majesty, magnificence, and sublimity. The same poem is defined by Jeffrey as a tissue of moral and devotional ravings, a hubbub of strained raptures and revolting incongruities. According to Wilson, the "Pleasures of Memory" is a beautiful and pathetic poem, not to be forgotten till the world is in its dotage. In the estimation of Hazlitt, the poem is feeble and far-fetched, a compound of ambiguity, finery, and varnish, of evanescent brilliancy and tremulous imbecility. In Wilson's opinion, the music that breathes through the "Pleasures of Hope" is caught from heaven, now deepening into a majestic march, now swelling into a holy hymn, the sound as of the wheels of many chariots, at once beautiful and sublime. In the opinion of Hazlitt, the poem is nothing but the decomposition of prose, a mass of maimed and mangled ideas. Southey's epics, according to Wilson, are an achievement of the highest genius, bearing throughout the impress of original power, and embalmed in the spirit of delight and love. Hazlitt deems the said epics to be mechanical and extravagant, heavy and superficial. Again, if we believe Wilson, Miss Baillie's tragedies are superior to those of Sophocles, Euripides, and even Eschylus. Her dramas are glorious, divine, and such as only a woman could have imagined. If we give ear to Hazlitt, Miss Baillie treats her men and women as little girls treat their dolls;

makes moral puppets of them, pulls the wires, and they talk virtue or vice according to their

cue.

There are other contradictions less apparent but equally absurd. For instance, Sir B. Lytton maintains that Lord Byron's tragedies are superior to his Eastern Tales; and Hazlitt asserts that Lord Byron's tragedies are not equal to his other poems; that "they have neither action, character, nor interest, but are a sort of gossamer tragedies, spun out and glittering, and spreading a flimsy veil over the face of nature;" nay, that Lord Byron is "the least dramatic of living poets." Crabbe is described by Lord Byron as

"Nature's sternest painter, yet her best."

And Hazlitt affirms that "Crabbe, for the most part, is only a poet, because he writes in lines of ten syllables." "Of all the song-writers that ever warbled, or chaunted, or sung, the best, in our estimation, is verily none other than Thomas Moore;" so says Wilson. so says Wilson. "Mr. Moore," says Hazlitt, "has a little mistaken the art of poetry for the cosmetic art. His dissipated, fulsome, painted, patch-work style may succeed in the levity and languor of the boudoir, but it is not the style of Parnassus, nor a passport to immortality. He converts the wild harp of Erin into a musical snuff-box." Wordsworth is proclaimed by Wilson as the high-priest of nature; and

Hazlitt asserts that if Wordsworth had lived in any other period of the world, he would never have been heard of. Taylor, speaking of Wordsworth's "Excursion," says, that in a poem upon a large scale, "some parts should be bordering upon prose, some absolutely prosaic." Wilson, an enthusiastic admirer of the same poem, says that "verse, the moment it becomes prosaic, goes to the dogs." Alison describes, in glowing language, the "philosophical mind" of Sir James Mackintosh, his "luminous orations," and the "wisdom of his political essays," and compares him to Bacon and Burke, as "qualified to direct the thoughts of future times.' Of the same Sir James Mackintosh, Coleridge says, that "after all his fluency and brilliant erudition, you can rarely carry off anything worth preserving. You might not improperly write upon his forehead, • Warehouse to let.'

Such is Criticism in the nineteenth century! There is nothing, however, that affords a clearer demonstration of its abuse than to find the same critic pronouncing contradictory judgments on the same author. That one critic should differ from another is no more than what may be expected in the present unsettled state of the art; but that the same critic should be opposed to himself is a circumstance peculiar to the canting age in which we live. Hazlitt, in a criticism on Lord Byron, says, "he had rather be Sir Walter

Scott, the author of 'Waverley,' than Lord Byron, a hundred times over." And in a critique on Sir Walter Scott, he says, "he would rather have written a single passage in Lord Byron's 'Heaven and Earth,' than all Sir Walter's epics; meaning, the "Lay of the Last Minstrel," "Rokeby," "Marmion," and the "Lady of the Lake."

So far, although there may be much singularity of opinion, there is no contradiction. The critic prefers "Waverley" to all Byron's poetry a hundred times over; and he prefers one passage in one of Byron's poems to all the poetry of Scott. We only infer from this, that he entertains the most contemptible opinion of Scott's poetry. Now let us hear what he says of that poetry in another place.

"Sir Walter is the most popular of all the poets of the present day, and deservedly so."

Can anything be more glaring than the contradiction involved in these propositions? Of course, we do not require to be told by Hazlitt or any one else that the most worthless poetry may become the most popular. We have an existing proof of that fact in the popularity of Mr. Robert Montgomery's poetry. But we had yet to learn, and Hazlitt, of all modern critics, was bold enough to tell us, that the most contemptible poetry deserves to be the most popular. A few

lines farther on the same critic says again of Scott's poetry:

"It has neither depth, height, nor breadth in it; neither uncommon strength nor uncommon refinement of thought, sentiment, or language: it has no originality."

Now, it must be obvious to every one that the thing to which this description applies, lacks all the essentials of poetry; is in fact no poetry at all. You may say anything else you please of it; when you have said this much, you have said enough to exclude it from the domain of poetry. This is exactly the sort of stuff that is sure to become popular at the present day, when the popularity of a thing increases in proportion to its nothingness. A parallel this for the "lucus a non lucendo." The more a man's poetry deserves to be unpopular, the more popular it is; and to predicate of anything that it has neither depth, nor height, nor breadth, nor strength, nor refinement, nor originality, is to enhance its claims to public approbation. Had Hazlitt applied this description to Crabbe's poetry, he would not have been very wide of the mark; but to reduce Scott's splendid creations to this level of blankness and nonentity, and say at the same time that they deserve to be popular, is paradoxical in the highest degree.