And what need we say of the Germans?- what of Winckelmann, of Novalis,
of Schelling, of Goethe, of Augustus William, and of Frederick
Schlegel?- that their magnificent critiques raisonnees differ from
those of Kames, of Johnson, and of Blair, in principle not at all,
(for the principles of these artists will not fail until Nature
herself expires,) but solely in their more careful elaboration,
their greater thoroughness, their more profound analysis and
application of the principles themselves. That a criticism "now"
should be different in spirit, as Mr. Mathews supposes, from a
criticism at any previous period, is to insinuate a charge of
variability in laws that cannot vary- the laws of man's heart and
intellect- for these are the sole basis, upon which the true
critical art is established. And this art "now" no more than in the
days of the "Dunciad," can, without neglect of its duty, "dismiss
errors of grammar," or "hand over an imperfect rhyme or a false
quantity to the proof-reader." What is meant by a "test of opinion" in
the connection here given the words by Mr. M., we do not comprehend as
clearly as we could desire. By this phrase we are as completely
enveloped in doubt as was Mirabeau in the castle of If. To our
imperfect appreciation it seems to form a portion of that general
vagueness which is the tone of the whole philosophy at this point:-
but all that which our journalist describes a criticism to be, is
all that which we sturdily maintain it is not.
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