Men in polished communities obtain, from observation and experience, many principles and rules of criticism, which are insensibly incorporated with their modes of thinking and feeling. Nothing is more natural than the exercise and expression of judgment, relative to the merits of discourse, in whatever form it may be presented to the mind. Hence the conversational intercourse of intelligent society, becomes a sort of school of criticism on the plan of mutual instruction. There is a constant action and reaction of mind upon mind and heart upon heart. The operations of judgment soon become almost, if not altogether, as spontaneous and involuntary, as the movements of feeling. Habit is to the judgment what nature is to sensibility; and as we often feel, without being able to state the elements of the emotion, so we often judge, without being able to specify the reasons of the decision.

We have, however, something of philosophy in criticism. An observation of things favorable and unfavorable in the effect of discourse, leads to a classification of rhetorical facts, and furnishes examples and rules for writers and orators. Here commences criticism as an art. Let analysis be applied to the phenomena, which have been observed and classified-let the reasons of success or failure be ascertained, and exhibited in the form of principles-and then criticism becomes a science. The decisions of competent judges, will enable a discriminating observer to determine the most natural successions of thought and feeling. And just so far as we are acquainted with the laws of mind, in relation to writing and speaking, so far are we acquainted not only with the rules of criticism, but with the philosophy of criticism.

Philosophical criticism has been called the "legislation of taste." Its decrees are not arbitrary dogmas, sanctioned only by the authority of genius; although Dr. Johnson had too much reason for the remark, "that the laws of every species of writing have been settled by him, who first raised it to reputation, without inquiring whether his performances were not yet susceptible of improvement." Lord Kames also observes, that "Bossut gives many rules, but can discover no better foundation for any of them, than the practice merely of Homer and Virgil, supported by the authority of Aristotle. Strange! that in so long a work, he should never once have stumbled upon the question, whether and how far,

Pope had a

do these rules agree with human nature." correct view of the rules of philosophical criticism:

"Those rules of old discovered, not devised,
Are nature still, but nature methodized;

Nature, like liberty, is but restrained

By the same laws, which first herself ordained."

"We judge of the perspicuity and order of a discourse,' says Dr. Brown, "by knowing the progress in which the mind, by the developement of truth after truth, may be made at last to see the full meaning of the most complex proposition. We judge of the beauty of impassioned poetry or eloquence, by knowing whether the figures, the images, the very feelings described, be such as from our observation of the laws that regulate the internal series of changes in the mind, we know to be consistent with that state of emotion, in which a mind must exist, that has been placed in the situation supposed. If all other circumstances be equal, he will undoubtedly be the best critic, who knows best the phenomena of human thought and feeling; and without this knowledge, criticism can be nothing but a measurement of words, or a repetition of the ever repeated and endless common-places of rhetoric. The knowledge of nature, of the necessity of which critics speak so much and so justly, and which is as essential to the critic himself, as to the writer on whom he sits in judgment, is only another name for the knowledge of the successive transitions of feeling of the mind, in all the innumerable diversities in which it is capable of being modified, by the variety of circumstances in which it may be placed. It is for this reason, that, with so great an abundance of the mere art, or rather of the technical phrases of criticism, we have so very little of the science of it because the science of criticism implies an acquaintance with the philosophy of thought and passion, which few can be expected to possess; and though nothing can be easier than to deliver opinions, such as pass current in the drawingroom, and even in the literary circle, which the frivolous may admire as profound, and the ignorant as erudite, and which many voices may be found to repeat: though even the dull and pedantic are as able as the wise to say, that one passage of a work of genius is beautiful, and another the reverse, because one of them is in accordance with some technical rules, or because Homer and Milton have passages similar to

the one, and not to the other: it is far from being equally easy to show how the one passage is beautiful from its truth of character, and the other, though perhaps rich in harmony of rhythm and rhetorical ornament, is yet faulty, by its violation of the more important harmony of thought and emotion, a harmony which nature observes as faithfully in the progress of those vehement passions that appear most wild and irregular, as in the calmest successions of feeling of the most tranquil hours."

We regard this passage of Dr. Brown, as a very felicitous exposition of the nature of true criticisin. When contemplated in the character of a science, it becomes a most interesting and important branch of the philosophy of mind. And as human nature is so endlessly diversified in its operations and aspects, it is a science of no small difficulty. It is indeed perfectly easy to praise or condemn in the gross; but if we would announce the reasons of approbation or censure, we may find ourselves in a mortifying predicament. The simple interrogative "why?" has crimsoned many a cheek, and palsied many a tongue. We must study our own intellectual states and emotions with persevering assiduity; we must pause in the midst of our pleasure, when under the influence of the fascinations of genius, and detect, if possible, the conspiring causes, the exciting elements of the complex feeling of agreeableness; we must register the responses which we obtain from the oracle within us, and collate them with those obtained by others from a similar authority; in few words, we must subject ourselves to a long and laborious discipline of observation, analysis, and comparison, before we can hope to attain to any degree of respectability, as philosophical critics.

Now we do not feel conscious of any lack of candor, when we say, that a vast amount of what is termed criticism, if it is any thing better than unblushing quackery, is seldom better than the merest prattle of common-places, or an arrogant, ostentatious parade of conventional technicalities, or an insolent, overbearing, unmerciful, ferocious dictation. Reviews, it has been said, have been written in Newgate, without even a perusal of the works, to which they were applied. Even Addison "pronounced a confident and discriminate character of Spenser, whose poem he had then never read." Certain it is, that journals of high reputation, have given importance and currency to criticism, "so called,

but falsely." Inexperienced young men have too often been suffered to sport with talent and worth, and do irreparable injury to the good names of those, who were richly entitled to general respect and esteem. Is it not really amusing, as well as provoking, to see with what an air of greatness and tone of majesty, a mere abecedarian, in the school of taste, will pronounce his critical decisions? Lilliputian as he is, he will gravely arraign before his mightiness, any of the giants in literature. He decides upon their merits, and the sentence, perhaps, comes forth to the public. The effervescence of precocity, heated without measure by indiscreet praise, is frequently received by the unthinking, as a marvellous emanation of genius: and the tinsel and flippancy of the veriest "fopling of belles-lettres," are dignified by the epithets of beauty and power. Is it then a matter of wonder, that authors of eminence have treated with utter contempt, the reviews of their publications? Have not some, whose pretensions to critical infallibility are not small, deserved the full measure of retributive vengeance?

"Fools are my theme, let satire be my song."

And long before this line was written by the indignant pen of Byron, the greatest master of English versification had often steeped the naked nerve in gall." Though he wrote in bitterness and wrath, it cannot be denied, that he described a character.

"The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read,
With loads of learned lumber in his head,
With his own tongue still edifies his ears,
And always listening to himself appears.
All books he reads, and all he reads assails,

From Dryden's Fables down to Durfy's Tales.

With him, most authors steal their works, or buy;
Garth did not write his own Dispensary.

No place so sacred from such fops is barred,

Nor is Paul's church more safe than Paul's church-yard;
Nay, fly to altars; there they'll talk you dead,
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Distrustful sense with modest caution speaks,
It still looks home, and short excursions makes;
But rattling nonsense in full vollies breaks,
And never shocked, and never turned aside,
Bursts out resistless, with a thundering tide."

It will be perceived from this train of remark, that we require of critics some qualifications, which are neither the

birthright nor the possession of all, who assume the name and attempt to discharge the duties of the office. Of these qualifications we would now speak more particularly. We begin with refinement of taste.

Not only must the critic be endowed with a lively susceptibility of the emotions of taste, but he must cultivate his power of discrimination, by that process of varied experiment, which is indispensable in the formation of a refined judgment. To pronounce decisive opinions upon works of literature and of oratory, without the aid of that experience, which imparts accuracy and finish to our thoughts, is both presumptuous and preposterous. What reliance can be placed upon the decisions of taste, when it is obvious, that for want of proper cultivation, it partakes much more of sensibility than reason, of feeling than judgment; and is palpably destitute of that correctness and elegance, which can be derived only from communion with the purest models in nature and art?

Refinement of taste presupposes some acquaintance with the characteristics of man as illustrated in discourse; that is, presupposes some knowledge of the causes of the different effects produced by the writer and speaker. A person, however, may possess considerable refinement of taste, without being very philosophically versed in the true reasons which give shape and quality to his critical judgments. He may have a delicate perception of the beautiful, and a keen sagacity for the detection of blemishes, and yet be often unable to distinguish and separate the varied ingredients in the complex emotion of pleasure or disgust.

Hence we shall mention a thorough acquaintance with the philosophy of human nature, as a distinct and highly important qualification of a good critic. Without this knowledge, he really has no standard, to which he can make an ultimate appeal. He may quote the authority of Homer or Demosthenes, of Milton or of Chatham, or any distinguished master in poetry or eloquence-and still the question remains-does the authority agree with nature? While the empiric in criticism relies upon precedent, the philosopher has recourse to the acknowledged sources of pleasure in the natural constitution of man.

Although some predominant principles of human nature are the same everywhere, it is certain that man varies in his character, according to the different influences of climate,