Interludes | Page 2

Books, revenges himself upon Criticism by describing her. "She dwelt on the top of a snowy mountain in Nova Zembla. There Momus found her extended in her den upon the spoils of numberless volumes, half devoured. At her right hand sat Ignorance, her father and husband, blind with age; at her left Pride, her mother, dressing her up in the scraps of paper herself had torn. About her played her children Noise and Impudence, Dulness and Vanity, Pedantry and Ill-manners. The goddess herself had claws like a cat. Her head, ears, and voice resembled those of an ass." Bulwer (Lord Lytton) flew out against his critics, and was well laughed at by Thackeray for his pains. Poets are known as the genus irritabile, and I do not know that prose writers, artists, or musicians are less susceptible. Most of us will remember Sheridan's Critic--
Sneer: "I think it wants incident."
Sir Fretful: "Good Heavens, you surprise me! Wants incident! I am only apprehensive that the incidents are too crowded."
Dangle: "If I might venture to suggest anything, it is that the interest rather falls off in the fifth act."
Sir Fretful: "Rises, I believe you mean, sir."
Mrs. Dangle: "I did not see a fault in any part of the play from the beginning to the end."
Sir Fretful: "Upon my soul the women are the best judges after all."
In short, no one objects to a favourable criticism, and almost every one objects to an unfavourable one. All men ought, no doubt, to be thankful for a just criticism; but I am afraid they are not. As a result, to criticize is to be unpopular. Nevertheless, it is better to be unpopular than to be untruthful.
"The truth once out,--and wherefore should we lie?--?The Queen of Midas slept, and so can I."
I am going to do a rather dreadful thing. I am going to divide criticism into six heads. By the bye, I am not sure that sermons now-a-days are any better than they used to be in the good old times, when there were always three heads at least to every sermon. Criticism should be--1. Appreciative. 2. Proportionate. 3. Appropriate. 4. Strong. 5. Natural. 6. Bona fide.
1. Criticism should be appreciative.
By this I mean, not that critics should always praise, but that they should understand. They should see the thing as it is and comprehend it. This is the rock upon which most criticisms fail--want of knowledge. In reading the lives of great men, how often are we struck with the want of appreciation of their fellows. Who admired Turner's pictures until Turner's death? Who praised Tennyson's poems until Tennyson was quite an old man? Nay, I am afraid some of us have laughed at those who endeavoured to ask our attention to what we called the daubs of the one or the doggerel of the other. {5}This, I think, should teach us not even to attempt to criticize until we are sure that we appreciate. Yet what a vast amount of criticism there is in the world which errs (like Dr. Johnson) from sheer ignorance. When Sir Lucius O'Trigger found fault with Mrs. Malaprop's language she naturally resented such ignorant criticism. "If there is one thing more than another upon which I pride myself, it is the use of my oracular tongue and a nice derangement of epitaphs." It was absurd to have one's English criticized by any Irishman. It is said that "it's a pity when lovely women talk of things that they don't understand"; but I am afraid that men are equally given to the same vice. I have heard men give the most confident opinions upon subjects which they don't in the least understand, which nobody expects them to understand, nor have they had any opportunity for acquiring the requisite knowledge. But I suppose an Englishman is nothing if he is not dictatorial, and has a right to say that the pictures in the Louvre are "orrid" or that the Colosseum is a "himposition." "I don't know what they mean by Lucerne being the Queen of the Lakes," said a Yankee to me, "but I calc'late Lake St. George is a doocid deal bigger." The criticism was true as far as it went, but the man had no conception of beauty.
"Each might his several province well command?Would all but stoop to what they understand."
The receipt given for an essay on Chinese Metaphysics was, look out China under the letter C and metaphysics under the letter M, and combine your information. "Would you mind telling me, sir, if the Cambridge boat keeps time or not to-day?" said a man on the banks of the Thames to me. He explained that he was a political-meeting reporter on the staff of a penny paper, and the sporting reporter was ill. Sometimes the want of appreciation appears