differences between men whom, if we were required to describe
them, we should describe in almost the same terms. If we were
attempting to draw elaborate characters of them, we should
scarcely be able to point out any strong distinction; yet we
approach them with feelings altogether dissimilar. We cannot
conceive of them as using the expressions or the gestures of each
other. Let us suppose that a zoologist should attempt to give an
account of some animal, a porcupine for instance, to people who
had never seen it. The porcupine, he might say, is of the class
mammalia, and the order glires. There are whiskers on its face;
it is two feet long; it has four toes before, five behind, two
fore teeth, and eight grinders. Its body is covered with hair
and quills. And, when all this has been said, would any one of
the auditors have formed a just idea of a porcupine? Would any
two of them have formed the same idea? There might exist
innumerable races of animals, possessing all the characteristics
which have been mentioned yet altogether unlike to each other.
What the description of our naturalist is to a real porcupine,
the remarks of criticism are to the images of poetry. What it so
imperfectly decomposes it cannot perfectly reconstruct. It is
evidently as impossible to produce an Othello or a Macbeth by
reversing an analytical process so defective, as it would be for
an anatomist to form a living man out of the fragments of his
dissecting-room. In both cases the vital principle eludes the
finest instruments, and vanishes in the very instant in which its
seat is touched. Hence those who, trusting to their critical
skill, attempt to write poems give us, not images of things, but
catalogues of qualities. Their characters are allegories--not
good men and bad men, but cardinal virtues and deadly sins. We
seem to have fallen among the acquaintances of our old friend