllabarum;' and give a proper sprinkling of pettifogger, special pleader, Old Bailey counsel, sharp practice, and the like."" "If all this be correct," observed I, "it is systematic with a vengeance." "Yes," replied Granville; " and so far do they carry it, that once being in Sourkrout's parlour, one of his writers came in, in a hurry, with his pen behind his ear, evidently big with composition. Taking me perhaps for a brother journeyman, and going doggedly on with his work, he asked abruptly whether Mr. Fairchild, whose book was to be cut up, was thick or thin? “O, very thin,' replied Sourkrout, laughing. "That's enough,' said the scribe, and immediately disappeared. I was completely lost at this; till, upon questioning him, Sourkrout informed mę that thick or thin alluded to the skin of the author, which it was necessary to know, because the personal notice of him was to be manufactured accordingly. For there are some of these fellows,' said Sourkrout, who are as tough as alligators; others as soft as wool-packs. You may fire shot at the one, and not penetrate; or beat the other with a club, and he will shrink, but always puffs out again as much as before. You may as well beat a carpet.' "I think," concluded Granville, "I have now let you sufficiently into the nature of some, at least, of these guiders of the public taste, who have the curse of Ishmael upon them; for their hand is against every man, and every man's hand against them. Like chimney-sweepers, too, the more dirt they rake together, the more happy they are." "A charming lesson," said I, "by which, if ever I turn author, I hope to profit. But are all of this description ?" "God forbid," replied he;" for I could name, and have introduced you to several whose candour and good manners are equal to their abilities." "But is there no chastising such nuisances ?” asked I. "Yes; for an illiberal critic is always as thinskinned as Mr. Fairchild himself. Flog him, therefore, with his own rod-that is, review his review-and he will whine like a hyæna, or squeak like a pig; particularly if he be an author himself, and you review him in your turn. so sore; not Sir Fretful himself; No one is then and he will go whining about the town, wondering what can have occasioned him so many enemies. This, however, is rare, because he generally conceals his identity under the royal term wE, while the honest author is forced, for the most part, to present himself in puris naturalibus."* All this astonished me. I owned my notion both of the character and consequence of a critic * See the subject of anonymous criticism ably and pungently treated by Sir E. L. Bulwer, in his England and the English, Book IV. "There are only two classes of men," says this observing essayist, "to whom the anonymous is really desirable. The perfidious gentleman, who fears to be cut by the friend he injures (to which was incorrect, and was no longer surprised at the sort of subdued, but ill-concealed hatred which we see entertained towards some of these self-elected censors in society, over which, whenever they appear, they seem to throw a wet blanket. "You, therefore," said Granville, "ought to feel yourself the more fortunate in finding, from those to whom I have introduced you, that there can be critics who are not slanderous, and who may be judges of literature without ceasing to be gentlemen." "Those you allude to," said I, " are undoubtedly of that sort: Mr., for example, seems to justify the account of rational and just criticism given by Pope : ' The generous critic fann'd the poet's fire, "Good," observed Granville. "But even Pope says that many of these critics were soon corrupted; it might have added, who fears for his own works), and the lying blackguard, who dreads to be horsewhipt by the man he maligns." Pity that Sir Edward is able to support the first part of this observation by the example of a highly-gifted nobleman, one of whose best compositions, he says, was discovered in a review to be a most truculent attack upon his intimate companion. and you should have gone on with your quota tion: But following wits from that intention stray'd, Sure to hate most the men from whom they learn'd.' "But why hate?" asked I. "That is the question I should like to have solved." "It is solvable," said Granville, "by the one single word CONTEMPORARY. People in general do not hate the dead; nor even the living, when removed from the sphere of rivalry or adverse interest. Criticism, then, is prompted by a real love and taste for literature, and a real desire to promote its interests. At any rate, the critics have no wish to exhibit any one but the author. A modern reviewer, of the character we have been investigating, whatever his taste for literature, is chiefly swayed by his personal feeling in regard to the writer; the interest he chiefly espouses is that of the shop; and the person he most wishes to exhibit is-himself."* 66 *In the same spirit with this remark, the acute and thinking Lord Dudley (himself a reviewer) says, in one of his letters to the Bishop of Llandaff, recently published, "If any branch of the public administration were as 'infamously jobbed' as the Reviews, it must soon fall a victim to the just indignation of the world." See also an able pamphlet called, Reviewers Reviewed," by Mr. O'Reid. "Literature itself," he states, "interests but few, though it employs so many more. Its honours are degraded; its pleasures are but little understood; it has assumed a commercial character, and is esteemed in this light. It has fallen a prey to criticism." |