312 
will convince you, that these are not the 
happiest means of accomplishing your 
purpose. 
It has been idly said, that a reviewer 
acts in a judicial capacity, and that his 
conduct should be regulated by the same 
rules by which the judge of a civil court 
is governed: that he should rid himself 
of every bias; be patient, cautious, se- 
date, and rigidly impartial ; that he should 
not seek to shew off himself, and should 
eheck every disposition to enter into the 
case as a partizan. 
Such is the language of superficia 
rs; but in reality there is no‘ana- 
ey between the two cases. A judge is 
promoted to that office by the authority 
of thestate; areviewer by his own. The 
former is independent of controul, and 
may therefore freely follow the dictates 
of his own conscience: the latter de- 
pends for his very bread upon the breath 
of public opinion; the great law of self. 
preservation therefore points out to him 
a different line of action. Besides, as 
I have already observed, if he ceases to 
please, he is no Jonger read, and conse- 
quently is no longer useful. In a court 
of justice, too, the part of amusing the 
bystanders rests with the counsel: in the 
éase of criticism, if the reviewer himself 
does not undertake it, who will? Instead 
of vainly aspiring therefore to the gravity 
of a magistrate, I would advise him, 
when he sits down to write, to place him- 
self in the imaginary situation of a cross- 
examining pleader. He may comment, 
in a vein of agreeable irony, upon the 
profession, the manner of life, the look, 
dress, or even the name, of the witness 
he is examining: when he has raised a 
contemptuous opinion of him in the 
minds of the court, he may proceed to 
draw answers from him capable of a ludi- 
crous turn, and he may carve and garble 
these to his own liking. This mode of 
proceeding you will find most practicable 
in poetry, where the boldness of the 
image, or the delicacy of thought, for 
which the reader’s mind was prepared in 
the original, will easily be made to ap- 
pear extravagant or affected, if}udiciously 
singled out, and detached from the 
group to which it belongs. Again, since 
much depends upon the rhythm and the 
terseness of expression, both of which 
are sometimes destroyed by dropping a 
single word, or transposing a phrase, I 
have known much advantage arise from 
not quoting in the form of a literal extract, 
but giving a brief summary in prose of 
‘the contents of a poetical passage; and 
= 
Adnce toa Young Reviewer. 
[May 1, 
interlarding your own language with oc- 
casional phrases of the poem, marked 
with inverted commas. These, and a 
thousand other little expedients, by 
which the arts of quizzing and banter 
flourish, practice will soon teach you, 
If it should be necessary to transcribe a 
dull passage, not very fertile in topics of 
humour and raillery, you may introduce 
it as “a favourable specimen of the au- 
thor’s manner.” 
Few people are aware of the powerful 
effects of what is philosophically termed 
association. Without any positive vio-. 
lation of truth, the whole dignity of a 
passage may be undermined by contriving 
to raise some vulgar and ridicuicus notions 
in the mind of the reader: and language 
teems with examples of words by which 
the same idea is expressed, with the dif- 
ference only that one excites a feeling of 
respect, the other of contempt. Thus 
you may call a fit of melancholy * the 
sulks,” resentment “a pet,” a steed “a 
nag,” a feast “ajunketing,” sorrow and 
affliction “ whining and. blubbering.” 
By transferring the terms peculiar to one 
state of society, to analogous situations 
and characters in another, the same ob- 
ject is attained; a drill-serjeant, or a cat 
and nine tails, in the Trojan war—a Les- 
bos smack, put in to the Pirzeus—the 
penny-post of Jerusalem, and other com- 
binations of the like nature, which, 
when you have a little indulged that vein 
of thought, will readily suggest themselves, 
‘never fail to raise a smile, if not imme- 
diately at the expence of the author, yet 
entirely destructive of that frame of mind 
which his poem requires in order to be 
relished, ia 
I have dwelt the longer on this branch 
of literature, because you are chiefly ta 
look here for materials of fun and irony. 
Voyages and travels indeed are no barren 
ground, and you must seldom let a nums 
ber of your review 20 abroad without an 
article of this description. The charm 
of this species of writing, so universally 
felt, arises chiefly from its uniting narras — 
tive with information. ‘The interest we 
take in the story can only be kept alive 
by minute incident and occasional detail, 
which puts us in possession of the travel- 
ler’s feelings, his hopes, his fears, . his 
disappaintments, and his pleasures.. At 
the same time the thirst for knowledge 
and love of novelty is gratified, by con- 
tinual information respecting the people 
and countries he visits. If you wish 
theresore to run down the book, you have 
‘only to play off these two parts against 
eack 
