and trustworthy, so it is well to have freedom in literature and
criticism. Mistakes will be made and mischief done, but in the long run
the effect of a keen competition, and an advancing public taste will
tell. I don't hesitate to assert, without fear of contradiction, that
critical art has improved rapidly during the last twenty years in this
country, where a man is free to start a critical review, and to write
about anybody, or anything, and in any manner, provided he keeps within
the law. He is only restrained by the competition of others, and by the
public taste, which are both constantly increasing. No doubt an author
will write with greater spirit, and with greater decorum, if he knows
that his merits are sure to be fairly acknowledged, and his faults
certain to be accurately noted. But this object may be attained, I
believe, without an academy. On the other hand, what danger there is in
an academy becoming cliquey, nay even corrupt. We have an academy here
in the painting art, but except that it collects within its walls every
year a vaster number of daubs than it is possible for any one ever to see
with any degree of comfort, I don't know what particular use it is of. As
a school or college it may be of use, but as a critical academy it does
very little.

I have thus endeavoured to show what I mean by my six divisions of
criticism, and I have no doubt you will all of you have divined that my
six divisions are capable of being expressed in one word, Criticism must
be _true_. To be true, it must be appreciative, or understanding, it
must be in due proportion, it must be appropriate, it must be strong, it
must be natural, it must be _bona fide_. There is nothing which an
Englishman hates so much as being false. Our great modern poet, in one
of his strongest lines, says--

"This is a shameful thing for men to lie."