belongs." 59 Saintsbury quotes , “ They also serve, who only
stand and — whip ,” but adds, “ it is better to have a soul above mere whipping.” 60 Boynton pleads that “ the great critic is born
and made," 61 while Gertrude Buck looks into the future of the critic and finds that his reading “ must be a process indefinitely progressive," that " it will continually arrive at valuations of
particular books and authors, but must never regard these valuations as having, even for the critic himself, more than a
present validity and a relative truth;" each opinion “ becomes to him , not a final truth in which to rest, but a point of departure for further reading and criticism .” 62 The earlier conception of the critic as one who has been thrown to the discard is assuredly
yielding to the hopeful view that finds in him capacity for growth and an inclination to improve this opportunity. If, as Saintsbury
says, “ there certainly has been more bad criticism written in the nineteenth century than in any previous one, - probably more than in all previous centuries put together , - it is quite certain
that no other period can show so much that is good,” 63 the verdict must be encouraging for the general progress of criticism
in the twentieth century. In the last analysis, it is always the critic , rather than the author, whose authority is paramount in
the mind of the contemporaneous general reader , but not in the
mind of the historian . It is, indeed, impossible to agree with O 'Shea who doubts whether the public reads literary criticism at all and believes that “ to secure an appreciative public the
temptation to be cynical and evolve caustic epigrams (is) very strong." 64 Hehas himself pointed out that when Lady Audley's Secret appeared as a serial it passed unnoticed , but in book form it was reviewed by The Times, and “ a column of a review in The
Times made the success of themost successful of modern English 59 Collected Works of William Hi a Hazlitt, I, 366 .
story ofofCriticism CT spirit ,ofIII i, n428g,". AP.utCr. Benson says that reviews are often 60 History “ written in the spirit of a schoolmaster correcting a boy 's exercise.” — “ The Ethics of Book -reviewing,” Putnam 's Monthly, October, 1906 , n . S. I : 116 - 122 .
61 H . W . Boynton , “ Reviewer and Critic,” Journalism and Literature, 63 " The Function of the Critic,” The Social Criticism of Literature,
pp. 215 - 226 . pp . 47 –60.
63 History of Criticism , III, 421. 64 J. A . O 'Shea , Leaves from the Life of a Special Correspondent, II, 171.
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