much farther proof of
its power, that it is totally different from all that have been before
seen.[B]

The third point on which I would insist, is that if such a mind were to
arise, it would necessarily divide the world of criticism into two
factions; the one, necessarily the largest and loudest, composed of men
incapable of judging except by precedent, ignorant of general truth, and
acquainted only with such particular truths as may have been illustrated
or pointed out to them by former works, which class would of course be
violent in vituperation, and increase in animosity as the master
departed farther from their particular and preconceived canons of
right,--thus wounding their vanity by impugning their judgment; the
other, necessarily narrow of number, composed of men of general
knowledge and unbiassed habits of thought, who would recognize in the
work of the daring innovator a record and illustration of facts before
unseized, who would justly and candidly estimate the value of the truths
so rendered, and would increase in fervor of admiration as the master
strode farther and deeper, and more daringly into dominions before
unsearched or unknown; yet diminishing in multitude as they increased in
enthusiasm: for by how much their leader became more impatient in his
step--more impetuous in his success--more exalted in his research, by so
much must the number capable of following him become narrower, until at
last, supposing him never to pause in his advance, he might be left in
the very culminating moment of his consummate achievement, with but a
faithful few by his side, his former disciples fallen away, his former
enemies doubled in numbers and virulence, and the evidence of his
supremacy only to be wrought out by the devotion of men's lives to the
earnest study of the new truths he had discovered and recorded.

Such a mind has arisen in our days. It has gone on from strength to
strength, laying open fields of conquest peculiar to itself. It has
occasioned such schism in the schools of criticism as was beforehand to
be expected, and it is now at the zenith of its power, and,
_consequently_, in the last phase of declining popularity.

This I know, and can prove. No man, says Southey, was ever yet convinced
of any momentous truth without feeling in himself the power, as well as
the desire of communicating it. In asserting and demonstrating the
supremacy of this great master, I shall both do immediate service to the