Page:In the dozy hours, and other papers.djvu/162

 148 who called Dante a "Methodist parson in Bedlam," or who said that Wordsworth's poetry would "never do," or who spoke of the "caricaturist, Thackeray." It is no anonymous reviewer now who bids us exult and be glad over the "literary emancipation of the West," as though that large and flourishing portion of the United States had hitherto been held in lettered bondage.

In fact, as one's experience in these matters increases day by day, one is fain to acknowledge that the work of the unknown or little known professional critic, faulty though it be, has certain modest advantages over the similar work of his critics, the poets and novelists when they take to the business of reviewing. There are several very successful story-writers who are just now handling criticism after a fashion which recalls that delightful scene in "The Monks of Thelema," where an effort to make the village maidens vote a golden apple to the prettiest of their number is frustrated by the unforeseen contingency of each girl voting for herself. In the same artless spirit, the novelist turned critic confines his good will so exclusively to his own work, or at best