uch dialectics and debatable matter,
too much pomp and paradox, in a review. _To elevate and surprise_ is
the great rule for producing a dramatic or critical effect. The more you
startle the reader, the more he will be able to startle others with a
succession of smart intellectual shocks. The most admired of our Reviews
is saturated with this sort of electrical matter, which is regularly
played off so as to produce a good deal of astonishment and a strong
sensation in the public mind. The intrinsic merits of an author are
a question of very subordinate consideration to the keeping up the
character of the work and supplying the town with a sufficient number of
grave or brilliant topics for the consumption of the next three months!

This decided and paramount tone in criticism is the growth of the
present century, and was not at all the fashion in that calm, peaceable
period when the _Monthly Review_ bore 'sole sovereign sway and
masterdom' over all literary productions. Though nothing can be said
against the respectability or usefulness of that publication during its
long and almost exclusive enjoyment of the public favour, yet the
style of criticism adopted in it is such as to appear slight and
unsatisfactory to a modern reader. The writers, instead of 'outdoing
termagant or out-Heroding Herod,' were somewhat precise and prudish,
gentle almost to a fault, full of candour and modesty,

And of their port as meek as is a maid!(1)

There was none of that Drawcansir work going on then that there is
now; no scalping of authors, no hacking and hewing of their Lives and
Opinions, except that they used those of Tristram Shandy, gent., rather
scurvily; which was to be expected. All, however, had a show of courtesy
and good manners. The satire was covert and artfully insinuated; the
praise was short and sweet. We meet with no oracular theories; no
profound analysis of principles; no unsparing exposure of the least
discernible deviation from them. It was deemed sufficient to recommend
the work in general terms, 'This is an agreeable volume,' or 'This is a
work of great learning and research,' to set forth the title and table
of contents, and proceed without farther preface to some appropriate
extracts, for the most part concurring in opinion with the author's
text, but now and then interposing an objection to maintain appearances
and assert the jurisdiction of the court. This cursory manner of hinting
approbation or dissent would