CRITICISM. 
Gommitting egregious faults. Justly has it 
been observed by Horace, that the author 
who wishes to excel 
“ Cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti.” 
And for the direction of his judgment he 
can take no guide so sure as those princi- 
ples which have been sanctioned by the ap- 
probation of enlightened ages as the laws of 
just taste. 
To enter into a regulai- detail of the ob- 
jects embraced in a system of the rules of 
criticism, vvoidd be inconsistent witli the 
design of the present work ; but a short 
enumeration of the principal writers on the 
subject may not be altogether useless. 
AristQtle is the great father of the critic 
art ; and his treatises on Poetry and Rhe- 
toric exhibit the fundamental principles on 
which that art is built. His style is com- 
pressed and abrupt ; and his language is so 
devoid of the attractions of ornament, that, 
as a celebrated French scholar has justly 
observed, “ in order to be able to read his 
works, a person must be. fully bent upon 
obtaining instruction.” The dryness of his 
manner, however, is amply compensated 
by the perspicuity of his arrangement, the 
ingenuity of his disquisitions, and the pro- 
fundity of his thoughts. Many useful ob- 
servations on the general principles of com- 
position, are to be found in Cicero’s trea- 
tises on the subject of oratory ; and tlie 
Institutes of Quintilian also contain a rich 
mine of criticism. Much useful instruction 
may also be gained from the critical disser- 
tations, which occasionally occur, in the 
Satires and Epistles of Horace, and espe- 
cially in his Epistle to the Pises on the art 
of Poetry. Longinus’s work on the Sub- 
lime, though occasionally deficient in pre- 
cision, is written with singular energy and 
spirit, and evinces a feeling mind, the emo- 
tions of which are regulated by exquisite 
taste. 
The spirit of Horace was infused into 
Boileau, who, of all the French critics, 
was the most delicate in judgment; though 
much praise is also due to the critical works 
of Rapin, Bossu, and Bonhours. Rollin’s 
treatise on the Belles Lettres is a book of 
great value ; and in our own days, the seeds 
of good taste have been widely scattered 
through the continent of Europe by the 
publication of La Harpe's Lyc6e. 
The English language is rich in critical 
disquisitions, of which manj' excellent ones 
are to be found in the prefaces prefixed by 
Drydeu to his multifaiious .productions. In 
his “ Advice (o an Author,” Lord Shaftes- 
bury has well asserted the dignity and im- 
portance of the art of criticism, and has 
detailed, in measured and elevated style, 
the principles of fine writing, which he had 
collected from the study of the ancients. 
Pope’s Essay on Criticism is too well 
known to stand in need of commendation ; 
and the critique of Addison on the Para- 
dise Lost, is perused with interest by every 
Englishman of cultivated mind. At a more 
modern period, Mr. Harris, in his Philolo- 
gical Enquiries, has exhibited tlie substance 
of the writings of Aristotle ; and Dr. John- 
son, in his Observations upon the works of 
the English Poets, has, notwithstanding the 
occasional aberrations into which he was be- 
trayed by prejudice, given decisive proofs of 
a superior intellect. Ward’s Treatise on Ora- 
tory, Priestley’s Lectures on Oratory and 
Criticism, and Kaimes’s Elements of Criti- 
cism, respectively contain systems of con- 
siderable merit. But the standard book on 
this subject is Blair’s Lectures on Belles 
Lettres. Blair was a scholar and a philo- 
sopher; and his work only wants a portion 
of the spu'it of enthusiasm to render them 
a complete model of didactic composi- 
tion. 
Criticism, verbal, is the art of settling 
with probability, or, as a practitioner of 
that art would say, with precision, the text 
of the ancient Greek and Latin classic au- 
thors. 'I'his species of criticism takes its 
rise from the state in which the writings of 
those authors have come down to modern 
times. The art of printing being unknown 
at the period when they were composed, 
they were preserved by transcription ; from 
which circumstance they were evidently 
liable to be deformed by errors, and those 
errors must necessarily have been greatly 
multiplied by the lapse of ages. A pas- 
.sage in Aulus Gellius, which states, that a 
reading in Cicero was justified by a copy 
made by his learned freedman Tyro ; and a 
reading in Virgil’s -Georgies, by a book 
which had formerly belonged to Virgil’s fa- 
mily, at once demonstrates the early cor- 
ruption of works of taste, and the early 
stress which was laid upon the authority of 
ancient manuscripts. 
In the long night of ignorance, which suo 
ceeded the subversion of the Roman em- 
pire by the barbarians of the north, the clas- 
sic autliors were forgotten, and their works 
were neglected, and left to perish. But 
when literature revived in Italy, they be- 
came the objects of the most eager and di- 
