r;--so that we
shall find that no poetry has been more subject to distortion, than that
species, the argument and scope of which is religious; and no lovers of
the art have gone farther astray than the pious and the devout.

Whither then shall we turn for that union of qualifications which must
necessarily exist before the decisions of a critic can be of absolute
value? For a mind at once poetical and philosophical; for a critic whose
affections are as free and kindly as the spirit of society, and whose
understanding is severe as that of dispassionate government? Where are
we to look for that initiatory composure of mind which no selfishness
can disturb? For a natural sensibility that has been tutored into
correctness without losing anything of its quickness; and for active
faculties, capable of answering the demands which an Author of original
imagination shall make upon them, associated with a judgment that cannot
be duped into admiration by aught that is unworthy of it?--among those
and those only, who, never having suffered their youthful love of poetry
to remit much of its force, have applied to the consideration of the
laws of this art the best power of their understandings. At the same
time it must be observed--that, as this Class comprehends the only
judgments which are trustworthy, so does it include the most erroneous
and perverse. For to be mistaught is worse than to be untaught; and no
perverseness equals that which is supported by system, no errors are so
difficult to root out as those which the understanding has pledged its
credit to uphold. In this Class are contained censors, who, if they be
pleased with what is good, are pleased with it only by imperfect
glimpses, and upon false principles; who, should they generalise
rightly, to a certain point, are sure to suffer for it in the end; who,
if they stumble upon a sound rule, are fettered by misapplying it, or by
straining it too far; being incapable of perceiving when it ought to
yield to one of higher order. In it are found critics too petulant to be
passive to a genuine poet, and too feeble to grapple with him; men, who
take upon them to report of the course which _he_ holds whom they are
utterly unable to accompany,--confounded if he turn quick upon the wing,
dismayed if he soar steadily 'into the region;'--men of palsied
imaginations and indurated hearts; in whose minds all healthy action is
languid, who therefore feed as the many direct them, or, with