most impudent and the most absurd man in
America.

_Literature and its Professors_. By THOMAS PURNELL. London: Bell and
Daldy.

A cultivated intellect, a fair degree of shrewd perception, an
inviolable conscientiousness, a common sense frankly self-satisfied, are
some of the qualifications which Mr. Purnell brings to the discussion of
literature as seen in modern journalism, and in the lives of Giraldus
Cambrensis and Montaigne,--of Roger Williams, the literary
statesman,--of Steele, Sterne, and Swift, essayists,--of Mazzini, the
literary patriot.

Many of the conditions of literary journalism alluded to in these essays
are unknown in our country, where literature has not yet become merely a
trade, and where we cannot see that literary men are sinking in popular
esteem, and deservedly sinking, as being no better informed, or better
qualified to control opinion, than their non-writing neighbors. We can
better understand Mr. Purnell when he speaks of the imperfections and
discrepancies of criticism, but are not better able to sympathize with
all his ideas. The trouble is not, we think, that "critics who conceive
themselves to be men of taste give their opinions fearlessly, having no
misgivings that they are right," and "if a book is bad, feel it is bad,"
without being able to refer to a critical principle in proof, but that
many who write reviews have not formed opinions and have not _felt_ at
all, and have rather proceeded upon a prejudice, a supposed law of
aesthetics applicable to every exigency of literary development. A sense
of the inadequacy of criticism must trouble every honest man who sits
down to examine a new book; and it might almost be said, that no books
can be justly estimated by the critic except those which are unworthy of
criticism. Upon certain points and aspects of an author's work the
critic can justly give his convictions, and need have no misgivings
about them; but how to present a complete idea of it, and always to make
that appear characteristic which is characteristic, and that exceptional
which is exceptional, is the difficulty. Still, criticism must continue:
the perfect equipoise may never be attained, and yet we must employ the
balance, or nothing can be appraised, and traffic ceases.

It appears to us that criticism would be even more inadequate than it
is, however, if, as Mr. Purnell desires, it should have "to do solely
with the disposal of the materials, and but incidentally with