encountered. So prevalent is this method, especially in the treatment of poetry, that temporary success has been secured for works that deserved utter and instantaneous oblivion, solely because their authors were considered prodigies. Armless street artists procure halfpence for chalk drawings executed with their feet on the pavement. It is the devious skill of the draughtsman, however, and not the beauty of his production that attracts patrons.

But to leave general for specific sins of current criticism, I notice as a cardinal defect the tendency habitually manifested by reviewers to consider the minute details of a work to the exclusion of its general whole. I do not decry the obvious advantages to be derived from able detection and representation of latent beauties, and from the discovery and due appreciation of new gifts of expression in an author; or of a faculty showing itself in an unusual and unexpected form. But I beg to insist that a part is not the whole. The detection of the beauties and defects of passages is not a review of a work. Upon the critic is imposed a higher duty. Gross errors in detail notoriously heighten the effect of some of the most famous sculptures that remain to us; and so in literature, the impression intended to be produced by the author is frequently and designedly intensified by similar means.

MINUTE FAULT-FINDING.

333

The best books in every language abound in the gravest faults. Were a critic, then, to fasten on transparent defects, and conclude that the book is poor, or to deduce, from beauties he has discovered, that it is deserving of praise, he has his business yet to learn. It is true there may be defects of detail which, by destroying congruity, ruin art. Had the Venus de Medici the lips of a negress, it would cease to give pleasure; and the substitution in some of Shakespeare's plays of blemishes less glaring than those by which they are distinguished, would have the effect of destroying the efficaciousness of what is now congruous. In criticism regard must be had to the combination attempted by the author, and his success or failure must be explained. Beauties and blemishes should be massed, for it is the sum of the impression produced by a writer that is the criterion of his powers. I do not say the general effect should blind the critic to the existence of partial defects and beauties; I merely remind him that he should consider them partial defects and beauties, and nothing He must not judge of a work as a cheeseman tests his cheese-by tasting it.

more.

D

III.

THE PROVINCE OF THE ANONYMOUS.

HE practice of writing anonymously in newspapers and literary journals is so generally followed in England, that, to omit reference to it in any work, however humble, that has literature for its subject-matter, would be inexcusable. There is little need, however, to say much, since the scope and limits of anonymous writing have often been discussed, and more than once, I believe, been accurately defined. They may be briefly stated thus. In matters of fact the name of the writer is essential; in matters of opinion-in questions, that is, that are to be decided by argument-the writer may give his name or withhold it, as seems fit to himself. For instance, if the Teheran correspondent of the Illuminator tells us that the King of Persia has been intriguing with

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THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT.

35

Russia, or has killed his favourite wife, or has set fire to his palace, or charges him with any other scandalous proceeding, we have right to demand the name of the writer. We have right to say to him, " Off "with your mask, Mr. Correspondent, let us see "who you are; let us know what are your means " of information; give us the opportunity to ascer“tain if you are trustworthy, and have no sinister "motive for your communication. It is not suffi"cient for the conductor of the Illuminator to know this. Everybody to whom you address yourself— "that is to say, all your readers—have right to be equally well informed." The publication of the name would bring us double advantage. It would tend to repress the exuberant egotism of the correspondent, and have the effect of curtailing the redundancies of his communications. Were we, literally, to believe him, the foreign correspondent of a newspaper should be at once the happiest and most miserable man in existence. He is intimately acquainted with the secrets of foreign governments; nothing of importance " transpires" without his cognizance; indeed, the representative of majesty itself has fewer opportunities of learning the origination and progress of events, and not half the ability to use the information when it is acquired. In the social life of the capital to which he is accredited, he

is facile princeps. He is killed with incessant kindnesses and attentions of the fashionable world; he has to ruin his health by agreeable excesses in which he is encouraged by the most agreeable companions ; and, to crown all, he is enabled to enjoy the supreme felicity of giving himself the airs of martyrdom in the columns of the newspaper he represents. What state can be more enviable than his? A king retired from business excites our pity,-how much deeper, then, should be our commiseration with the newspaper correspondent who has relapsed into common life? Why he obtrudes upon us a narrative of his personal confidences, furnishes us with a catalogue of his whims, tells us how he relaxes himself, and what he eats, drinks, and avoids, is a question not easily answered. Even the word "gossip" is degraded when applied to his daily sermon; for it is not idle talk but offensive pretension that is generally placed before us. The legitimate and only cure for this state of things is a disclosure of the writer's name, so that those to whom he addresses himself may have the means of ascertaining whether the chronicler is to be implicitly trusted, or whether his confidences and revelations are to be taken with many grains of salt.

Even at home, where greater facilities for verification exist, the same information as to authorship is desirable. If a writer in the Illuminator charges