will."

Enough, perhaps, has now been said about his critical method; and, as
this book proposes to deal with results, it is right to enquire into the
effect of that method upon men who aspired to follow him, at whatever
distance, in the path of criticism. The answer can be easily given. He
taught us, first and foremost, to judge for ourselves; to take nothing
at second hand; to bow the knee to no reputation, however high its
pedestal in the Temple of Fame, unless we were satisfied of its right to
stand where it was. Then he taught us to discriminate, even in what we
loved best, between its excellences and its defects; to swallow nothing
whole, but to chew the cud of disinterested meditation, and accept or
reject, praise or blame, in accordance with our natural and deliberate
taste. He taught us to love Beauty supremely, to ensue it, to be on the
look out for it; and, when we found it--when we found what really and
without convention satisfied our "sense for beauty"--to adore it, and,
as far as we could, to imitate it. Contrariwise, he taught us to shun
and eschew what was hideous, to make war upon it, and to be on our guard
against its contaminating influence. And this teaching he applied alike
to hideousness in character, sight, and sound--to "watchful jealousy"
and rancour and uncleanness; to the "dismal Mapperly Hills," and the
"uncomeliness of Margate," the "squalid streets of Bethnal Green," and
"Coles' Truss Manufactory standing where it ought not, on the finest
site in Europe"; to such poetry as--

And scarcely had she begun to wash
When she was aware of the grisly gash,

to such hymns as--