the great radical
of America, the arch-radical of the world, was revolting against the
evils whose roots were in universal suffrage. By showing the identity in
essence of all tyranny, and by bringing back the attention of political
thinkers to its starting-point, the value of human character, he has
advanced the political thought of the world by one step. He has pointed
out for us in this country to what end our efforts must be bent.

* * * * *

WALT WHITMAN

It would be an ill turn for an essay-writer to destroy Walt
Whitman,--for he was discovered by the essayists, and but for them his
notoriety would have been postponed for fifty years. He is the mare's
nest of "American Literature," and scarce a contributor to The Saturday
Review but has at one time or another raised a flag over him.

The history of these chronic discoveries of Whitman as a poet, as a
force, as a something or a somebody, would write up into the best
possible monograph on the incompetency of the Anglo-Saxon in matters of
criticism.

English literature is the literature of genius, and the Englishman is
the great creator. His work outshines the genius of Greece. His wealth
outvalues the combined wealth of all modern Europe. The English mind is
the only unconscious mind the world has ever seen. And for this reason
the English mind is incapable of criticism. There has never been an
English critic of the first rank, hardly a critic of any rank; and the
critical work of England consists either of an academical bandying of a
few old canons and shibboleths out of Horace or Aristotle, or else of
the merest impressionism, and wordy struggle to convey the sentiment
awakened by the thing studied.

Now, true criticism means an attempt to find out what something is, not
for the purpose of judging it, or of imitating it, nor for the purpose
of illustrating something else, nor for any other ulterior purpose
whatever.

The so-called canons of criticism are of about as much service to a
student of literature as the Nicene Creed and the Lord's Prayer are to
the student of church history. They are a part of his subject, of
course, but if he insists upon using them as a tape measure and a
divining-rod he will produce a judgment of no possible value to any one,
and interesting only as a record of a most complex state of mind.

The educated gentlemen of England have surveyed literature with these
ti