preface as will fill your eighth of a column, and add, that the
performance is not equal to the promise. You must never feel nor shew
the faintest interest in the work reviewed, that would be fatal. Never
praise heartily, that is the sign of an intelligence not mediocre. Be
vague, colourless, and languid, this deters readers from approaching the
book. If you have glanced at it, blame it for not being what it never
professed to be; if it is a treatise on Greek Prosody, censure the lack
of humour; if it is a volume of gay verses, lament the author's
indifference to the sorrows of the poor or the wrongs of the Armenians.
If it has humour, deplore its lack of thoughtfulness; if it is grave,
carp at its lack of gaiety. I have known a reviewer of half a dozen
novels denounce half a dozen _kinds_ of novels in the course of his two
columns; the romance of adventure, the domestic tale, the psychological
analysis, the theological story, the detective's story, the story of
"Society," he blamed them all in general, and the books before him in
particular, also the historical novel. This can easily be done, by dint
of practice, after dipping into three or four pages of your author. Many
reviewers have special aversions, authors they detest. Whatever they are
criticising, novels, poems, plays, they begin by an attack on their pet
aversion, who has nothing to do with the matter in hand. They cannot
praise A, B, C, and D, without first assailing E. It will generally be
found that E is a popular author. But the great virtue of a reviewer,
who would be unreadable and make others unread, is a languid ignorant
lack of interest in all things, a habit of regarding his work as a
tedious task, to be scamped as rapidly and stupidly as possible.

You might think that these qualities would displease the reviewer's
editor. Not at all, look at any column of short notices, and you will
occasionally find that the critic has anticipated my advice. There is no
topic in which the men who write about it are so little interested as