And if in
one, or perhaps two, insulated cases, the spirit of severe truth,
sustained by an unconquerable will, was not to be so put down, then,
forthwith, were private chicaneries set in motion; then was had
resort, on the part of those who considered themselves injured by
the severity of criticism (and who were so, if the just contempt of
every ingenuous man is injury), resort to arts of the most virulent
indignity, to untraceable slanders, to ruthless assassination in the
dark. We say these things were done while the press in general
looked on, and, with a full understanding of the wrong perpetrated,
spoke not against the wrong. The idea had absolutely gone abroad-
had grown up little by little into toleration- that attacks, however
just, upon a literary reputation, however obtained, however untenable,
were well retaliated by the basest and most unfounded traduction of
personal fame. But is this an age- is this a day- in which it can be
necessary even to advert to such considerations as that the book of
the author is the property of the public, and that the issue of the
book is the throwing down of the gauntlet to the reviewer- to the
reviewer whose duty is the plainest; the duty not even of approbation,
or of censure, or of silence, at his own, will but at the sway of
those sentiments and of those opinions which are derived from the
author himself, through the medium of his written and published words?
True criticism is the reflection of the thing criticized upon the
spirit of the critic.
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