m, and wins its way to the
popular heart.

+6. Classic Writers.+ Our classic writers are those who have most nearly
approached the ideal. The writings of Addison, Goldsmith, Irving,
Lowell, and others, embody in a high degree excellence of matter and
form; and in addition to this there is a pervading spirit that imparts
an irresistible charm to their works. While the works of no one writer,
whether ancient or modern, can be taken as an absolute standard of
judgment, the perusal of classic works is exceedingly helpful. These
works familiarize us with what is excellent in thought, expression, and
spirit. They cultivate the taste; and at length it becomes impossible
for the student to be satisfied with what is incorrect, slovenly,
tawdry, or untruthful.

+7. Requisites of Criticism.+ Many things are required for the best
criticism. First of all, the critic ought to be a person of sound
judgment. It is in a measure true that critics, like poets, "are born,
not made." The critic should have the power to divest himself of
prejudice; and, like a judge upon the bench, should decide every
question by the law and the evidence. He should be a man of broad
sympathies and wide culture; nothing that is human should be foreign to
him. He should be able to enter into the feelings of every class and to
appreciate the principles of every school. He should have a strong
imagination to enable him to realize the conditions of other ages or of
other social arrangements. Without these natural gifts of a sound
judgment, broad sympathy, and vigorous imagination, the critic is apt to
be limited, narrow, or unjust in his criticism. The history of
literature reveals numberless critical blunders; indeed, almost every
attempt to introduce new literary forms, as in the case of Wordsworth,
Coleridge, and Keats, has met with bitter opposition from uncatholic
critics.

+8. Criticism an Acquired Art.+ Criticism is an art that may in large
measure be acquired. The requisite faculties may be developed by a
course of study. The principles that are to guide the critical judgment
are provided in grammar, rhetoric, logic, aesthetics, and moral science.
Wide reading in various departments will banish narrowness and
provincialism. Study and experience will bring a cosmopolitan culture.
Though few are capable of attaining to eminence as critics, it is
possible for every one to acquire some degree of literary taste and to
form an intelligent judgment of a lite