rent infirmity, debar
themselves of their real strength and advantages. A heartier friend or
honester critic I never coped withal. He has made me feel (by contrast)
the want of genuine sincerity and generous sentiment in some that I have
listened to since, and convinced me (if practical proof were wanting) of
the truth of that text of Scripture--'That had I all knowledge and could
speak with the tongues of angels, yet without charity I were nothing!' I
would rather be a man of disinterested taste and liberal feeling, to
see and acknowledge truth and beauty wherever I found it, than a man of
greater and more original genius, to hate, envy, and deny all excellence
but my own--but that poor scanty pittance of it (compared with the
whole) which I had myself produced!

There is another race of critics who might be designated as the _Occult
School_--_vere adepti._ They discern no beauties but what are concealed
from superficial eyes, and overlook all that are obvious to the vulgar
part of mankind. Their art is the transmutation of styles. By happy
alchemy of mind they convert dross into gold--and gold into tinsel. They
see farther into a millstone than most others. If an author is utterly
unreadable, they can read him for ever: his intricacies are their
delight, his mysteries are their study. They prefer Sir Thomas Browne
to the _Rambler_ by Dr. Johnson, and Burton's _Anatomy of Melancholy_
to all the writers of the Georgian Age. They judge of works of genius as
misers do of hid treasure--it is of no value unless they have it all
to themselves. They will no more share a book than a mistress with a
friend. If they suspected their favourite volumes of delighting any eyes
but their own, they would immediately discard them from the list. Theirs
are superannuated beauties that every one else has left off intriguing
with, bedridden hags, a 'stud of nightmares.' This is not envy or
affectation, but a natural proneness to singularity, a love of what
is odd and out of the way. They must come at their pleasures with
difficulty, and support admiration by an uneasy sense of ridicule and
opposition. They despise those qualities in a work which are cheap
and obvious. They like a monopoly of taste and are shocked at the
prostitution of intellect implied in popular productions. In like
manner, they would choose a friend or recommend a mistress for gross
defects; and tolerate the sweetness of an actress's voice only for the
ugliness of her fa