The latter are precisely the requisites in which the French criticism of the eighteenth century is deficient. It brought neither the imagination nor the heart to bear upon the examination of the masterpieces of literature; for the spirit of reverence it substituted the spirit of ridicule the critic—looked down upon the artist whom he criticised, like a judge upon a criminal at the bar. Hence the whole tone of his even praise wore the appearance of supercilious condescension. The critical tendency of the time was patronising, dictatorial, depreciating, negative—more occupied with faults than beauties—more intent on particulars than on general views. Without imagination to enable them to rise beyond the conventional limitations which French opinions and the practice of French writers had apparently fixed as the laws of taste, and to perceive that excellence might exist under many other forms, all true to nature, and yet each growing out of the habits and feelings of different nations, and peculiarly suited to the people among which it was found, they identified the code of French taste with the eternal laws of nature, and praised or condemned all works according as they approximated to, or receded from, this artificial standard. The absence of simplicity of mind and genuine feeling, which as it practically existed in society was reflected in the artificial character of conversation and of literature, made them turn with a nervous horror from every expression which appeared to fall short of that decorum or elegance which the French canons of taste required to be preserved under all circumstances, though the words might be warmed with passion, and stamped with the very signet of Nature herself. "With us," says La Harpe, while contrasting the liberty allowed by the Greek Dramatic Vocabulary with the irksome restraints affecting the French, "with us, the poet does not enjoy the use of more than a third of the national idiom; the rest is interdicted as unworthy of him. There exist for him only a certain number of received words; and the genius of style consists in varying their combinations, and in constantly presenting to the mind and the imagination relations which are new without being singular, and ingenious without being far-fetched." Such is the state of matters which La Harpe deprecates, but conceives it hopeless to attempt to alter. If at times a momentary expression of admiration was extorted from French criticism by some burst of natural feeling, either in a French poet or in a foreign writer, to which no heart could be insensible, it was generally accompanied by an expression of regret, that while the sentiment was preserved, it had not been embellished by a more courtly and refined expression.
On the other hand certain advantages and certain merits must be conceded to the French criticism of the eighteenth century, of which the more imaginative criticism of Germany and England is not equally entitled to boast. It is possible, for instance, to take too transcendental and cosmopolitan a view of literature—to fix our point of sight so high that the whole landscape beneath us becomes faint and confused—to labour after the universal, till the particular is neglected and overlooked. Thus, in striving to enlarge the circle to which poetry addresses itself, so as to deal with the most extended sympathies, the critics of Germany have sometimes neglected or overlooked the necessity of producing the first and strongest effect upon the poet's own nation; and have advocated systems in which poetry, like the abstract idea of a Lord Mayor, stripped of all that is local and individual, is sent wandering on a fruitless quest into the "void and formless infinite." Sound criticism, however, which is but another word for a wide and enlightened record of experience, teaches us that poetry, like charity, must begin at home; must have its foundation in the present, and be connected with realities with which men are then and there engrossed; and that the poet whose words come most home to the hearts of the wise and good of his own age and country, will speak with the most prevailing accents to the world and for all time.
This vagueness of aim French criticism has entirely escaped, for it proceeded on the just principle, that "to write for France, one must write as a Frenchman;"[1] and to write for France was, in their view of the mat-
- ↑ La Harpe—Cours do Littérature.
