abitually warped, how unsteady, how feeble, the
judgment becomes, which is not kept bright and vigorous through right
use. How insensibly we become callous or indolent about forming a
correct judgment. "It is a pleasure to stand upon the shore and see the
ships tossed upon the sea; a pleasure to stand in the window of a castle
and to see a battle and the adventures thereof below: but no pleasure is
comparable to the standing upon the vantage ground of truth (a hill not
to be commanded and where the air is always clear and serene) and to see
the errors and wanderings and mists and tempests in the vale below, so
always that this prospect be with pity and not with swelling or pride.
Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity,
rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth."

In conclusion, I am aware that I have treated the subject most
inadequately, and that others have treated the same subject with much
more power; but I am satisfied of the great importance of a right use of
the critical faculty, and I think it may be that my mode of treatment may
arrest the attention of some minds which are apt to be frightened at a
learned method, and may induce them to take more heed of the judgments
which they are hourly passing on a great variety of subjects. If we
still persist in saying when some one jingles some jig upon the piano
that it is "charming," if we say of every daub in the Academy that it is
"lovely," if every new building or statue is pronounced "awfully jolly,"
if the fastidious rubbish of the last volume of poetry is "grand," if the
slip-shod grammar of the last new novel is "quite sweet," when shall we
see an end of these bad things? And observe further, these bad things
live on and affect the human mind for ever. Bad things are born of bad.
Who can tell what may be the effect of seeing day by day an hideous
building, of hearing day by day indifferent music, of constantly reading
a lot of feeble twaddle? Surely one effect will be that we shall
gradually lose our appreciation of what is good and beautiful. "A thing
of beauty is a joy for ever." Ah! but we must have eyes to see it. This
springtime is lovely, if we have the eyes to see it; but, if we have not,
its loveliness is nothing to us, and if we miss seeing it we shall have
dimmer eyes to see it next year and the next; and if we cannot now see
beauty and truth through the glass darkly, we shall be unable to gaze on
them