hrough his writings? What is his feeling for the beautiful, the
sublime, the ludicrous? Is he of weak or vigorous will? In the
conflict of motives, which class of motives with him is likely to
predominate? Is he framed to believe or framed to doubt? Is he
prudent, just, temperate, or the reverse of these? These and
such-like questions are not to be crudely and formally proposed, but
are to be used with tact; nor should the critic press for hard and
definite answers, but know how skillfully to glean its meaning from an
evasion. He is a dull cross-examiner who will invariably follow the
scheme which he has thought out and prepared beforehand, and who
cannot vary his questions to surprise or beguile the truth from an
unwilling witness. But the tact which comes from natural gift and from
experience may be well supported by something of method,--method well
hidden away from the surface and from sight.

This may be termed the psychological method of study. But we may also
follow a more objective method. Taking the chief themes with which
literature and art are conversant--God, external nature, humanity--we
may inquire how our author has dealt with each of these. What is his
theology, or his philosophy of the universe? By which we mean no
abstract creed or doctrine, but the tides and currents of feeling and
of faith, as well as the tendencies and conclusions of the intellect.
Under what aspect has this goodly frame of things, in whose midst we
are, revealed itself to him? How has he regarded and interpreted the
life of man? Under each of these great themes a multitude of
subordinate topics are included. And alike in this and in what we have
termed the psychological method of study, we shall gain double results
if we examine a writer's works in the order of their chronology, and
thus become acquainted with the growth and development of his powers,
and the widening and deepening of his relations with man, with
external nature, and with that Supreme Power, unknown yet well known,
of which nature and man are the manifestation. As to the study of an
artist's technical qualities, this, by virtue of the fact that he is
an artist, is of capital importance; and it may often be associated
with the study of that which his technique is employed to express and
render--the characteristics of his mind, and of the vision which he
has attained of the external universe, of humanity, and of God. Of all
our study, the last end and aim should be t