96 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



Narrower 

 and wider 

 sense of 

 criticism. 



The word Criticism has been used in a narrower and 

 in a wider sense. In English literature it acquired a 

 definite meaning through Pope's " Essay on Criticism." 

 This essay is written very much in the spirit of the 

 French writers of the seventeenth century, notably of 

 Boileau, who, on his part, followed in the steps of 

 Horace and the ancients. In fact, criticism in this 

 narrower sense is in modern literature a creation of the 

 French mind ; it means a kind of philosophy of taste, and 

 is an expression of the literary, artistic, or sesthetical 

 conscience of the age. In this sense it was used by 

 Henry Home, Lord Kames, whose 'Elements of Criticism' 

 appeared in 1761, and quite recently Professor Saintsbury 

 has thus used the word in his valuable ' History of Criti- 

 cism and Literary Taste in Europe.' ^ But the country 

 which has not only produced separate and isolated 

 works on criticism in this narrower sense, but has con- 

 secutively produced a literature of criticism, is France. 

 M. Brunetiere says in this regard : " Even if the Italian 

 and English critics are not isolated in the history of 

 their literatures, one may say that they form a kind of 

 exception, and that nowhere else than in France has 

 criticism had for the last three centuries what we call 

 a consecutive history. Must I add that it has been 

 truly the soul of French literature ? I, at least, see from 

 Eonsard to Victor Hugo a revolution of taste and of 

 literature which, with us, has had for its origin and 



^ 3 vols., Edinburgh, Blackwood, 

 1900-1904 : Prof. Saintsbury de- 

 fines the " criticism " with which 

 he deals as " that function of the 

 judgment which busies itself with 



the goodness or badness, the suc- 

 cess or ill - success, of literature, 

 from the purely literary point of 

 view'' (vol. i. p. 3). 



