onditions as
the classifications in natural history; nor could there be a
better preparatory discipline for that important function
than the study of the principles of a natural arrangement,
not only in the abstract, but in their actual application to
the class of phenomena for which they were first elaborated,
and which are still the best school for learning their use.
Of this, the great authority on codification, Bentham, was
perfectly aware; and his early 'Fragment on Government,' the
admirable introduction to a series of writings unequalled in
their department, contains clear and just views (as far as
they go) on the meaning of a natural arrangement, such as
could scarcely have occurred to any one who lived anterior
to the age of Linnaeus and Bernard de Jussieu" (_System of
Logic_, ed. 6, ii., p. 288).

HENRY TRIMEN.

V

HIS PLACE AS A CRITIC

Mr. Mill's achievements as an economist, logician, psychologist, and
politician are known more or less vaguely to all educated men; but his
capacity and his actual work as a critic are comparatively little
regarded. In the three volumes of his collected miscellaneous
writings, very few of the papers are general reviews either of books
or of men; and even these volumes derive their character from the
essays they contain on the severer subjects with which Mr. Mill's name
has been more peculiarly associated. Nobody buys his "Dissertations
and Discussions" for the sake of his theory of poetry, or his essays
on Armand Carrel and Alfred de Vigny, noble though these are in many
ways. His essay on Coleridge is very celebrated; but it deals, not
with Coleridge's place as a poet, but with his place as a
thinker--with Coleridge as the antagonistic power to Bentham in
forming the opinions of the generation now passing away. Still at such
a time as this it is interesting to make some endeavor to estimate the
value of what Mr. Mill has done in the way of criticism. It is at
least worth while to examine whether one who has shown himself
capable of grappling effectively with the driest and most abstruse
problems that vex the human intellect was versatile enough to study
poetry with an understanding heart, and to be alive to the distinctive
powers of individual poets.

It was in his earlier life, when his enthusiasm for knowledge was fresh,
and his active mind, "all as hungry as the sea," was reaching out
ea