THE ATHENÆUM.

No. 4. APRIL 1st, 1807.

GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE.

SIR,

ON REVIEWS.

To the Editor of the Athenæum.

THE present multiplicity of literary Reviews, and the great freedom of censure in which some of them indulge, having pro duced much discussion concerning their utility and proper office, I beg leave to offer some observations on the subject through the medium of the Athenæum, which I do with the less hesitation, as I perceive that criticism on modern authors makes no part of its plan.

The business of a reviewing critic may be divided into three branches, which it will be of advantage to consider separately: these are, information, correction, and addition.

I. The most essential part of the office of a reviewer must be admitted to be, the communicating to the public such information respecting the works offered to it as may direct the choice of readers, and serve all the purposes of literary intelligence. This was, doubtless, the primary intention of the projectors of these publications, as may be judged by the titles of several of them, which express nothing but historical notice; and it has been almost exclusively pursued in some of the most distinguished, especially on the continent. In this view, the critic acts as a kind of appraiser between the author and the public; and it is his particular business to see that the goods presented for sale (to use mercantile language) are really what they profess to be, and that nothing fallacious or defective is offered under a specious title. Where the subject will admit of it, exact analysis is requisite, whereby an intelligent reader may discover what there is of novelty in the plan or execution. Specimens, fairly selected, are to be given; new facts and observations are to be pointed out; and every thing is to be placed in view which may conduce to a full and impar tial judgment of the merits of the work under consideration. The

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duty

duly of the reviewer in this part of his office will form a rule for his prerogatives. If it is his duty to see whether the book fulfils its promises, it is also his right to detect and expose all those faults that depreciate its value and detract from the pretensions of the writer; such are, plagiarisms, repetitions, blunders, deficiencies, and the like. The extent of literary and scientific knowledge requisite for the adequate execution of this branch of the reviewer's office, renders it a higher department than is perhaps conceived by those critics, whose great object seems to be the giving scope to their own opinions upon every occasion, and appearing as original writers. In fact, it is that branch in which an unpractised reviewer is most liable to lose credit; and nothing can more display the difference between the real man of letters and the shallow pretender, than the manner in which this task is performed; it is also that part of his duty which most exposes the censor to the resentment of bad writers. Nothing irritates more than detection; and I believe it will be found, that the loudest complaints among authors and publishers have been excited by the fair exposure of such faults as could not honestly have been passed over. We have in these times a perpetual current of new publications by needy writers, who are totally unqualified to treat on any one subject from their own stores, and rely upon transcript, compilation, and pillage of every kind, to fill up the destined measure of their volumes. public is continually cheated by titles promising what is never performed; by false pretensions to novelty and originality; and by all the arts of amplification, which render the little that may be worth reading a scandalously dear bargain, on account of the worthless matter in which it is enveloped. It may, I fear, be truly asserted, to the disgrace of modern authorship, that in no species of merchandize are more frauds and impositions practised than in that which issues from the press. The reviewer's office lays him under the obligation of exposing these, and no private considerations ought to restrain him from the performance of so essential a duty.

The

Having informed his readers of what a book contains, and how far it corresponds with its title and proposals, the reviewer may wave the consideration of its absolute value, for of this there is scarcely any criterion. It must appear in a totally different light to persons engaged in different objects of pursuit; and no one, perhaps, has a right to estimate this for another. The antiquary and the naturalist may mutually hold each other's researches in contempt, and the theologian or metaphysician may despise those of both; but the general critic is bound to give a free allowance to the tastes and pursuits of all. Indeed, he cannot possibly be an adequate judge of a work upon a topic which he himself has not studied, and for which, therefore, he may not be presumed to have acquired a predilection. It is to be remembered, that a review is not consulted for the purpose of being instructed in what ought to be the objects of an individual's study, but for that of being informed whether such and such books, which from their titles attract the reader's notice, are worth his perusal. If they are

estimable

estimable to the class to whom they are directed, they have their appropriate value.

The

II. We are next to consider the corrective office of a reviewer; an important, but at the same time a delicate part of his duty. This regards both the author and the public. Correction, as it respects the author, can avowedly only have his benefit in view; it therefore sup-* poses a certain degree of approbation, and implies the opinion, that the work he has published is worth amendment, or that something good is to be expected from the future exertion of his talents. eritic here takes upon him the character of a preceptor; and there is no species of literary defect which he may not with propriety point out to his pupil. Undoubtedly in this case he assumes a superiority which may subject him to the imputation of self-conceit, and his critical remarks are all at the hazard of his reputation. A cautious, or a modest man, will therefore be sparing of his emendatory observations, which are rather spontaneous than required from him in his reviewing capacity.

With regard to the public, his corrective office is more limited, but at the same time more obligatory. As a literary censor, he is to consider himself as the guardian of literary propriety. A faults of diction, therefore, come under his inspection; and it is a very important part of his business to mark out and stiginatise those violations of purity and good taste which the affectation of singularity on one hand, and the cant of fashion on the other, are perpetually obtruding upon language, to the danger of its lasting injury. Those faults, too, which more properly belong to style, such as excess of ornament, turgid pomposity, finical nicety, unnatural transposition, perplexed arrangement, and the like, are open to his animadversion.

Nor can he be said to

exceed his due limits when he notes logical errors, such as sophistical and inconclusive reasoning of every kind. This he may do without making himself a party in the matter in debate, merely as the advocate of good writing.

But there is a still higher department of correction to which the reviewer's office extends; that of moral default. In a country, where the press is not subject to the control of a licenser, it is of high importance that the self-constituted tribunals to which authors are by custom rendered amenable, should take cognizance of every thing in which the public morality is concerned. It cannot be doubted, that every sentiment in a writer obviously subversive of the principles of virtue, and every picture and expression offensive to decency and tending to excite licentious emotions, is a just object of the castigation of a literary censor, who is performing an essential service to society when he puts readers upon their guard against the seductions of loose and immoral publications. But there is danger, lest in fulfilling this duty he should assume too much of the inquisitorial spirit, and should extend to systems and opinions those censures which are just only when applied to direct immoralities. There is no character which the reviewers of this country are so ready to sustain, as that of the cham

pions of particular dogmas; and when these are brought into the field of discussion, they are prone to exchange their proper office of reporters for that of controversialists. The zeal by which they are actuated may be honest and well-intentioned; but they ought to know, that in attempting to perform one duty to the public, they infringe another, and that they infallibly cease to give fair and impartial representations of works when they aim at refuting them. I cannot think that the reviewer's correcting office reaches to such matters of debatę as are the common and allowed topics of literary controversy. At least, if he chooses to make himself a party in such contests, he must be content to forfeit the proud prerogative of holding the critical baJance, and of acting in the character of Literary Justice personified. Such a character requires him, temporarily at least, to discard from his mind all preferences of one system above another, and solely to confine his judgment to the manner in which the writer before him maintains his cause. In this he will generally find no small exercise for his censorial powers. Besides the ability with which the polemic has performed his task, he will have to consider the temper and spirit in which it is done. Here it is proper that the reviewer should stedfastly adhere to one principle, namely, the equal right of every literary disputant to a hearing, and consequently his equality in the controversial field to any antagonist. It will therefore become him to express his disapprobation of every instance of arrogance and intolerance in the party who, taking the high ground of authority, may be disposed to refuse to another the same right of freely maintaining his opinions that he himself assumes. Every other indication of bigotry and illiberality will also call for his animadversion; and he will regard it as his office to protect the modest against the insolent, the mild and urbane against the rude and ferocious. There is no doubt that these literary courts of honour have much contributed to soften the asperity of debate, and preserve decorum between combatants; and they would have been more efficacious in this respect, had they always been content to act as umpires, and abstained from interfering in the character of partisans.

III. With respect to the additions which a reviewer may furnish to his articles, or, in other words, the degree in which he may appear as an original writer, the question has in some measure been anticipated under the last head; since his taking the part of a principal in the controversial topics that come before him, is that kind of original writing to which he will naturally feel the greatest propensity. There are, however, periodical critics, who, in the confidence of their own abilities, and stimulated by the ambition of shining, or the appetite of talking, start away upon the hint of the author's title-page, entirely lose sight of his book, and launching out as essayists, kindly oblige their readers with a full detail of their own systems and notions. It cannot be denied, that such sallies have occasionally given birth to valuable and ingenious disquisitions; but surely it may be affirmed, that in a work professing itself to be a review of other persons' performances,

non erat his locus," these voluntaries are out of place. The most useful and appropriate addition is when, upon occasion of a book on some curious or uncommon subject, a well-informed critic presents a preliminary view of all that has hitherto been written concerning it, and thus gratifies his reader with a piece of scientific or literary history, which he might be at a loss to find elsewhere. Some of the more learned of the reviewing tribe have followed this plan with great success, and have thereby conferred a value upon their publications superior to that of a mere report of the passing literature of the time. Additions, likewise, which are supplementary to the work under consideration, and convey information with which the author was unacquainted, will always be well received, and favourably distinguish the adept in the department he has undertaken, from the tiro or smatterer. Such displays of knowledge and erudition, if less brilliant than original dissertations and rhetorical flourishes, are abundantly more useful, and will in the end conduce more to the solid reputation of the review.

A remark or two on the language and manner adopted by literary censors shall conclude this discussion.

1

A strain of petulance has not been unusual to periodical critics, especially of the younger sort, who have appeared to regard authors as so many culprits brought before them for sentence, and have put on all the airs of superiority which would be justified by such a relation as that between judge and criminal. But the reviewer ought to remember, that to authors he owes his being, and that an approved writer stands, in literary merit, beyond comparison higher than his critic. Degraded as the profession of author may have become, it is ostensibly that of one who exercises the noblest of arts, for the instruction or liberal amusement of mankind; and this character is still sup→ ported in all its respectability by many individuals. The first impression given by a book is that of thought and labour, expended in a manner of which proportionally few in society are capable; and to sit down to such a performance with the purpose and expectation of meeting with matter for satire and ridicule, is surely an unpromising preparation for exercising the critical office. To raise a laugh is so sure a method of becoming popular, that we need not wonder if reviewers have been ready to indulge in the ludicrous whenever occasion offered, and that some of them have gone out of their way to find such occasions. It is to little purpose to argue against a practice which the public taste will always encourage; and it may be admitted, that the vanity, self-conceit, and extravagance of some authors, can be corrected by no chastisement so effectually as by that of ridicule. But to hurl scorn and contempt upon well-meaning and unresisting mediocrity, is unmanly; and habitually to employ sarcasm and irony, for the sake of tickling the fancy of light readers, and gaining a reputation for wit and vivacity, is to degrade the office of a literary censor.

Not much needs be said against the use of virulent invective, opprobrious epithets, and the other flowers of vituperative rhetoric, since

they