An English Garner: Critical Essays & Literary Fragments Part 20

You are now about to enter on a Profession which has the means of doing much good to society, and scarcely any temptation to do harm. You may encourage Genius, you may chastise superficial Arrogance, expose Falsehood, correct Error, and guide the Taste and Opinions of the Age in no small degree by the books you praise and recommend. And this too may be done without running the risk of making any enemies; or subjecting yourself to be called to account for your criticism, however severe.

While your name is unknown, your person is invulnerable: at the same time your aim is sure, for you may take it at your leisure; and your blows fall heavier than those of any Writer whose name is given, or who is simply anonymous. There is a mysterious authority in the plural, _We_, which no single name, whatever may be its reputation, can acquire; and, under the sanction of this imposing style, your strictures, your praises, and your dogmas, will command universal attention; and be received as the fruit of united talents, acting on one common principle--as the judgments of a tribunal who decide only on mature deliberation, and who protect the interests of Literature with unceasing vigilance.

Such being the high importance of that Office, and such its opportunities; I cannot bestow a few hours of leisure better than in furnis.h.i.+ng you with some hints for the more easy and effectual discharge of it: hints which are, I confess, loosely thrown together; but which are the result of long experience, and of frequent reflection and comparison.

And if anything should strike you, at first sight, as rather equivocal in point of morality, or deficient in liberality and feeling; I beg you will suppress all such scruples, and consider them as the offspring of a contracted education and narrow way of thinking, which a little intercourse with the World and sober reasoning will speedily overcome.

Now as in the conduct of life nothing is more to be desired than some Governing Principle of action, to which all other principles and motives must be made subservient; so in the Art of Reviewing I would lay down as a fundamental position, which you must never lose sight of, and which must be the mainspring of all your criticisms--_Write what will sell!_ To this Golden Rule every minor canon must be subordinate; and must be either immediately deducible from it, or at least be made consistent with it.

Be not staggered at the sound of a precept which, upon examination, will be found as honest and virtuous as it is discreet. I have already sketched out the great services which it is in your power to render mankind; but all your efforts will be unavailing if men did not read what you write. Your utility therefore, it is plain, depends upon your popularity; and popularity cannot be attained without humouring the taste and inclinations of men.

Be a.s.sured that, by a similar train of sound and judicious reasoning, the consciences of thousands in public life are daily quieted. It is better for the State that their Party should govern than any other. The good which they can effect by the exercise of power is infinitely greater than any which could arise from a rigid adherence to certain subordinate moral precepts; which therefore should be violated without scruple whenever they stand in the way of their leading purpose. He who sticks at these can never act a great part in the World, and is not fit to act it if he could. Such maxims may be very useful in ordinary affairs, and for the guidance of ordinary men: but when we mount into the sphere of public utility, we must adopt more enlarged principles; and not suffer ourselves to be cramped and fettered by petty notions of Right and Moral Duty.

When you have reconciled yourself to this liberal way of thinking; you will find many inferior advantages resulting from it, which at first did not enter into your consideration. In particular, it will greatly lighten your labours, to _follow_ the public taste, instead of taking upon you to _direct_ it. The task of Pleasing is at all times easier than that of Instructing: at least it does not stand in need of painful research and preparation; and may be effected in general by a little vivacity of manner, and a dexterous morigeration [_compliance, or obsequiousness_], as Lord BACON calls it, to the humours and frailties of men. Your responsibility too is thereby much lessened. Justice and Candour can only be required of you so far as they coincide with this Main Principle: and a little experience will convince you that these are not the happiest means of accomplis.h.i.+ng 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, sedate, and rigidly impartial; that he should not seek to shew off himself, and should check every disposition to enter into the case as a partizan.

Such is the language of superficial thinkers; but in reality there is no a.n.a.logy between the two cases. A Judge is promoted to that office by the authority of the State; a Reviewer by his own. The former is independent of control, and may therefore freely follow the dictates of his own conscience: the latter depends 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 we have already observed, if he ceases to please, he is no longer read; and consequently is no longer useful. In a Court of Justice, too, the part of amusing the bystanders rests with the Counsel: in the case of criticism, if the Reviewer himself does not undertake it, who will?

Instead of vainly aspiring to the gravity of a Magistrate; I would advise him, when he sits down to write, to place himself 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 ludicrous 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 appear extravagant, or affected, if judiciously 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 pa.s.sage; and interlarding your own language, with occasional 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 pa.s.sage, not very fertile in topics of humour and raillery; you may introduce it as a "favourable specimen of the Author's manner."

Few people are aware of the powerful effects of what is philosophically termed a.s.sociation. Without any positive violation of truth, the whole dignity of a pa.s.sage may be undermined by contriving to raise some vulgar and ridiculous notions in the mind of the reader: and language teems with examples of words by which the same idea is expressed, with the difference 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, "a junketing"; sorrow and affliction, "whining and blubbering". By transferring the terms peculiar to one state of society, to a.n.a.logous situations and characters in another, the same object is attained. "A Drill Serjeant" or "a Cat and Nine Tails" in the Trojan War, "a Lesbos smack putting into the Piraeus," "the Penny Post of Jerusalem," and other combinations of the like nature which, when you have a little indulged in that vein of thought, will readily suggest themselves, never fail to raise a smile, if not immediately at the expense of the Author, yet entirely destructive of that frame of mind which his Poem requires in order to be relished.

I have dwelt the longer on this branch of Literature, because you are chiefly to look here for materials of fun and irony.

Voyages and Travels indeed are no barren ground; and you must seldom let a Number of your _Review_ go abroad without an Article of this description. The charm of this species of writing, so universally felt, arises chiefly from its uniting Narrative 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 traveller's feelings, his hopes, his fears, his disappointments, and his pleasures.

At the same time the thirst for knowledge and love of novelty is gratified by continual information respecting the people and countries he visits.

If you wish therefore to run down the book, you have only to play off these two parts against each other. When the Writer's object is to satisfy the first inclination, you are to thank him for communicating to the World such valuable facts as, whether he lost his way in the night, or sprained his ankle, or had no appet.i.te for his dinner. If he is busied about describing the Mineralogy, Natural History, Agriculture, Trade, etc.

of a country: you may mention a hundred books from whence the same information may be obtained; and deprecate the practice of emptying old musty Folios into new Quartos, to gratify that sickly taste for a smattering about everything which distinguishes the present Age.

In Works of Science and recondite Learning, the task you have undertaken will not be so difficult as you may imagine. Tables of Contents and Indexes are blessed helps in the hands of a Reviewer; but, more than all, the Preface is the field from which his richest harvest is to be gathered.

In the Preface, the Author usually gives a summary of what has been written on the same subject before; he acknowledges the a.s.sistance he has received from different sources, and the reasons of his dissent from former Writers; he confesses that certain parts have been less attentively considered than others, and that information has come to his hands too late to be made use of; he points out many things in the composition of his Work which he thinks may provoke animadversion, and endeavours to defend or palliate his own practice.

Here then is a fund of wealth for the Reviewer, lying upon the very surface. If he knows anything of his business, he will turn all these materials against the Author: carefully suppressing the source of his information; and as if drawing from the stores of his own mind long ago laid up for this very purpose. If the Author's references are correct, a great point is gained; for by consulting a few pa.s.sages of the original Works, it will be easy to discuss the subject with the air of having a previous knowledge of the whole.

Your chief vantage ground is, That you may fasten upon any position in the book you are reviewing, and treat it as princ.i.p.al and essential; when perhaps it is of little weight in the main argument: but, by allotting a large share of your criticism to it, the reader will naturally be led to give it a proportionate importance, and to consider the merit of the Treatise at issue upon that single question.

If anybody complains that the greater and more valuable parts remain unnoticed; your answer is, That it is impossible to pay attention to all; and that your duty is rather to prevent the propagation of error, than to lavish praises upon that which, if really excellent, will work its way in the World without your help.

Indeed, if the plan of your _Review_ admits of selection, you had better not meddle with Works of deep research and original speculation; such as have already attracted much notice, and cannot be treated superficially without fear of being found out. The time required for making yourself thoroughly master of the subject is so great, that you may depend upon it they will never pay for the reviewing. They are generally the fruit of long study, and of talents concentrated in the steady pursuit of one object: it is not likely therefore that you can throw much new light on a question of this nature, or even plausibly combat the Author's propositions; in the course of a few hours, which is all you can well afford to devote to them. And without accomplis.h.i.+ng one or the other of these points; your _Review_ will gain no celebrity, and of course no good will be done.

Enough has been said to give you some insight into the facilities with which your new employment abounds. I will only mention one more, because of its extensive and almost universal application to all Branches of Literature; the topic, I mean, which by the old Rhetoricians was called [Greek: _ex enantion_], That is, when a Work excels in one quality; you may blame it for not having the opposite.

For instance, if the biographical sketch of a Literary Character is minute and full of anecdote; you may enlarge on the advantages of philosophical reflection, and the superior mind required to give a judicious a.n.a.lysis of the Opinions and Works of deceased Authors. On the contrary, if the latter method is pursued by the Biographer; you can, with equal ease, extol the lively colouring, and truth, and interest, of exact delineation and detail.

This topic, you will perceive, enters into Style as well as Matter; where many virtues might be named _which are incompatible_: and whichever the Author has preferred, it will be the signal for you to launch forth on the praises of its opposite; and continually to hold up that to your Reader as the model of excellence in this species of Writing.

You will perhaps wonder why all my instructions are pointed towards the Censure, and not the Praise, of Books; but many reasons might be given why it should be so. The chief are, that this part is both easier, and will sell better.

Let us hear the words of Mr BURKE on a subject not very dissimilar:

"In such cases," says he, "the Writer has a certain fire and alacrity inspired into him by a consciousness that (let it fare how it will with the subject) his ingenuity will be sure of applause: and this alacrity becomes much greater, if he acts upon the offensive; by the impetuosity that always accompanies an attack, and the unfortunate propensity which mankind have to finding and exaggerating faults." Pref., _Vindic. Nat.

Soc_., p. 6.

You will perceive that I have on no occasion sanctioned the baser motives of private pique, envy, revenge, and love of detraction. At least I have not recommended harsh treatment upon any of these grounds. I have argued simply on the abstract moral principle which a Reviewer should ever have present to his mind: but if any of these motives insinuate themselves as secondary springs of action, I would not condemn them. They may come in aid of the grand Leading Principle, and powerfully second its operation.

But it is time to close these tedious precepts, and to furnish you with, what speaks plainer than any precept, a Specimen of the Art itself, in which several of them are embodied. It is hastily done: but it exemplifies well enough what I have said of the Poetical department; and exhibits most of those qualities which disappointed Authors are fond of railing at, under the names of Flippancy, Arrogance, Conceit, Misrepresentation, and Malevolence: reproaches which you will only regard as so many acknowledgments of success in your undertaking; and infallible tests of an established fame, and [a] rapidly increasing circulation.

_L'Allegro_. A Poem.

By JOHN MILTON.

No Printer's name.

It has become a practice of late with a certain description of people, who have no visible means of subsistence, to string together a few trite images of rural scenery, interspersed with vulgarisms in dialect, and traits of vulgar manners; to dress up these materials in a Sing-Song jingle; and to offer them for sale as a Poem. According to the most approved recipes, something about the heathen G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses; and the schoolboy topics of Styx and Cerberus, and Elysium; are occasionally thrown in, and the composition is complete. The stock in trade of these Adventurers is in general scanty enough; and their Art therefore consists in disposing it to the best advantage. But if such be the aim of the Writer, it is the Critic's business to detect and defeat the imposture; to warn the public against the purchase of shop-worn goods and tinsel wares; to protect the fair trader, by exposing the tricks of needy Quacks and Mountebanks; and to chastise that forward and noisy importunity with which they present themselves to the public notice.

How far Mr. MILTON is amenable to this discipline, will best appear from a brief a.n.a.lysis of the Poem before us.

In the very opening he a.s.sumes a tone of authority which might better suit some veteran Bard than a raw candidate for the Delphic bays: for, before he proceeds to the regular process of Invocation, he clears the way, by driving from his presence (with sundry hard names; and bitter reproaches on her father, mother, and all the family) a venerable Personage, whose age at least and staid matron-like appearance, might have ent.i.tled her to more civil language.

Hence, loathed Melancholy!

Of CERBERUS and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn, &c.

There is no giving rules, however, in these matters, without a knowledge of the case. Perhaps the old lady had been frequently warned off before; and provoked this violence by continuing still to lurk about the Poet's dwelling. And, to say the truth, the Reader will have but too good reason to remark, before he gets through the Poem, that it is one thing to tell the Spirit of Dulness to depart; and another to get rid of her in reality. Like GLENDOWER's Spirits, any one may order them away; "but will they go, when you do order them?"

But let us suppose for a moment that the Parna.s.sian decree is obeyed; and, according to the letter of the _Order_ (which is as precise and wordy as if Justice SHALLOW himself had drawn it) that the obnoxious female is sent back to the place of her birth,

'Mongst horrid shapes, shrieks, sights, &c.

At which we beg our fair readers not to be alarmed; for we can a.s.sure them they are only words of course in all poetical Instruments of this nature, and mean no more than the "force and arms" and "instigation of the Devil" in a common Indictment.

This nuisance then being abated; we are left at liberty to contemplate a character of a different complexion, "buxom, blithe, and debonair": one who, although evidently a great favourite of the Poet's and therefore to be received with all due courtesy, is notwithstanding introduced under the suspicious description of an _alias_.

In heaven, ycleped EUPHROSYNE; And by men, heart-easing Mirth.

Judging indeed from the light and easy deportment of this gay Nymph; one might guess there were good reasons for a change of name as she changed her residence.

But of all vices there is none we abhor more than that of slanderous insinuation. We shall therefore confine our moral strictures to the Nymph's mother; in whose defence the Poet has little to say himself. Here too, as in the case of the _name_, there is some doubt. For the uncertainty of descent on the Father's side having become trite to a proverb; the Author, scorning that beaten track, has left us to choose between two mothers for his favourite and without much to guide our choice; for, whichever we fix upon, it is plain she was no better than she should be. As he seems however himself inclined to the latter of the two, we will even suppose it so to be.

Or whether (as some sager say) The frolic _wind that breathes the Spring_, ZEPHYR with AURORA playing, _As he met her once a Maying_; There on beds of violets blue, And fresh-blown roses washed in dew, _&c._