which aspires to be called a work of literature should have a certain perfection of finish and of form, none are excluded by reason of their solidity of matter, or earnestness of aim. A history or a sermon, an oration or a political tract, even a scientific essay if excellent in method and style, in eloquence and imagery, takes the place as a contribution to the literature of a period or of a nation, to which its merits entitle it. As a consequence, the conception of literature itself is greatly elevated and ennobled. Instead of being regarded as one of the accessories of culture and luxury, it is viewed as the best and noblest expression of the best powers of the ablest men of an age. Instead of being judged by the mere accidents of form, and according to the capriciousness of a changing taste, it is both studied and tested according to its perfect ideal. It follows,

Second: that while the older was narrow and conventional in its standards, the new criticism is catholic and liberal in its spirit. The tendency of the earlier criticism was to set up a single author who was supposed to be nearest the ideal perfection, as the standard by which to try. every other. other. Every other author, and the literature of every other period, were measured by him and the literature of which he set the fashion. Thus, in the days of Queen Anne, Dryden, Addison, or Swift furnished the norm of actual and almost of possible perfection. A generation later, Johnson and his imitators imposed, if they did not constitute, the rule of measurement. The earlier and nobler writers of the days of Elizabeth and James were now depreciated for their latinized and lumbering sentences and then counted half barbarians for that individual freedom which inspired their genius and constituted their real strength and glory.

In a generation still later, literature was still more or less conventional, because criticism kept it in bonds to the

factitious standards which were derived from Addison, Pope and Johnson; inconsistent with one another as were the examples and the teachings of the masters from which she received her laws. In vain did Thomson give range to the impulses of his creative imagination, and Cowper plead the exemption from rule of one who claimed to be a rhymester and did not aspire to be called a poet. In vain did Burke give vent to the eloquence and imagery which his fiery imagination could not restrain, and Scott followed the bent of a romantic spirit which was inbreathed from his infancy. Criticism was still inexorable, till the more catholic spirit of Coleridge, Wordsworth, and others whom they incited and inspired, awakened the English mind to the personal and admiring study of the older writers, and encouraged the young littérateurs to dare to use all the resources of their own affluent language with the freedom of the elder days, and to give utterance to their thoughts in a more copious and untrammeled diction. The cumbrous phraseology of the old writers, their involved sentences, their learned pedantry, their disregard of neatness, directness, simplicity, and taste, had previously made them outcasts from polite society, or if they were admitted they were wondered at, rather than admired on account of “the barbaric pearl and gold” with which they were so richly clad, because their ornaments were not in the mode and their garments were out of fashion. But now these defects are little thought of in comparison with the greater copiousness and variety of their diction, the individuality impressed upon their style, and the shaping of the diction to the thought and feeling of the writer. To the victory, thus achieved by this more catholic criticism, do we owe it, that, in the last two generations, the range of thought in our leading writers has been so greatly enlarged, the depth of their researches has been proportionately increased, their philosophy has been more profound, their strength and in

tensity of emotion have been augmented, their imaginative power has been more unrestrained and more creative, and their diction has been more varied and powerful.

The modern criticism has not only been more catholic in its tastes and judgments of native literature, but also in its capacity to judge fairly and to appreciate adequately the literature of other countries and of remote ages. In this respect the earlier criticism was eminently bigoted and narrow. In looking upon its own narrow domain as the celestial empire and the flowery land, it regarded all foreign writers as in a certain sense outside barbarians, who might indeed be worthy of consideration for certain excellencies of style or imagery, or for the purposes of grammar and philology, but were thought to have no special claim to attention as varied expressions of that common human life which makes the whole world kin. The new criticism, in rising above such narrow prejudices, has not only done justice to its neighbor, but it has gained more than an equivalent for itself-reaping the double benison of charity, which always blesses him that gives as well as him that takes. In this, it has sympathized with the general movement of our times. While many of the sciences, both physical and humanistic, have become liberal by becoming comparative, as anatomy, physiology, and philology; criticism has also learned to compare the literatures of different ages and different nations, and to estimate them by certain fundamental principles. Critics now bring to the same bar of judgment Goethe, Shakspeare and Molière, and try them all in respect of their common adaptation to express and please the same human nature. Criticism concludes its examinations and allots its sentences without respect of persons. What is different in each writer, in language or nationality, serves to set in bolder relief what is common; and the various methods by which writers of different countries accomplish the same effect, impress the reader with the varied

resources of human genius. National peculiarities, whether of matter or form, are relished with a special zest, and the reader's attention is quickened as he turns from one to the other with a freshened interest. This leads us to observe

Third: The new criticism is more philosophical than the old in its methods, and is therefore more just in its conclusions. Indeed it calls itself, by eminence, philosophical criticism. This claim is not extravagant, if the criticism is at once really elevated and catholic, inasmuch as these terms are almost interchangeable with profound and comprehensive. In aspiring to be philosophical, it seeks to find those principles which explain and justify everything that is excellent, and to expose and reject whatever proves to be defective or bad. In respect of style or diction, it seeks for the permanent and common characteristics of good writing, in those endless and manifold peculiarities of an individual writer, which spring from the constraints of language, from the genius of his nation, from the temper and culture of his period, and from his own individual habits or circumstances. In respect of thought, it measures each writer by the circumstances of his people and his time, as well as by the special aims which he has in view, and the capacity or attainments which the workings of his imagination may have showed. If it estimates a poet or novelist it judges his genius by all the local and temporary influences, which made him what he was, as well as by his acceptableness to the private taste of the critic or the critic's special coterie. It does not try Goethe by Molière, or either by Shakspeare, or each and all by a living English dramatist or poet, but according to a just standard for each. It does not claim from Auerbach and Freitag, what it exacts from George Eliot and Anthony Trollope. In the same way, among English writers, it does not measure Scott by Dickens or Dickens by Thackeray, or Thackeray by George Eliot, or George Eliot by Hawthorne. It does

not test the subjective Tennyson by the objective William Morris, nor Robert Browning by the simple William Barnes of Dorsetshire, nor The Spanish Gypsy by The Ring and the Book, nor Whittier by Longfellow. It finds what is good in each, and judges the good of each, by the individuality of the author, the ends for which he writes, the audience to whom he writes, the times in which he writes, and the language through which he writes, as well as the people whose genius inspires what he writes. While it receives, as the rule of its judgments, the nature of man, it recognizes the truth that this nature exists and manifests itself under an indefinite variety of conditions, without ceasing to be the same.

We add next, and

Fourth that this criticism, in being more just, is necessarily more generous and genial. It cannot well be otherwise. For its cardinal maxim is, the critic cannot be just to an author unless he puts himself in the author's place. Its comprehensive rule is, if you would understand an author's meaning you must learn to think as the author thinks, to feel as he feels, to look at nature and man through his eyes, to respond to both with his soul, to estimate his audience as he knew them, to measure the instruments of language and imagery which he had at command, in their several limitations, as well as their capacities. You must do all these things before you can even begin to judge him. This is only a special application of the principle which is expressed in the golden rule, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." In putting in practice this rule of simple justice to any author who deserves our attentive study, there is wakened toward him an appreciative sympathy. It is only by seeking fairly and fully to understand a writer, that we are enabled to enter fully into his feelings, to catch his spirit, and to weigh his reasonings if we are not con