62 ON SOME PKINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 



Comedy ' to be ' une amplification stupidemeut barbare,' 

 because he has no sympathy with the Middle Ages, and 

 because this poem cannot be made to square with the 

 orthodox canon of the epic. He will not, like the romantic 

 critic, exalt the ' Song of Eoland ' while he decries the 

 'Gerusalemme Liberata,' because he is enthusiastic for semi- 

 barbarous sublimity and feels a prejudice against the monu- 

 ments of artificial art. In these three cases he applies 

 himself to explaining why the ' Divine Comedy/ the ' Song 

 of Eoland,' and the * Gerusalemme Liberata ' took certain and 

 specific forms, and how each work of art in question was 

 related to its age. Afterwards, he is at liberty to pronounce 

 opinions as to the success with which the forms have been 

 evolved, and to show reason why one or the other of them, 

 according to his judgment, ought to be regarded as the nobler 

 kind of art. 



IV 



The three types of criticism which I have called classical, 

 romantic, and scientific the three sorts of critics, described 

 by me as judges, showmen, natural historians co-exist, and 

 have, to some extent, always co-existed, although it is correct 

 to view them as representing successive stages in time. The 

 true critic must combine all three types in himself, and hold 

 the balance by his sense of their reciprocal relations. He 

 cannot abnegate the right to judge ; he cannot divest himself 

 of subjective tastes which colour his judgment ; but it is his 

 supreme duty to train his faculty of judgment and to temper 

 his subjectivity by the study of things in their historical 

 connections. 



Heraclitus has a weighty saying, which those who aim at 

 sound criticism should bear in mind. 1 ' It behoves us,' he 



1 This fragment of Heraclitus is reported by Sextus Empiricus. 

 The \6yos wbs of the original, which is opposed to iSi'a <pp&vtiffis, must 

 probably be taken in connection with the philosopher's theory of a 

 pantheistic spirit, in which alone is truth, and in the participation with 

 which alone is human wisdom. My application of the sentence is 

 therefore to some extent derivative. See Bywater's Heracliti Epliesii 

 Religuia, p. 38, for the Greek text. 



