only upon certain points of this criticism, in
order the more firmly to establish by indirect
proof the judgment expressed above, and to
indicate certain obstacles, which the student of
Shakespeare will meet with in critical literature
relating to that poet. Our description and
definition of them may render avoidable cer-
tain of the most common errors.

Among these must be included (not in the
seat of criticism, but in the entrance-hall and
at the gates) what may be called exclamatory
criticism, which instead of understanding a poet
in his particularity, his finite-infinity, drowns
him beneath a flood of superlatives. This is
the method employed by English writers to-
wards Shakespeare (I am bound to admit that
the Italians do the same as regards Dante).
An example of this habit, selected from innum-
erable others, is Swinburne's book, from which
we learn that " it would be better that the
world should lose all the books it contains
rather than the plays of Shakespeare"; that
Shakespeare is "the supreme creator of men";
that he "stands alone," and at the most might
admit "Homer on his right and Dante on his
left hand"; then, as to individual plays, we
learn that the trilogy of Henry IV-V suffices

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