has a duty to the public itself is seldom remembered; that his work is of the utmost importance, and second in value only to the original conception he analyzes, is a truth few people take the pains to grasp. Coleridge thought him a mere maggot, battening upon authors' brains; yet how often has he helped us to gain some clear insight into this most shapeless and shadowy of great men! Wordsworth underrated his utility, yet Wordsworth's criticisms, save those upon his own poems, are among the finest we can read; and, to argue after the fashion of Mr. Myers, the average student would gladly exchange The Idiot Boy, or Goody Blake and Harry Gill, for another letter upon Dryden. As a matter of fact, the labors of the true critic are more essential to the author, even, than to the reader. It is natural that poets and novelists should devoutly believe that the creative faculty alone is of any true service to the world, and that it cannot rightly be put to trial by those to whom this higher gift is rigorously denied. But the critical power, though on a distinctly lower level than the creative, is of inestimable help in its development. Great work thrives
