Shakespeare is brought into line with Ovid,
Elizabeth with Achilles, and Homer with William Warner. This, no doubt,
is an extreme instance; but it is typical of the artless methods dear
to the infancy of criticism. In Jonson's _Discoveries_, such comparisons
as there are have indisputable point; but they are few, and, for the
most part, they are limited to the minuter matters of style.
It is with the Restoration that the comparative method first made its
way into English criticism; and that both in its lawful and less lawful
use. The distinction must be jealously made; for there are few matters
that lend themselves so readily to confusion and misapprehension as
this. Between two men, or two forms of art, a comparison may be run
either for the sake of placing the one above the head of the other,
or for the sake of drawing out the essential differences between the
one and the other. The latter method is indispensable to the work of
the critic. Without reference, express or implied, to other types of
genius or to other ways of treatment it is impossible for criticism
to take a single step in definition either of an author, or a movement,
or a form of art.
Pages:
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74