Dangle: “If I might venture to suggest anything, it is that the interest rather falls off in the fifth act.”
Sir Fretful: “Rises, I believe you mean, sir.”
Mrs. Dangle: “I did not see a fault in any part of the play from the beginning to the end.”
Sir Fretful: “Upon my soul the women are the best judges after all.”
In short, no one objects to a favourable criticism, and almost every one objects to an unfavourable one. All men ought, no doubt, to be thankful for a just criticism; but I am afraid they are not. As a result, to criticize is to be unpopular. Nevertheless, it is better to be unpopular than to be untruthful.
“The truth once out,—and wherefore should we lie?—
The Queen of Midas slept, and so can I.”
I am going to do a rather dreadful thing. I am going to divide criticism into six heads. By the bye, I am not sure that sermons now-a-days are any better than they used to be in the good old times, when there were
always three heads at least to every sermon. Criticism should be—1. Appreciative. 2. Proportionate. 3. Appropriate. 4. Strong. 5. Natural. 6. Bonâ fide.
1. Criticism should be appreciative.
By this I mean, not that critics should always praise, but that they should understand. They should see the thing as it is and comprehend it. This is the rock upon which most criticisms fail—want of knowledge. In reading the lives of great men, how often are we struck with the want of appreciation of their fellows. Who admired Turner’s pictures until Turner’s death? Who praised Tennyson’s poems until Tennyson was quite an old man? Nay, I am afraid some of us have laughed at those who endeavoured to ask our attention to what we called the daubs of the one or the doggerel of the other. [{5}]This, I think, should teach us not even to attempt to criticize until we are sure that we appreciate. Yet what a vast amount of criticism there is in the world which errs (like Dr. Johnson) from sheer ignorance. When Sir Lucius O’Trigger found fault with Mrs. Malaprop’s language she naturally resented such ignorant criticism. “If there is one thing more than another upon which I pride myself, it is the use of my oracular tongue and a nice derangement of epitaphs.” It was absurd to have one’s English criticized by any Irishman. It is said that “it’s a pity when lovely women talk of things that they don’t understand”; but I am afraid that men are equally given to the same vice. I have