Matthew Arnold, a modern critic of feeling, of knowledge, and it may even be said of genius, who has extolled Joubert and De Sénancour, men infinitely below his own standard, as if they were great writers? Must we not assume that personal feeling and peculiarities of temperament enter into the criticism of taste to such an extent that no single judgment can be accepted except as the argument of an advocate? May we not also say that though it is always possible to distinguish excellence, it is not always easy to define proportions while a work is yet new? Of two books that deservedly achieved an immediate and great success—Buckle's History of Civilisation and Maine's Ancient Law—Buckle's was the greatest triumph at the moment and Maine's has been incomparably the more enduring. Again, the critic of style is perhaps peculiarly liable to be overawed by a great reputation. Where the scientific controversialist can advance observation and experiment in proof of his censure, the critic of taste can do little more than assert a damnatory opinion. At this distance of time few would dispute that George Eliot's works after Middlemarch exhibit distinct and lamentable falling off in power, but Daniel Deronda at least was as vociferously praised as the author's best work had been.[1] Probably only two or three writers in a generation attain such an eminence that criticism is suspended in presence of their works, but these two or three are the very ones who have most influence in moulding a generation, and in whose regard the verdict of a sane judgment is most desirable.
- ↑ "There have been the strongest expressions of interest," says George Eliot in her Diary; "some persons adhering to the opinion, started during the early numbers, that the book is my best." George Eliot's Life, vol. iii. p. 298. Even M. Scherer hesitated to express, what he evidently felt, that the book was a comparative failure—Essays, p. 60.
