Excerpt from Essays in Literary Criticism Very sensible that the only value they are likely to have will arise not from any special literary ability or insight of mine, but solely from the constant de light which I have taken in the writers here reviewed, - who have indeed lived with me and in me, till their world has become a genuine part of my own by no means too rich intellectual life. It is in this way, I cannot help thinking, - by soaking themselves thor oughly with a few great writers, instead of spreading their interests so widely as most literary men do, - that educated men of only ordinary capacities such as mine may do most for the service of literature and the culture of their own minds. It is but few who in any age can really aspire to the position of great cr'itics, - critics such as Coleridge, or Hazlitt, or Lamb, or Lowell, or Emerson. But many, by a more intense concentration of their inferior intel lectual powers, might become both good interpreters and, to a certain extent, just critics of a few great. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.