like the use of false coins, with this difference, that the imposition in the latter case is less injurious, because more easily detected, than in the former, where you have often to wade through a couple of volumes of sheer trash, before you can discover that you have been duped.

CRITICISM.

"Nearly all Criticism, at the present day, is the public

effect of private acquaintance."

N

SIR BULWER LYTTON.

CRITICISM.

PHILOSOPHICAL Criticism was almost unknown in our literature until the beginning of the nineteenth century. At that period a Spirit of Inquiry, engendered by the political doctrines of the day, infused itself into every department of literature and science; and English Criticism soon became remarkable for the extent of its erudition and the boldness of its strictures. would have been fortunate for the cause of learning, if these advantages had been directed to their proper ends. But no sooner did the Spirit of Philosophy begin to manifest itself, than it became allied to the Spirit of Party.

It

Of this unnatural alliance the natural offspring were the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews; for, if it is true that those periodicals gave the first indication of a departure from the timid and time-serving disposition, which had theretofore characterized our critical canons; it is equally true that they were the first to prostitute the Art of Criticism to the service of Politics and