l portrait;
there are, however, some acquirements which are indispensable. He must
be tolerably acquainted with the subjects he treats on; no _common_
acquirement! He must possess the _literary history of his own times_; a
science which, Fontenelle observes, is almost distinct from any other.
It is the result of an active curiosity, which takes a lively interest
in the tastes and pursuits of the age, while it saves the journalist
from some ridiculous blunders. We often see the mind of a reviewer half
a century remote from the work reviewed. A fine feeling of the various
manners of writers, with a style adapted to fix the attention of the
indolent, and to win the untractable, should be his study; but candour
is the brightest gem of criticism! He ought not to throw everything into
the crucible, nor should he suffer the whole to pass as if he trembled
to touch it. Lampoons and satires in time will lose their effect, as
well as panegyrics. He must learn to resist the seductions of his own
pen: the pretension of composing a treatise on the _subject_, rather
than on the _book_ he criticises--proud of insinuating that he gives, in
a dozen pages, what the author himself has not been able to perform in
his volumes. Should he gain confidence by a popular delusion, and by
unworthy conduct, he may chance to be mortified by the pardon or by the
chastisement of insulted genius. The most noble criticism is that in
which the critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival of the
author.

RECOVERY OF MANUSCRIPTS.

Our ancient classics had a very narrow escape from total annihilation.
Many have perished: many are but fragments; and chance, blind arbiter of
the works of genius, has left us some, not of the highest value; which,
however, have proved very useful, as a test to show the pedantry of
those who adore antiquity not from true feeling, but from traditional
prejudice.

We lost a great number of ancient authors by the conquest of Egypt by
the Saracens, which deprived Europe of the use of the _papyrus_. They
could find no substitute, and knew no other expedient but writing on
parchment, which became every day more scarce and costly. Ignorance and
barbarism unfortunately seized on Roman manuscripts, and industriously
defaced pages once imagined to have been immortal! The most elegant
compositions of classic Rome were converted into the psalms of a
breviary, or the prayers of a missal. Livy and Tacitus "hide their
diminish