to the age of Linnaeus and Bernard de Jussieu" (_System of
Logic_, ed. 6, ii., p. 288).

HENRY TRIMEN.




V

HIS PLACE AS A CRITIC


Mr. Mill's achievements as an economist, logician, psychologist, and
politician are known more or less vaguely to all educated men; but his
capacity and his actual work as a critic are comparatively little
regarded. In the three volumes of his collected miscellaneous
writings, very few of the papers are general reviews either of books
or of men; and even these volumes derive their character from the
essays they contain on the severer subjects with which Mr. Mill's name
has been more peculiarly associated. Nobody buys his "Dissertations
and Discussions" for the sake of his theory of poetry, or his essays
on Armand Carrel and Alfred de Vigny, noble though these are in many
ways. His essay on Coleridge is very celebrated; but it deals, not
with Coleridge's place as a poet, but with his place as a
thinker--with Coleridge as the antagonistic power to Bentham in
forming the opinions of the generation now passing away. Still at such
a time as this it is interesting to make some endeavor to estimate the
value of what Mr. Mill has done in the way of criticism. It is at
least worth while to examine whether one who has shown himself