ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTIONS. 405 
one man makes another gratuitously the butt of his satire and 
ridicule ? 
** There is another point of view which we would take of the 
monthly publications, and which, we think, has some weight in 
the question : they furnish their victims with a motive to se¬ 
quester themselves from the eye of the public by the very nature 
of the castigations they inflict. No man likes to hear his taste 
or learning cried down or laughed at; and the critics have con¬ 
trived to practise that malignity with impunity, by the light in 
which they have shewn ' poor devil authors.’ This is very dis¬ 
reputable, when we come to consider it properly. In the first 
place, it argues the possession of a mean and cowardly spirit to 
stab in the dark; for critics who do not give their names with 
their strictures are of this description ; and it is a foul appetite 
that delights to feed on faults. 
‘‘ In matters of abstract reasoning, a reviewer may be anony¬ 
mous with great propriety; he has then not to do with men but 
with understandings, and he offers for consideration thoughts 
and inferences, which are either true or false. If he does so 
hona fide, there can exist no reason why the author should be 
treated with contumely; and if he be ironical, there is no reason 
why the critic should quit the matter of the book he is reviewing, 
and turn upon the author. It is bad taste to do so, and no gentle¬ 
man will allow himself to practise it; no well-regulated mind 
will ever look beyond the boards of the work for materials to barb 
a sarcasm with: but a corrupt and foul taste has been allowed to 
creep into criticism. Writers in that walk of literature no longer 
endeavour to give a true estimate of the work which they review, 
but seek to make it a peg to hang their own wit and cleverness 
upon. This vile custom requires only to be stated to make those 
who are basest in the practice ashamed of themselves. 
“iNo man, unless he is very obviously actuated by an unworthy 
motive, should be considered as under the influence of such : 
politeness dictates a different rule from the one in use. Nothing 
can be more odious to a correct moral apprehension than assign¬ 
ing baseness to those who are, perhaps, governed by the very 
liighcst feelings ; and yet it is a common practice : indeed, wc 
