CHAPTER XLVI 



THE CRITIC 



A critic, nay, a night watch constable. 



Love's Labour's Lost. 



There are some things on which it is possible to 

 give an authoritative opinion without any ex- 

 perience. No one, I think, would venture to 

 dictate to an able merchant the way in which 

 he should manage his business, or lecture a 

 lawyer on the nice quillets of the law unless he 

 had some expert knowledge of the subject, but the 

 veriest tyro can and does express his opinion on 

 the shortcomings of farmers and huntsmen, and 

 talk of the supposed blunders of these unfortunates 

 with a decision which one would think could only 

 proceed from heaven-born genius. 



Your critic seldom gives the man whose actions 

 he criticises the credit of possessing any of that 

 common knowledge of which he claims such a 

 superabundance, and it is not a little amusing to 

 hear the hunting tyro express his opinion on the 

 deficiencies of the man, whether he be Master or 

 servant, who carries the horn, and in the case of the 

 former he must be a good sportsman indeed and 

 keen as a knife to bear the unfair criticisms so 

 freely launched at his unfortunate head by men 



