Now, while we do not mean to deny that a good essay is a good thing,
we yet assert that these papers on general topics have nothing
whatever to do with that criticism which their evil example has
nevertheless infected in se. Because these dogmatizing pamphlets,
which were once "Reviews," have lapsed from their original faith, it
does not follow that the faith itself is extinct- that "there shall be
no more cakes and ale"- that criticism, in its old acceptation, does
not exist. But we complain of a growing inclination on the part of our
lighter journals to believe, on such grounds, that such is the fact-
that because the British Quarterlies, through supineness, and our own,
through a degrading imitation, have come to merge all varieties of
vague generalization in the one title of "Review," it therefore
results that criticism, being everything in the universe, is,
consequently, nothing whatever in fact. For to this end, and to none
other conceivable, is the tendency of such propositions, for
example, as we find in a late number of that very clever monthly
magazine, Arcturus.
"But now" (the emphasis on the now is our own)- "but now," says
Mr. Mathews, in the preface to the first volume of his journal,
"criticism has a wider scope and a universal interest. It dismisses
errors of grammer, and hands over an imperfect rhyme or a false
quantity to the proofreader; it looks now to the heart of the
subject and the author's design.
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