The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1890-05-25
LITERARY CRITICISM.

Every year scores Of books are pub
lished by authors who have neither
learning, originality, insight, style, nor
any single intellectual or literary facul-
ty. II they have oyer-estimated their
own powers. the completeness of THEN
failure will be punishment sufficient
~ poignant to induce the critic to re-
fran from pouring his oil of yitri0l into
their wounds.
But there are books Of a higher order
which seem to rouse almost into feroc-
ity the dislike Of critics. Ii is espe-
cially true OF those which have had the
misfortune to be Over.praised at first.
such as Mr.. Martin Tuppec and Mr..
Robert Montgomery. Their success, al
first, was remarkable. the iirst notice OF
their works ecstatic. The critics found
themselves mistaken, then tnrned
round savagely upon the well-inten-
toned authors. Five lines of Dante, 4
single page of Shakespeare may be
worth ten times over all that Montgom-
cry ever wrote. but if the same methods
were applied to Dante or To Shake
speare, how easy 1t would have been
for so brilliantly clever critic as Ma
caulay, a. it was for Noltaire, TO show
that Shakespeare was a drunken savage,
aud that Of Dante 5 poems, the In
ferno" was revolving. the "PurgaiO
rio. -" dull, and the " Paradise unread
able
Indeed, Dante and Shakespeare. Bacon
and Milton have not escaped these
methods. Horace WalpOle called Dante
"eXtfa\agant. absurd. disgusting; in
short: Methodist parson Ia Bediam ~
Samuel Pepys thought "Othello" "a
mean thing" and Midsummer
NIGHTS Dream, the most insipid,
ridiculous play ever saw in
my life Bacon's "Instauratio
Magma" was described by an eminent
contemporary as the silliost Of printed
books. Hacket calls Milton "a petty
school boy scribbler,' aud another
spoke Of him as the author of a pro.
fame and lascivious poem called Para
disc Lost"
Critics not only WELD the club of
Hercules, but, unhapp'ly, wear the ring
of Gyges. They can strike Tremendous
blows in the dark. and are endowed by
invisiblty and impanlty with a con.
centrated egOtsm-Dr. Whewell called
it I'VE gOtsm which brings out in
some men their very worst qualities
base writer's are rendered more unscru-
pulOus by conceaiment. Speaking OF
critics en- masse. | should not be dis
posed to lay to their change much worse
! faults than those which belong to the
vulgar multitude. For, a Matthew
Arnold said. il is the eternal spirit u
the multitude TO catch up popular cries
to shout down the unsuccessful, and tC
trample savagely Oh the fallen.
As for style. il a critic thinks a
writer, 5 style bad, he can say 50 a. lit
! tie Extensively as a gentleman and a
good man should. not wilfully misrep
resenting. nor picking out Que or two
sentences as though they fairly eXhlb
/ tied its tenor. Carlyle's effect upon hi
age was produced, IN great measure
by his style; yet his style was for SOM
time denounced ~ a trayesty Of Eng
lish. which was perfectly lntolerable
a man VINO is simple and honest shout,
have sufficient self-cOniidence to dare L
be himself. Any one who chooses may SO
how inipOtent the literary journalist
have shown themselves to recognize
genius. and how equally impotent the.
have been &c check its recognition b
fairer judges. We all know how Cole
ridge was abused like a pickpocket
how Shelley was almost goaded to mad
ness. Prejudices and nlcksnames di
hard, but the world comes round TO hir
who waits.-May Forum.