e ourselves by the common opinion. But at the start, at
the moment when they are trying their first flight and are in part
ignorant of themselves, then to judge them with tact, with precision,
not to exaggerate their scope, to predict their flight, or divine
their limits, to put the reasonable objections in the midst of all
due respect--this is the quality of the critic who is born to be a
critic." We have been speaking of Mr. Carlyle. This is what Jeffrey
thought of him in 1832:--

"I fear Carlyle will not do, that is, if you do not take the
liberties and the pains with him that I did, by striking out
freely, and writing in occasionally. The misfortune is, that he
is very obstinate, and unluckily in a place like this, he finds
people enough to abet and applaud him, to intercept the operation
of the otherwise infallible remedy of general avoidance and
neglect. It is a great pity, for he is a man of genius and
industry, and with the capacity of being an elegant and impressive
writer"

The notion of Jeffrey occasionally writing elegantly and impressively
into Carlyle's proof-sheets is rather striking. Some of Jeffrey's
other criticisms sound very curiously in our ear in these days. It
is startling to find Mill's _Logic_ described (1843) as a "great
unreadable book, and its elaborate demonstration of axioms and
truisms." A couple of years later Jeffrey admits, in speaking of Mr.
Mill's paper on Guizot--"Though I have long thought very highly of his
powers as a reasoner, I scarcely gave him credit for such large and
sound views of _realities_ and practical results as are displayed
in this article." Sir James Stephen--the distinguished sire of two
distinguished contributors, who may remind more than one editor of our
generation of the Horatian saying, that

"Fortes creantur fortibus et bonis,
... neque imbellera feroces
Progenerant aquilae columbam"

--this excellent writer took a more just measure of the book which
Jeffrey thought unreadable.

"My more immediate object in writing is to remind you of John
Mill's book [System of Logic], of which I have lately been reading
a considerable part, and I have done so with the conviction that
it is one of the most remarkable productions of this nineteenth
century. Exceedingly debatable indeed, but most worthy of debate,
are many of his favourite tenets, especially those of the last
two or three chapters