r own extremely "circumscribed talent," but who are perfectly
willing to bury, and would fain induce the world to forget, that of
every suspected rival.

Had M. Sainte-Beuve entered upon his task with similar conceptions and
associations, his early anatomical studies would perhaps have suggested
the patient under the scalpel as an appropriate device. But we are in
danger of dishonoring him by the mere supposition. Scattered through his
works--beginning with the earliest and coming down to the latest--we
find such sentences as the following: "The critical spirit is in its
nature facile, insinuating, mobile, and comprehensive; it is a great and
limpid river, which winds and spreads itself around the productions and
the monuments of genius." "The best and surest way to penetrate and to
judge any writer, any man, is to listen to him,--to listen long and
intently: do not press him; let him move and display himself with
freedom, and _of_ himself he will tell you all _about_ himself; he will
imprint himself upon your mind. Be assured that in the long run no man,
no writer, above all no poet, will preserve his secret." "It is by
virtue of an exquisite analogy that the word 'taste' has prevailed over
the word 'judgment.' Judgment! I know minds which possess it in a high
degree, but which are yet wanting in taste; for taste expresses what is
finest and most instinctive in an organ which is at once the most
delicate and the most complex." "To know how to read a book, judging it
as we go along, but never ceasing to _taste_ it,--in this consists
almost the whole art of criticism." "What Bacon says as to the proper
mode of educing the natural meaning from Scripture may be applied to
ancient writings of all kinds, or even to the most modern. The best and
sweetest criticism is that which exudes from a good book, not pressed as
in a wine-press, but squeezed gently in a free reading. I love that
criticism should be an _emanation_ from the book." "Whenever I speak of
a writer, I prefer to exhibit him in the brightest and happiest hour of
his talent, to place him, if possible, directly under the rays." "The
greatest triumph of criticism is when it recognizes the arrival of a
power, the advent of a genius." "I cannot admit that the best mode of
correcting a talent which is in process of development is to begin by
throwing an inkstand at its head." "I am almost frightened at seeing to
what an extent literary criticism becomes difficult, when