either kind in whom no such process of growth or transformation is
perceptible: of these are Coleridge and Blake; from the sunrise to the
sunset of their working day we can trace no demonstrable increase and no
visible diminution of the divine capacities or the inborn defects of
either man's genius; but not of such, as a rule, are the greatest among
artists of any sort.

Another rock on which modern steersmen of a more skilful hand than these
are yet liable to run through too much confidence is the love of their
own conjectures as to the actual date or the secret history of a
particular play or passage. To err on this side requires more thought,
more learning, and more ingenuity than we need think to find in a whole
tribe of finger-counters and figure-casters; but the outcome of these
good gifts, if strained or perverted to capricious use, may prove no less
barren of profit than the labours of a pedant on the letter of the text.
It is a tempting exercise of intelligence for a dexterous and keen-witted
scholar to apply his solid learning and his vivid fancy to the detection
or the interpretation of some new or obscure point in a great man's life
or work; but none the less is it a perilous pastime to give the reins to
a learned fancy, and let loose conjecture on the trail of any dubious
crotchet or the scent of any supposed allusion that may spring up in the
way of its confident and eager quest. To start a new solution of some
crucial problem, to track some new undercurrent of concealed significance
in a passage hitherto neglected or misconstrued, is to a critic of this
higher class a delight as keen as that of scientific discovery to
students of another sort: the pity is that he can bring no such certain
or immediate test to verify the value of his discovery as lies ready to
the hand of the man of science. Whether he have lit upon a windfall or a
mare's nest can be decided by no direct proof, but only by time and the
general acceptance of competent judges; and this cannot often be