“The time,” said Mr. Adage, “has been, when certain established canons of criticism enabled the world to determine the permanent merits of books; but now feeling is the sole rule, and authors are praised and condemned by Like and Dislike. These are the pillars in the pleasure-house of the Philistines, and woe awaits the Samson who attempts to pull them down.”

I admitted that there was some truth in the remark, yet, as the canons of criticism had been formed by what had previously been Liked and Disliked, it did not appear very obvious that the mere feeling and taste without principle, by which modern critics are guided, was very erroneous. “We have now more variety, I suppose,” said I, “of new objects of criticism than had our predecessors, and the rules for determining their respective merits have not yet been formed.”

“It may be so,” replied Mr. Adage; “but the disadvantage of allowing feeling to come in where only principle should be admitted, is manifest to contemporary authors. Persons of all capacities are allowed to wound the finest minds. ‘Critics,’ said the satirical Byron, ‘are all ready made;’ and certainly there is no reason in Nature why an idiot, or a presumptuous boy, who can just read, should not be allowed to decide on the lucubrations of experience and learning. Moreover, nothing is so easy as to find fault; and hence it is, that the greatest fault-finders are the weakest of men.—The rule applies to critics.”