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proof of the impolicy of such censures. If the object of their scorn has, in this instance, risen above it, how do we know that more delicate minds have not sunk beneath it? Besides, although Lord Byron was not repelled, but rather excited by their judgment, he seems to have sustained from it scarcely less injury. If it stung him into energy, it left its poison in his soul. It first instigated his spleen ;-taught him that spirit of scorn which debases the noblest faculties-and impelled him, in his rage, to attack those who had done him no wrong, to scoff at the sanctities of humanity, and to pretend to hate or deride his species!

And, even, if genius is too deep to be suppressed, or too celestial to be perverted, is it nothing that the soul of its possessor should be wrung with agony? For a while, criticism may throw back poets whom it cannot annihilate, and make them pause in their course of glory and of joy, "confounded though immortal." Who can estimate those pangs which on the "purest spirits" are thus made to prey

"as on entrails, joint, and limb,

With answerable pains but more intense?"

The heart of a young poet is one of the most sacred things on earth. How nicely strung are its fibres-how keen its sensibilities-how shrinking the timidity with which it puts forth its gentle conceptions! And shall such a heart receive rude usage from a world which it only desires to improve and to gladden? Shall its nerves be stretched on the rack, or its apprehensions turned into the instruments of its torture? All this, and more, has been done towards men of whom "this world was not worthy." Cowper, who, first of modern poets, restored to the general heart the feeling of healthful nature-whose soul was without one particle of malice or of guile-whose susceptible and timorous spirit shrunk tremblingly from the touch of this rough world-was chilled, tortured, and almost maddened, by some nameless critic's scorn. Kirke White-the delicate beauties of whose mind were destined scarcely to unfold themselves on earthin the beginning of his short career, was cut to the heart by the cold mockery of a stranger. A few sentences, penned, perhaps, in mere carelessness, almost nipped the young blos

soms of his genius "like an untimely frost;" palsied for awhile all his faculties-embittered his little span of lifehaunted him almost to the verge of his grave, and heightened his dying agonies! Would the annihilation of all the dulness in the world compensate for one moment's anguish inflicted on hearts like these?

We have been all this time considering not the possible abuses, but the necessary tendencies, of contemporary criticism. All the evils we have pointed out may arise, though no sinister design pervert the Reviewer's judgment—though no prejudice even unconsciously warp him—and, even, though he may decide fairly "from the evidence before him." But it is impossible that this favourable supposition should be often realized in an age like ours. Temper, politics, religion, the interests of rival poets, or rival publishers—a thousand influences, sometimes recognised, and sometimes only felt-decide the sentence on imaginations the most divine. The very trade of the critic himself-the necessity of his being witty, or brilliant, or sarcastic, for his own sake -is sufficient to disqualify him as a judge. Sad thought!that the most sensitive, and gentle, and profound of human beings, should be dependant on casual caprice, on the passions of a bookseller, or on the necessities of a period!

4. It may be perceived, from what we have already written, that we do not esteem criticism as a guide more than as a censor. The general effect on the public mind is, we fear, to dissipate and weaken. It spoils the freshest charms even of the poetry which it praises. It destroys all reverence for great poets, by making the world think of them as a species of culprits, who are to plead their genius as an excuse for their intrusion. Time has been when the poet himself-instead of submitting his works to the public as his mastercalled around him those whom he thought worthy to receive his precepts, and pointed out to them the divine lineaments, which he felt could never perish. They regarded him, with reverence, as most favoured of mortals. They delighted to sit in the seat of the disciple, not in that of the scorner. How much enjoyment have the people lost by being exalted into judges! The ascent of literature has been rendered smooth and easy, but its rewards are proportionably lessened in value. With how holy a zeal did the aspirant once gird

himself to tread the unworn path; how delectably was he refreshed by each plant of green; how intensely did he enjoy every prospect, from the lone and embowered resting places of his journey! Now, distinctions are levelled-the zest of intellectual pleasures is taken away; and no one hour, like that of Archimedes, ever repays a life of toil. The appetite, satiated with luxuries cheaply acquired, requires new stimulants—even criticism palls-and private slander must be mingled with it to give the necessary relish. Happily, these evils will, at last, work out their own remedy. Scorn, of all human emotions, leaves the frailest monuments behind it. That light which now seems to play around the weapons of periodical criticism, is only like the electrical flame which, to the amazement of the superstitious, wreathes the sword of the Italian soldier on the approach of a storm, vapourish and fleeting. Those mighty poets of our timewho are now overcoming the derision of the critics-will be immortal witnesses of their shame. These will lift their heads, "like mountains when the mists are rolled away," imperishable memorials of the true genius of our time, to the most distant ages.

MODERN PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

[New Monthly Magazine.]

LITTLE did the authors of the Spectator, the Tattler, and the Guardian think, while gratifying the simple appetites of our fathers for our periodical literature, how great would be the number, and how extensive the influence, of their successors in the nineteenth century. Little did they know that they were preparing the way for this strange era in the world of letters, when Reviews and Magazines supersede the necessity of research or thought-when each month they become more spirited, more poignant, and more exciting-and on every appearance awaken a pleasing crowd of turbulent sensations in authors, contributors, and the few who belong to neither of these classes, unknown to our laborious ancestors. Without entering, at present, into the inquiry whether this system be, on the whole, as beneficial as it is lively, we will just lightly glance at the chief of its productions, which have such varied and extensive influences for good or for evil.

The Edinburgh Review-though its power is now on the wane-has perhaps, on the whole, produced a deeper and more extensive impression on the public mind than any other work of its species. It has two distinct characters—that of a series of original essays, and a critical examination of the new works of particular authors. The first of these constitutes its fairest claim to honourable distinction. In this point of view, it has one extraordinary merit, that instead of partially illustrating only one set of doctrines, it contains disquisitions equally convincing on almost all sides of almost all questions of literature or state policy. The "bane and anti

dote" are frequently to be found in the ample compass of its volumes, and not unfrequently from the same pen. Its Essays on Political Economy display talents of a very uncommon order. Their writers have contrived to make the dryest subjects enchanting, and the lowest and most debasing theories beautiful. Touched by them, the wretched dogmas of expediency have worn the air of venerable truths, and the degrading speculations of Malthus have appeared full of benevolence and of wisdom. They have exerted the uncommon art, while working up a sophism into every possible form, to seem as though they had boundless store of reasons to spare a very exuberance of proof-which the clearness of their argument rendered it unnecessary to use. The celebrated Editor of this work, with little imagination-little genuine wit—and no clear view of any great and central principles of criticism, has contrived to dazzle, to astonish, and occasionally to delight, multitudes of readers, and, at one period, to hold the temporary fate of authors at his will. His qualities are all singularly adapted to his office. Without deep feeling, which few can understand, he has a quick sensibility with which all sympathize; without a command of images, he has a glittering radiance of words which the most superficial may admire; neither too hard-hearted always to refuse his admiration, nor too kindly to suppress a sneer, he has been enabled to appear most witty, most wise, and most eloquent, to those who have chosen him for their oracle. As Reviewers, who have exercised a fearful power over the hearts and the destinies of young aspirants to fame, this gentleman, and his varied coadjutors have done many great and irreparable wrongs. Their very motto, "Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur," applied to works offending only by their want of genius, asserted a fictitious crime to be punished by a voluntary tribunal. It implied that the author of a dull book was a criminal, whose sensibilities justice required to be stretched on the rack, and whose inmost soul it was a sacred duty to lacerate! They even carried this atrocious absurdity farther-represented youthful poets as prima facie guilty; "swarming with a vicious fecundity which invited and required destruction;" and spoke of the publication of verses as evidence, in itself, of want of sense,

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