In this he declares that he has very
little gift in aesthetics, and asserts himself a dialectician, and we
cannot deny his power in logic while he regards things from a proper
stand-point. Very well! Proudhon challenged the Academy "to indicate a
_method_"--with even more reason might he have said _law_ of aesthetics.
Shall we, at last, find among the true critics of French literature any
synthetic basis which may guide us in all branches of art? What do I
find in "The Poetic Art," by Boileau, the great authority of the
Augustan age,--rhetoric, beautiful verses, full of excellent counsel? I
find there wisely arbitrated rules, a sieve through which it would be
well to pass the works of our own times, including the verdicts which
distribute the glory.
But the means of putting into practice these valuable precepts--the
criterion to establish their truth, the touchstone which may distinguish
the pure gold--does not appear! In default of these means of certitude,
each may, according to his instinct or his pride, insist that he has
fulfilled the conditions prescribed by the author of the _Lutrin_, and
judge his rivals by the sole authority of his prejudices.
La Harpe and his followers have distributed praise and blame, and at the
same time said _what_ should be done, but they have given no _how_.
More grievous still are the meanderings of the critics of our public
journals. They wander without compass and without rudder, approving or
condemning according to their friendships and antipathies; save those
_connoisseurs emerites_, whose fine, sure taste and exceptional
erudition are rarely able to supply a law and state a reason for their
judgment.
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