Let it not be said, in opposition to this recommendation of the study of the rules of criticism, that certain writ ings, which have grossly violated their precepts, have nevertheless descended with high applause to future times, and are still read with unabating avidity. This may be true : and indeed, in the de served popularity of the plays of Shak speare, we have in our vernacular lan guage a most striking case in point. But it has been justly observed, that these plays " have gained the public admiration, not by their being irregular, not by their transgressions of the rules of art, but in spit:: of such transgressions. They pos sess other beauties, which are conforma ble to just rules ; and the force of these beauties has been so great as to overpow er all censure, and to give the public a degree of satisfaction superior to the dis gust arising from their blemishes." If the mixed metaphors, the low puns, and far-fetched allusions, which abound in Shakspeare's writings, had not been re deemed by such truly empassioned and high-wrought scenes as the closet inter view between Hamlet and his mother, or the terrific phinstom of the " air•drawn dagger," his works would have been left to moulder in the dust of public libraries, or would have been doomed by their rare occurrence to acquire a facti tious value, by being stored up on the shelves of the curious collector.
If rightly considered, indeed, the in stance of Shakspeare eminently evinces the necessity of an acquaintance with the rules of criticism, to the attainment of perfection in the art of composition. Had that child of fancy possessed taste in the same degree with which he w' gifted with, genius, he would have 'Tr duced the plots of his dramas to order ; he would have pruned the luxuriance of his style ; he would have discarded all meretricious ornaments, and would have cleared away those incongruities which abound in his writings, like noisome and disgusting weeds amidst a wilder ness of sweets. Thus would he have risen from the rank of the darling of a nation to that of the poet of the civilized world. Whilst it must be confessed, that the most approved system of rules cannot kindle the fire of genius, or stimu late the activity of the imagination ; yet it is tecqually true, that a knowledge of the laws of criticism is absolutely neces sary to preserve a writer from committing egregious faults. Justly has it been ob served by Horace, that the author who wishes to excel, Cum tabulis animuna censoris sumel ho 'testi." And for the direction of his judgment he can take no guide so sure, as those principles which have been sanctioned, by the approbation of enlightened ages, as the laws of just taste.
To enter into a regular detail of the objects embraced in a system of the rules of criticism, would be inconsistent with the design of the present work; but a short enumeration of the principal writers on the subject may not be altogether useless.
Aristotle is the great father of the critic art; and his treatises on Poetry and Rhe toric exhibit the fundamental principles on which that art is built. His style is
compressed and abrupt ; and his lan guage is so devoid of the attractions of ornament, that, as a celebrated French scholar has justly observed, " in order to be able to read his works, a person must be fully bent upon obtaining in struction The dryness of his manner, however, is amply compensated by the perspicuity of his arrangement, the In genuity of his disquisitions, and the pro fundity of his thoughts. Many useful observations on the general principles of composition are to be found in Ci cero's treatises on the subject of orato ry; and the Institutes of Qnintilian also contain a rich mine of criticism. Much useful instruction may also be gained from the critical dissertations, which occasion ally occur in the Satires and Epistles of Horace, and especially in his Epistle to the Pises on the art of Poetry. Longinus's work on the Sublime, though occasional ',deficient in precision, is written with singular energy and spirit, and evinces a feeling mind, the emotions of which are regulated by exquisite taste.
The spirit of Horace was infused into Boileau, who, of all the French critics, was the most delicate in judgment; though much praise is also due to the critical works of Rapin, Bossu, and Bonhours. Rollin's treatise on the Belles Letters is a book of great value ; and in our own days, the seeds of good taste have been widely scattered through the continent of Europe by the publication of La Har pe's LycOe.
The English language is rich in critical disquisitions, of which many excellent ones are to be found in the prefaces pre fixed by Dryden to his multifarious pro ductions. In his " Advice to an Author," Lord Shaftesbury has well asserted the dignity and importance of the art of criti cism, and has detailed, in measured and elevated style, the principles of fine writ ing, which he had collected from the study of the An tents., Pope's Essay on Criticism is too ell linown to stand in need of commendation ; and the critique of Addison on the Paradise Lost is perus ed with interest by every Englishman of cultivated mind. At a more modern pe riod, Mr. Harris, in his Philological En quiries, has exhibited the substance of the writings of Aristotle ; and Dr. John son, in his observations upon the works of the English Poets, has, not withstanding the occasional aberrations into which he was betrayed by prejudice, given decisive proofs of a superior intellect Ward's Treatise on Oratory, Priestley's Lectures on Oratory and Criticism, and Kaimes's Elements of Criticism, respectively con tain systems of considerable merit. But the standard book on this subject is Blair's Lectures on Belles Lettres. Blair was a scholar and a philosopher ; and his works only want a portion of the spirit of en thusiasm, to render them a complete mo del of didactic composition.