classical parallels; Sidney, after a loftier strain, in his defence
of harmonious prose as a form of poetry. And it is the highest
achievement of modern criticism to have brought science and order into
the comparative method, and largely to have widened its scope. In this
sense, comparison _is_ criticism; and to compare with increased
intelligence, with a clearer consciousness of the end in view, is to
reform criticism itself, to make it a keener weapon and more effective
for its purpose.

A comparison of qualities, however, is one thing, and a comparison
between different degrees of merit is quite another. The former is the
essence of criticism; the latter, one of the most futile pastimes that
can readily be imagined. That each man should have his own preferences
is right enough. It would be a nerveless and unprofitable mind to which
such preferences were unknown. More than that, some rough
classification, some understanding with oneself as to what authors are
to be reckoned supreme masters of their craft, is hardly to be avoided.
The mere fact that the critic lays stress on certain writers and
dismisses others with scant notice or none at all, implies that in
some sense he has formed an estimate of their relative merits. But to
drag this process from the background--if we ought not rather to say,
from behind the scenes--to the very foot-lights, to publish it, to
insist upon it, is as irrelevant as it would be for the historian--
and he, too, must make his own perspective--to explain why he has
recorded some events and left others altogether unnoticed. All this
is work for the dark room; it should leave no trace, or as little as
may be, upon the finished picture. Criticism has suffered from few
things so much as from its incurable habit of granting degrees in
poetry with honours. "The highest art", it has been well said, "is the
region of equals."