Criticism in all ages has necessarily
been of less importance than art itself--it guides and suggests, but
cannot create. Literary history shows that true criticism must be in
conformity with the spirit of the age; it cannot oppose the trend of
intelligent opinion. It may praise, censure, advise, interpret--but it
will always remain subservient to the art that called it forth. There is
no reason to believe that criticism can ever be established in the
English-speaking world upon a basis that will subject to an arbitrary
and irrevocable ruling the form and spirit of the artist's message to
mankind.
[Footnote A: Reprinted in Professor Arber's _The Term Catalogues_
(1668-1709). London, privately printed, 1903.]
[Footnote B: See the centenary number of the _Edinburgh Review_
(October, 1902). During the editor's recent tenure of government office,
the review was temporarily edited by Mr. E.S. Roscoe.]
[Footnote C: See his letter in _Athenaeum_, January 19, 1878. See also
"Our Seventieth Birthday," _Athenaeum_, January 1, 1898.]
[Footnote D: Mr. Bertram Dobell in his _Side-Lights on Charles Lamb_
(1903) directs attention to some hitherto unknown articles of Lamb's in
the _London Magazine_.
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