ainst art....
We look in vain through the book for a single idea. We find
nothing but flashy imitations of ideas. We find a medley of
extravagances and commonplaces.

We do not know whether H.J. ever recanted this very youthful
disposal of old Walt. The only importance of it at this moment seems
to us this: that appreciation of all kinds of art is so tenderly
interwoven with inherited respect for the traditional forms of
expression by which they are conveyed that a new and surprising
vehicle quite unfits most observers for any reasonable assessment of
the passenger.

As for Walt himself, he was quite unabashed by this or any other
onslaught. He was not gleg at argument, and probably rolled up the
issue of the _Nation_ in his pocket and went down to Coney Island to
lie on the sand and muse (but no, we forget, it was November!). In
the same issue of the _Nation_ he doubtless read, in the "Literary
Notes," that "Poems Relating to the American Revolution," by Philip
Freneau, was "in press under the scholarly editing of Evart A.
Duyckinck to form a complete presentment of the genius of an author
whose influence in the affairs of his time would alone impart a
lasting value to his works." At this Walt smiled gently to himself,
wondered how soon "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed" would
get into the anthologies, and "sped to the certainties suitable to
him."

II

These miscellaneous thoughts on the fallibility of critics were
suggested to us by finding some old bound volumes of the _Edinburgh
Review_ on a bookstall, five cents each. In the issue for November,
1814, we read with relish what the _Review_ had to say about
Wordsworth's "Excursion." These are a few excerpts:

This will never do.... The case of Mr. Wordsworth, we perceive,
is now manifestly hopeless; and we give him up as altogether
incurable, and beyond the power of criticism ... making up our
minds, though with the most sincere pain and reluctance, to
consider him as finally lost to the good cause of poetry....
The volume before us, if we were to describe it very shortly,
we should characterize as a tissue of moral and devotional
ravings, in which innumerable changes are rung upon a few very
simple and familiar ideas.

The world of readers has not ratified Jeffrey's savage comments on
"The Excursion," for (to reckon only by the purse) any frequenter of
old bookshops can pick up that orig