Mathews, and we should be sorry that he misunderstood us. It may
be granted that we differ only in terms- although the difference
will yet be found not unimportant in effect. Following the highest
authority, we would wish, in a word, to limit literary criticism to
comment upon Art. A book is written- and it is only as the book that
we subject it to review. With the opinions of the work, considered
otherwise than in their relation to the work itself, the critic has
really nothing to do. It is his part simply to decide upon the mode in
which these opinions are brought to bear. Criticism is thus no "test
of opinion." For this test, the work, divested of its pretensions as
an art-product, is turned over for discussion to the world at large-
and first, to that class which it especially addresses- if a
history, to the historian- if a metaphysical treatise, to the
moralist. In this, the only true and intelligible sense, it will be
seen that criticism, the test or analysis of Art, (not of opinion,) is
only properly employed upon productions which have their basis in
art itself, and although the journalist (whose duties and objects
are multiform) may turn aside, at pleasure, from the mode or vehicle
of opinion to discussion of the opinion conveyed- it is still clear
that he is "critical" only in so much as he deviates from his true
province not at all.
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