Men trample grass and prize the flowers in May,
But grass is green when flowers do fade away.
SCRAPS FOR AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM AND FASHION
None need be surprised to see these two false prophets in partnership or conjunction for an essay, as they may be called brothers, for the one attests what it pleases and the other takes it for granted. Criticism is grown a sort of book milliner, who cuts a book to any pattern of abuse or praise, and Fashion readily wears the opinion. How many productions whose milk-and-water merits, or unintelligible stupidity, have been considered as novelties, have by that means gained the admiration of Criticism and the praise of Fashion, until a more absurd novelty pushed them from their preferments and caused them to be as suddenly forgotten! The vulgar, tasteless jargon of "Dr. Syntax," with all the above-mentioned excellencies to excite public notice from the butterflies of fashion, soon found what it sought, though some of the plates or illustrations possess the disadvantageous merit of being good. Yet the letter-press doubly made up for all, for it was prose trebly prosified into wire-drawn doggrel, and consequently met with a publicity and sale unprecedented. Edition multiplied on edition, till it was found needless to number the title page, and it was only necessary to say "A New Edition;" while the poems of Wordsworth scarcely found admirers enough to ensure a second edition. What will the admirers of poetry in the next age think of the taste of this, which has been called "the Golden Age of criticism, poetry, taste, and genius"?
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Fashion is like a new book "elegantly bound and lettered." It cannot endure dust and cobwebs; but true criticism is like a newly-planted laurel: it thrives with age and gathers strength from antiquity, till it becomes a spreading tree and shelters the objects of its praise under its shadow. Just Criticism is a stern but laudable prophet, and Time and Truth are the only disciples who can discern and appreciate his predictions.
SCRAPS FOR AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM
Flowers must be sown and tended with care, like children, to grow up to maturity, but weeds grow of themselves and multiply without any attention, choking up those flowers that require it; and lies are propagated as easily as weeds, and choke up the blossoms of truth in the same manner. But the evils and misrepresentations of false criticism, though great and many, are not lasting.
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Upon its principles fashion and flattery have made many Shakespeares, and these false prophets have flourished and will flourish for a season, for truth, when she cannot be heard by the opposition of falsehood, remains silent and leaves time to decide the difference, who cometh quietly and impartially to her assistance, hurling without ceremony, century after century, usurper after usurper from the throne of the mighty, and erasing their names from his altar as suddenly and as perfectly as the sunbeam passes over and washes away the stains of a shadow on the wall. Fame hath weighed the false criticisms and pretensions of centuries already, and found nothing as yet but dust in the balance. Shadows of Shakespeare are cast away as profane idols, and reality hath fallen short of even a trinity. She acknowledges as sacred but one, and I fear that when she shall calculate the claims of ten centuries she will find the number of the mighty a unit. But why should fear be expressed for a repetition which we neither hope for nor need? We have but one sun in our firmament, and upwards of six thousand years have neither added to nor diminished its splendour, neither have vain desires been expressed for the existence of another. Needless wishes create painful expectations. When a man is warm and comfortable on a cold day he cannot wish for an excess that would burn him. Therefore we need neither hope for more Shakespeares nor regret that there is but one. When the Muses created him a poet they created him the sun of the firmament of genius, and time has proved, and will prove, that they glory in their creation, deeming it sufficient, without striving to find or create another, for nature knows the impossibility. There have been, both before and after, constellations of great and wonderful beauty, and many in this age will be found in the number who shine in their own light with becoming splendour, but whenever flattery or vanity places them near the great luminary their little lights lose their splendour and they vanish in his brightness as the stars are lost at noon.
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