really is." I added, that owing to the operation in English literature
of certain causes, "almost the last thing for which one would come to
English literature is just that very thing which now Europe most
desires,--criticism"; and that the power and value of English literature
was thereby impaired. More than one rejoinder declared that the
importance I here assigned to criticism was excessive, and asserted the
inherent superiority of the creative effort of the human spirit over its
critical effort. And the other day, having been led by a Mr.
Shairp's[23] excellent notice of Wordsworth[24] to turn again to his
biography, I found, in the words of this great man, whom I, for one,
must always listen to with the profoundest respect, a sentence passed on
the critic's business, which seems to justify every possible
disparagement of it. Wordsworth says in one of his letters[25]:--

"The writers in these publications" (the Reviews), "while they prosecute
their inglorious employment, cannot be supposed to be in a state of mind
very favorable for being affected by the finer influences of a thing so
pure as genuine poetry."

And a trustworthy reporter of his conversation quotes a more elaborate
judgment to the same effect:--

"Wordsworth holds the critical power very low, infinitely lower than the
inventive; and he said to-day that if the quantity of time consumed in
writing critiques on the works of others were given to original
composition, of whatever kind it might be, it would be much better
employed; it would make a man find out sooner his own level, and it
would do infinitely less mischief. A false or malicious criticism may do
much injury to the minds of others, a stupid invention, either in prose
or verse, is quite harmless."