474 Canons of Criticism. [Nov. 



But bow, I beseech you, do the dotards, who maintain this similarity 

 between the laws of criticism and those of nature, know that even the lat- 

 ter are as irrevocable as they pretend ? For aught they can tell, nature may 

 have her Benthams and her Peels as well as ourselves, and may proceed, 

 from time to time, to the revision of her code as well as the United States 

 of America. Even the nolumus leges mutari gentlemen of Westminster 

 Hall, who would as soon part with a fee as with a precedent, have not 

 been able to prevent the most serious innovations in the customs of law. 

 How then can criticism, which is neither protected by authority, backed by 

 power, nor bolstered by interest, hope to escape the reiterated assaults of 

 time and fortune ? Criticism being the art of adapting style, &c. to the 

 susceptibilities of man, it must follow the changes in the human affections. 

 If a Briton is differently affected, in ten thousand particulars, from a 

 Roman or a Greek, how can a writer hope to produce the same effects 

 now, by the same means, which were successful in the classic authors ? 

 As well might we apply our Aristotle to measure the Arabian Tales, as to 

 scan the productions of the modern " Row." A religion, it has been said, 

 will last you but a couple of thousand years, or so : how then can criticism 

 hope for a greater longevity ? No, no ; d priori, & posteriori, et ab utroque 

 latere. It is demonstrable that a new code is wanting : so there is no more 

 to be said of the matter. 



To begin with the beginning : it is a fact, which neither Aristotle nor 

 Dennis (I do not mean " him of the Dunciad," but the Halicarnassian) 

 never dreamed of, that literature is not equally predicable of all classes in 

 society. The critics of antiquity, good easy men, never stopped to inquire 

 into the pedigree of a writer ; and the slave Terence had as good a chance 

 of obtaining a hearing as if his plays had indeed been written by Scipio. 

 In the present times, if authorship be not strictly an attribute of the privi- 

 leged classes if the 61 HoXXoi do indeed write books yet it is not the less 

 true that they are quite unable to compete with their betters in the art. In 

 this respect, a tremendous revolution has occurred ; though scarcely a few 

 years since a villainous orthography, and a style at once stiff and disjointed, 

 were affected as the characteristic of nobility. But " on a change tout 

 fa :" the poor spinsters of the Minerva press can scarcely support life by 

 their labours so completely are they driven out of the market by the Lady 

 Charlottes and the Lady Bettys; and if " parsons" are not as much bemuzzed 

 in beer as formerly, " a rhyming peer" is as common as a Birmingham 

 button. It would take ten Horace Walpoles at least to do justice to the 

 living authors of the red book ; and so general is authorship in the Upper 

 House, that the bench of bishops includes nearly the whole of the non- 

 literary portion of the peerage. 



It is then a decided canon of criticism that a book is, cceteris paribus, 

 better in proportion to the aristocratic grade of its author. Messrs. Colburn, 

 Murray, and Longman, the Aristarchuses of the age, are always ready to 

 treat with the Lord Johns upon the most liberal, not to say extravagant 

 terms ; and there is scarcely any thing that they would refuse for a romance 

 with " Viscountess" in the title-page. What immense sales have recently 

 been effected of fanatical politics, under the assumed name of the late- 

 lamented Duke of York ! What a farrago of trash passed current under 

 the title of " the King's Letter !" proving that his name is, in literature, as 

 in government, " a tower of strength." Even Sir Walter himself sells the 

 better for hisbaronetcy ; and, from the Icon Basilike to Sir John Carr and 

 the chaplain of the Lord Mayor of London, the supremacy of church and 



ifl 



