Aristarchus with his accidence in his hand, applying his stupid rules to the divine lines of a Homer! The irregularities, at which he barks, are, for all his bleared eyes can discern, transcendent beauties. It is true, the father of poets sometimes nods, like all his children, and parts of his immortal epic are but the stertorous breathings of his uneasy slumbers. But if he sometimes nods, his commentator always sleeps. His faculties are saturated with a sleepy drench,' which benumbs all perception. Such men resemble Sterne's critic, who measured the excellence of a work by its length and breadth. Encumbered by a host of scholastic familiarities, they can only judge of what is, by what has been, and all that transcends the established bounds is heresy and schism.' An argument which does not proceed by regular syllogysms-the barbara celarent of logic-proves nothing for them. If the famous quibble, It either does rain, or it does not rain: but it does not rain; therefore, it does rain,' should prove to be an argument constructed according to rule, they will readily swallow the conclusion. If a tragedy surpass the absurd unities of time and place prescribed by the French critics, it is assigned to purgatory. It may be replete with all the glories of mind; it may impress a pathos to force tears from tyrants: no matter-it has violated the laws, and is worthy of condemnation. Send it to the Gehenna' of tormented plays. Poor fools! How should one of obtuse and narrow faculties, who fashions his judgment only by inflexible rules and forms, be able to decide on the works of those who are a rule unto themselves. The statutes of poetry, for instance, are drawn from the works of great masters, and when another great master arises, and developes a new shaft in the inexhaustible mine, common spirits are amazed and shocked at the audacity of one who dares forsake the ways of his poetical forefathers.

The

Such critics are apes themselves, and are fitted to criticise only the labors of their brother apes. But how different are the outpourings of a true genius from the dull discharges of an imitator. former gush forth with all the purity and fresh abundance and playful life of a dewfed spring high up among the mountains, the latter run slowly and heavily, as from a low-land reservoir, loaded with slime and discolored by stagnant vapors. Or the former are the fierce, mercurial fusions

of nature's laboratory; the latter, dull and toilsome distillations in the workshop of the chemist. The ape reads Pope, and having formed his ear to that artificial, though exquisite versification, and to the finished consonance of sounds, he begins to hammer out his verses, lame enough at first, but finally elaborated into something like smoothness and harmony. They are, indeed grateful to the ear, at least till their sameness renders them wearisome. But as the fox said of the decorated mask : "How beautiful! what a pity it has no brains!" Yet the critical ape applauds him. Read now the pages of natural genius, polished, however, by midnight toil, and amended by the curtailments of unsparing judgment. Let it be Virgil, or Horace, or Pope, or Gray, or Goldsmith. There you will find delicious harmony, but not delicious harmony alone. You will also find a curious fe

licity of language-words exquisitely chosen, to convey chaste and elegant ideas. The ape reads Byron, and, borne away by the wonderful genius of the man, he mistakes the wicked for the witty, the strange for the original, and the frantic for the passionate. The merits of his idol are beyond his reach; but his faults are imitable, and he resolves to write a poem, which shall be Byron Redivious-a new edition, with numberless improvements. Inspired by his fount of Castalie,' the fumes of gin-and-water, he sends his imagination into Cloudland, there to revel among incongruous metaphors, frightfuly unnatural passions, and arabble ront of wild, chaotic horrors. After four weeks' painful incubation, the poor goose hatches his cantos-little, tawny, rickety monsters, limping along with their raw, rough feet; gabbling like the goslings of Babel, or hissing with unearthly sibilations. The critic-ape feeds the little starvelings on puffs and softsoap; swears they are young eagles; and quotes the lines, which he has heard are very fine

"Behold young Genius wing his eagle-flight, Rich dew-drops shaking from his plumes of light."

Now turn to the wild-wood notes of Nature's poet. Let it be Collins, or Burns, or Byron. Perhaps the rhymes are not always perfect: but the lines are overflowing with melody, and march and wind along with exquisite grace, aud inimitable ease. Andthen the rhythmic thought, the strong, bright soul, that inspires and illuminates the whole. "Ah!

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but there is a false line," says Aristarchus. A false line! It is a note stolen from the morning song of the youngeyed cherubim.' And here is an unpardonable hyperbole," cries Zoilus. Soulless whipper-in of genius! It is the language of a heart swollen with emotions too big for common utterance. "And here is a violation of the unities," quoth Aristotle Secundus, and a yelping train of petit-maitre' critics assent in snarling chorus. Your pardon, old systematizer: you are, in the main, a very sensible man; but Nature, the great mistress, is not always so precise to have correlative actions occur at one place, and within a given time. Nor are we quite convinced that a tragedy of four or six acts, and an epic of thirteen or twenty-six books, might not be of unequalled power, albeit those numbers are heterodox, and find no countenance in the writings of the literary fathers.

We have a friend-a great stickler for literality in literature-to whom we were one day remarking the exceeding force and picturesque beauty of that line, in the corsair, we believe

"She walks the waters like a thing of life." "Why, I hardly know," said he: "I don't see how a ship can be said to walk the waters,' since it has no legs, nor any thing resembling them. It would be much more proper to say swims!" On another occasion we inquired his opinion of Goldsmith's Poems, which we had found lying on his table. " A very sweet, fine poet, sir," was his reply; but he has fallen into some shocking, unpardonable blunders." "Blunders in Goldsmith!" said we: "why, he is ranked among the most correct of poets." Well, Sir, what do you think of such a line as this?

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When every rood of ground maintained its man.'

"Now, Sir, if you will recollect that four roods make an acre, and 640 acres make a square mile: that consequently there are 2560 roods in a square mile; and that the most dense population ever found in any country does not exceed 300 inhabitants per square mile; you will at once perceive the enormous extravagance of Goldsmith's statement of the former population of England." "Certainly," we replied: "the table of square measure, and the statistics of nations confirm your criticism." Well, Sir,"

returned he, "I am glad to find you siding with my judgment, which, I flatter myself, is very correct in regard to poetry!" We once requested him to read Milton, and if he did not like it, to read it again, and yet again; for it would assuredly prove at last the grandest intellectual banquet of which he had ever partaken. He consented, purchased the Paradise Lost, and read it over and over of Sundays for a number of months. The conversation one day turning on the subject, he said, "As for your famous John Milton, I think him vastly overrated. In the first place, the whole tale is extremely improbable, excepting those few facts, of which we have Scriptural proof. Secondly, I have marked above three hundred verbal inaccuracies or contradictions." He then showed us his Milton, blackened with pencil-marks from beginning to end-two or three of them pointing out positive improprieties of grammar or sense, which had escaped us in our admiration; but mostly the hypercriticisms of a stickler for facts and figures. For instance, hce had placed in his " Index Expurgatorius," the following strong and beautiful expressions-darkness visible;' 'honor dishonorable;' fall'n such a pernicious height; and o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.'" For," said the soi-disant Longinus," how can darkness' be visible,' where there is no light to see it with? how how can honor' be its own opposite ? how can the devil himself manage to fall a height, 'that is, to fall upward, and how can the height' be calleded pernicious,' when that quality belonged to the fall? Or how can the meon throw her mantle over the dark, when, at the very moment the moon rises, there is no longer any darkness for her to throw her mantle over?!!" Thus far our excellent merchant-friend, who is a very sensible man, but much better fitted to judge of beef, tobacco, and bank notes, than to pass sentence on poets or poetry.

The great Dr. Johnson seems to have possessed much of this hypercritical spirit. He partly received it from his own blunt and bearish nature, and partly, perhaps, acquired it from his lexicographical labors, where the habit of fixing the exact and unalterable meanings of all words, may have formalized and starched his literary taste, incapacitating him to appreciate, because he could not define, that delicate and uninterpretable sense, which poets sometimes infuse into their language. Then too, his stiff, stilted,

and grandiloquent character could not endure anything beneath his own unbending dignity. For instance, in his critique on that famous passage in Macbeth, where the incipient murderer soliloquizes, holding dubious parley with his own darkening heart, he carps at the use of the words, dun,' and knife,' as low and inappropriate, befitting a butcher rather than a tragedian. But it was a knife,' and beside, in Shakspeare's time, before the Sheffield forges had made knives as plenty as blackberries,' it is probable the word was as dignified as the term sword' now is. As for the ex.. pression dun,' it is pure Saxon, sanctioned by Milton and the best poetical usage, and if it must be dropped because it enters likewise into the vocabulary of the butcher, so must we also disuse the words sheep' and 'ox,' because they have experienced the same desecration. So also of the word 'blanket,' it is quite as good as mantle,' or 'curtain,' or any other substitute, which happens now to be more fashionable; though it must be confessed, that the entire conception of "heaven peeping through" a hole in the darkness, is very puerile on so awful an occasion.

But it is where the Doctor's political prejudices biassed his literary judgment, that his critical faculties were most blunted, and his cathedratic decisions the most palpably unjust. Never without indignation and disgust can we recall the groundless condemnation passed by so eminent an authority on Milton's Lycidas-a poem, which with the exception of some ten or twelve inappropriate and tasteless lines, is surely, of all pastorals, the most entire and perfect chrysolite;" the most replete with noble pathos and sweet sublimity; the most radiant with the beams of genius shining through the tears of bereaved affection. The whole 'gist' of the Doctor's censure lies in the supposition that it is unnatural, preposterous, to imagine a plain shepherd speaking on subjects so lofty in a strain so grand. Well, if it comes to that, was it natural for the heroes of Homer to converse so finely, and that in poetry? Is it supposable that the characters in any tragedy ever spoke rhyme, or in rhythm? Does not the Doctor's objection upset the merits of his own Ione, and every other poem ever written? For, when or where have men talked poetry? And leaving aside the mere poetic form, when or where have men in conversation sustained

the poetic spirit, the high and noble sentiments contained in any fine epic or eclogue? The doctor greatly admired, (as who can avoid it?) the masterly Bucolics of Virgil. Did he ever say, with a cynic growl, that rough, illiterate herdsmen in the plains of Mantua, could not be supposed to have entertained such polished sentiments, or to have expressed them in language so exquisitely chosen? Alas for the obliquity of human judgment! Virgil and Johnson were both Tories. They both upheld Church Establishments, and the Divine Right

of Kings." Hinc illæ laudes.' John Milton was a stern, brave Puritan, who wrote, as he would have fought, for the rights of universal man, and who, in blindness and poverty, still sang aloud,

"With voice unchanged,

To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues; days, In darkness, and with dangers compassed round, And solitude."

Hinc illæ lacrymæ.'

A very diverting species of criticism is that, whereby certain nobodies,' whether in conversation or in print, plaster every thing beyond their comprehension with indiscriminate praise, or blacken it with undistinguishing censure. This is a much safer course, than that of alternate approval and condemnation. The latter requires some slight degree of perception to avoid blunders palpable to all; the former may pass with the groundlings' for the dicta of one who knows' Others, a little more cunning, first endeavor to ascertain the opinion of reputed judges, and then echo the decision with a wise shake of the head, or with vociferous volubility. It was our fortune to meet with a unique and ludicrous sample of this last species of the genus Critic, last summer on a trip to Washington, D. C. It was a luscious day. In walking up Pennsylvania Avenue, we encountered a northern clergyman, a ripe scholar and a finished connoisseur, with whom we had formerly made a brief and delightful acquaintance. On his arm hung a niece of his, whom he was accompanying on a tour for the restoration of her wasting health. It made our heart ache to view that sweet, young face, so lovely and so sad that soft cheek, where the hectic flush, death's sure precursor, had already raised its

scarlet banner that full-orbed eye, which, instead of the laughing light of healthful maidenhood, shone with the peculiar resplendence of the consumptive invalid-an intensely spiritual gaze, bright with the dreamy lustre of life's expiring flame. We proffered our arm to the fair and fading girl, whom we had not seen since she was a little budding flower of scarce seven summers, and wended our way to the Capitol with slow and gentle steps. We endeavored, by playful speeches, to beguile our sad companion from the thoughts that seemed to hover, like a chilling shadow, over all her being. It was in vain. She replied kindly, but briefly, and again was silent. We remarked to the uncle that this appeared a literal representation of those charming lines of Horace :

-"Dum Capitolium Scandet cum tacitâ virgine Pontifex."

He cast on his niece a glance of anxious fondness, while she with a smile more sorrowful than tears, replied "Forgive me, Sir, for my brief speech, and seeming insensibility. I am flying from the Mighty Archer, and ever while I fly, as with the wounded deer in Virgil, his arrow is rankling in my side- hæret lateri lethalis arundo.""-(The old clergyman had taught her Latin in her girlhood.)

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My thoughts will go down to the dark valley' and the wormy bed,' where I so soon must follow them. But it is not on death alone they dwell: to me, in dying, there is a cup far bitterer than death." Her uncle seemed exceedingly distressed, and we forbore, believing she alluded to one of those terrible partings "such as press the life from out young hearts." At the Rotunda we paused to admire the painting of "Pocahontas." Our clerical friend pointed out many beauties and several blemishes, which our inartistic eye would never have detected. He had just bestowed an eloquent eulogy on the execution of one of the Indian figures, when he was interrupted by a voice near us-"Don't you think, now, that that 'ere paintin' is uncommonly splendid?" Very fine, Sir, with two or three exceptions," replied the clergyman, looking round at the querist, who was a thickset man of some thirty-five years, with a narrow forehead, a little, twinkling eye, and features expressive, at once, of vapid curiosity and timorous conceit. His dress was very fine, and very ill assorted, and his words and tones betrayed the thorough-bred Yankee, modified by a lit

tle reading and some travelling through the South and West. Jest as you say, Sir," returned he; "there is some exceptions, to be sure; but in general, and takin' it by and large, it is a splendid paintin', very splendid, very splendid, indeed, Sir! Wonder what it cost?" "[ am not able to say, Sir," said the clergyman with a covert smile, and a look at us, which we interpreted as a hint to draw our critic out. He then continued with mischievous gravity, remarking that he thought the artist had excessively foreshortened the dress of some one of the figures--we forget which.

"Ah! you're right there, exactly right," said our critical Zeuxis: "I never did like to see dresses too short before,— nor behind, neither, for that matter; not even when it was the heighth of the fashion. I used to tell my cousins down in Boston, that it wasn't entirely proper. And I don't see why 'tisn't jest equally as bad in paintin's. Now, there was the famous paintin' of Adam and Eve,' where the painter foreshortened the dresses all to nothin'; and I always said 'twas shameful, totally-and disregardless of every thing that's jest as it orter be."

The clergyman bit his lip to repress his audible laughter, and even the sad young lady, with the arrow in her side,' smiled less mournfully: but Nosmetipsi received the decision with a grave bow of acquiescence. It appears to me," said we, looking solemnly through our eye-glass, "that the painting does not possess a skillful relief of light and shade; but perhaps it proceeds from the situation in which it hangs." "Yes, Sir," said Zeuxis, peering with his twinkling eye through a circle formed by his thumb and forefinger: "you are quite right; it's the fault of the place." "Could it not be arranged, so that the light might fall in a more checkered manner on this painting which you justly call a splendid one?" said Nosmetipsi. "I think it might," quoth our connoisseur. " Congress ought to stop up every other winder-pane up there in the Dome." "I hope, sir," replied Nosmetipsi, "that your valuable suggestion will be represented to the proper committee." "It seems that you are quite a judge of paintings," continued we. "Wall-1 ought to be," he replied, "for I guess I've seen about every pictergallery in the United States, and some ginuine Raphels,' and Courages,' and

Dominics' among 'em." You, then, Sir," said Nosmetipsi, "are the very person, of whom I would like to inquire

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how it happens, that we never see in marriage-pieces, that peculiar expression of countenance sometimes witnessed in the face of a delicate and loving bridean expression, mingled of fearful hope and shrinking tenderness; of regret at the severance of ties as old and dear as life, and timid rapture at the formation of a new one, dearer in anticipation, and more powerful than them all. I have never seen that expression faithfully transferred to the canvas. Have you, Sir?" 66 Wall,-no,-I don't think I have.” “We may, perhaps, sometimes see it," said we, "in the works of very great masters." 'Yes, sometimes, as you say: very seldom, though, and only in the splendidest kind of paintin's. The fact is jest as you state it, and I've often been perfectly astonished jest to think on't." "I am glad to hear you say so," returned Nosmetipsi. "Now, in this painting, the face of Pocahontas is very sweet, serious, and pathetic: still, I miss in the features a nameless something, a 'je ne sais quoi,' as the French say, made up of grief and hope, of fear and modesty and love." You are right, Sir; perfectly right," said Zeuxis; there certainly is somethin' out o' the way in the face; but," he asked doubtfully, "a'int the French wrong in sayin' there ought to be any thing of the Gennessee squaw' in it? I always thought Pocahontas was from Virginny.” This was excessive. Our clerical friend laughed heartily. As for Nosmetipsi, he assumed an air of mortified confusion, and said stammeringly, and with a prodigious effort to blush, "you do right, my friend to laugh at me. I stand corrected, stranger, and am ashamed, to think that even the French, much more an American, like myself, could have blundered so grossly on so plain a point of our Colonial History." Zeuxis, who had at first looked disconcerted was now reassured, and said with an exulting smile, "Ah! I thought I could'nt be wrong; for I've read Goodrich's History of the United States through a dozen times, I guess." The clergyman smiled again, but, glancing at his niece, her eyes were filled with tears, and her lips quivering with anguish. Our remarks on a young and happy bride, had touched the arrow' in her heart. We assisted the poor girl into a hack, and parted from uncle and niece with a brief and sad farewell. her, we will only say that she died soon afterwards among her friends, one of them dearer than a brother-and, that

Of

if we could write a tale as touching as that face, or that fate, we would.

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After lounging a while in the Library, we walked into the grounds west of the Capitol, and reclined on one of the grassy slopes, with the main avenue of the city of "magnificent potentialities" extending broad and beautiful before us. While we lay there, gazing half-dreamingly through the warm and hazy air on that lovely hemisphere, whose plane was the sweet, green earth, and its dome the sweet, blue sky, our Zeuxis of the Rotunda walked near us, smoking and smiling contentedly. Ah! how are you now? Take a cigar!" Of course we accepted-who can refuse a soft brown Havana from any body? The critic lay down on the fresh, clean turf near us, and there we smoked and crtiticised, and criticised and smoked. The rich burlesque of the scene was heightened by his exceedingly deliberate emphasis of voice, and a frequent glance, directed furtively to Nosmetipsi, to ascertain what he thought. Nosmetipsi, however, remained as grave as one of the regicide Roundheads. We forget much of the conversation; but the following specimens are strictly faithful in their leading elements :

Nosmetipsi. "How many great orators and statesmen have made the echoes of those halls eloquent with their voices!" Critic. "Yes, sir. A great many great statesmen-very great-very great, indeed, sir!" N. "There is Webster, with his iron-linked argument, and that tremendous sarcasm, that rives and scathes like a thunderbolt. What do you think of him?” C. "Why, sir, I've always thought his argument and his sarcasm was splendid, very splendid, very splendid, indeed, sir!" N. "Well, what do you think of the great Henry Clay?" C. "Why, sir, he's another great, very great man." N. "You're right, he is. But is he greater than Webster?" C.

Wall, now, that's hard to say. Ithink, tho', they're pretty much of a muchness.' What do you think?" N. "Why, we can't measure great men like elephants. But I think Clay is great universally---symmetrical and perfect like a circle-while Webster, in perhaps a narrower sphere, is unapproachable by Henry Clay, or any living man." C. "Jest precizely what I always said. You've hit it! There's Calhoun, too. Now ain't he a great man?” N. “A great man, certainly. But as an orator, he is not quite figurative enough." C