ℓ. 2

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[Left side]
is what you are continually doing. If
your canon is propounded as a paradox
(though you hate paradoxes, I
believe) it has no brilliancy, if as
a deliberate belief I call it remarkably
weak. Surely it is a shallow thing, because
there are bad, narrow-minded,
irritating and feeble critics, to forbid
the possibility of fine critics arising.
Why not, on your grounds, disbelieve
in the poets, because Nahum and
tate, Pye, Dr. Watts, Dr. Johnson, Eliza
Cook and Close, the king of Bonny's
laureate, have supposed themselves so?

[Right side]
Is there no majesty in judgement?
You have not far to look for a man
whose whole powers have been devoted
to criticism, powers which
in their line are perhaps equal to
those of the men whose works he criticises.
Now Ruskin is a critic whom
you admire. Criticism, I own is a rare
gift, poetical criticism at all events,
but it does exist. You speak
with horror of Shaksperian criticism,
but it appears to me that among Shakspere's
critics have been seen instances of genius,
of deep insight, of great delicacy, of
power, of poetry, of ingenuity, of everything
a critic should have. I will
instance Schlegel, Coleridge, Charles
Lamb, Mrs. Jameson. While I attack
your canon, remember that no one

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