he sport
and plaything of the critics. Mrs. Oliphant, in her _Literary History of
England_, said with much truth: "There are few things so amusing as to
read a really 'slashing article'--except perhaps to write it. It is
infinitely easier and gayer work than a well-weighed and serious
criticism, and will always be more popular. The lively and brilliant
examples of the art which dwell in the mind of the reader are
invariably of this class." Thus it happens that we remember the witty
onslaughts of the reviewers, and often ignore the fact that certain
witticisms drove Byron, for example, into a frenzy of anger that called
forth the most vigorous satire of the century; and others so completely
unnerved Shelley that he felt tempted to write no more; and still others
were so unanimously hostile in tone that Coleridge thought the whole
detested tribe of critics was in league against his literary success.
There were, of course, such admirable personalities as Wordsworth's--for
the most part indifferent to the strongest torrent of abuse; and clever
craftsmen like Tennyson, who, although hurt, read the criticisms and
profited by them; but, on the other hand, there are still well-informed
readers who believe that the _Quarterly Review_ at least hastened the
death of poor Keats.

It has been suggested that such a volume of the "choice crudities of
criticism" as is here proposed would likewise fulfill the desirable
purpose of avenging the author upon his ancient enemy, the critic, by
showing how absurd the latter's utterances often are, and what a
veritable farrago of folly those collected utterances can make. We may
rest assured that however much hostile criticism may have pained an
author, it has never inflicted a permanent injury upon a good book. If
there appear to be works that have been thus more or less obscured, the
fault will probably be found not in the critic but in the works
themselves. According to this agreeable theory, which we would all fain
believe, the triumph of the ignorant or malevolent critic cannot endure;
sooner or later the author's merit will be recognized and he will come
into his own.

The present volume does not attempt to fulfill the conditions suggested
by Dr. Matthews and Mr. Collins. A history of contemporary criticism of
famous authors would be a more ambitious undertaking, necessitating an
extensive apparatus of notes and references. It seeks merely to gather a
number of interesting anomalies of