Besides, all men know, or should know, that these books are
sadly given to verbiage. It is a part of their nature, a condition
of their being, a point of their faith. A veteran reviewer loves the
safety of generalities and is therefore rarely particular. "Words,
words, words," are the secret of his strength. He has one or two ideas
of his own and is both wary and fussy in giving them out. His wit
lies, with his truth, in a well, and there is always a world of
trouble in getting it up. He is a sworn enemy to all things simple and
direct. He gives no ear to the advice of the giant
Moulineau-"Belier, mon ami commencez au commencement." He either jumps
at once into the middle of his subject, or breaks in at a back door,
or sidles up to it with the gait of a crab. No other mode of
approach has an air of sufficient profundity. When fairly into it,
however, he becomes dazzled with the scintillations of his own wisdom,
and is seldom able to see his way out. Tired of laughing at his
antics, or frightened at seeing him flounder, the reader, at length,
shuts him up, with the book. "What song the Syrens sang," says Sir
Thomas Browne, "or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself
among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond all
conjecture";- but it would puzzle Sir Thomas, backed by Achilles and
all the Syrens in Heathendom, to say, in nine cases out of ten, what
is the object of a thoroughgoing Quarterly Reviewer.
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