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Various

"English literary criticism"


The first is not unworthy of the _Reflections_ or the _Appeal from the
New to the Old Whigs_; the second shows that fruitful study of the
Bible and the poets, English and classical, to which his later writings
and speeches bear witness on every page.
If the originality and depth of Burke's treatise is to be justly
measured, it should be set side by side with those papers of Addison
which Akenside expanded in his dismal _Pleasures of the Imagination_.
The performance of Addison, grateful though one must be to him for
attempting it, is thin and lifeless. That of Burke is massive and full
of suggestion. At every turn it betrays the hand of the craftsman who
works with his eye upon his tools. The speculative side of criticism
has never been a popular study with Englishmen, and it is no accident
that one of the few attempts to deal seriously with it should have
been made at the only time when philosophy was a living power among
us, and when the desire to get behind the outward shows of things was
keener than it has ever been before or since.


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