an uninterested observer, must seem sadly absurd. We mention these national vices now, only to show the desirableness of principles of criticism; and, though a Review is not the place for a philosophical inquiry, we shall do no harm by endeavoring to make clear to ourselves and others some notion of what this Science of Criticism may be.
We have seen it stated above, that the Greeks were the inventors of criticism. The author goes on to say of Thucydides, in reference to this subject, that "neither his own age nor the following could reach him." If we continue the inquiry down, we shall see that it was not for many ages that this Greek invention came to exert an active influence on human affairs. Considering the literatures of Europe singly in order, we discover easily some one prevailing national characteristic in each, as for instance, in the Greek—invention. Nearly every form in which human thought and activity have since flowed were invented by the Greeks. The Roman characteristic, if we subtract the elegant culture they derived, almost translated, from the Greeks, was patriotism,—the grandeur, the power, the dignity of Rome. Their errand was to make the world Roman. This spirit is visible in every page of the greater Romans. There was satire in Rome, as there had been in Greece; but satire is not criticism.
In the Italians, under circumstances analogous to the Greek in certain respects, we see again inventors both in art and literature. The discovery of the ancient literatures, with their inimitable monuments, acted perhaps unfavorably on the originality of Italian genius, and accounts for the brevity of that list of great authors, whose small number is as remarkable as their wonderful excellence. It is the remark of a sagacious critic, that the burning of the Alexandrian Library was perhaps no such misfortune for the world, since it would have been hard for a modern literature to have sprung up in the face of such an overwhelming mass of ancient books.
In the French we have a literature of social life. The great French problem is Society. It is first in the Germans that we discover a pure tendency towards criticism, so that
