You will, of
course, never read the books you review, and you will be exhaustively
ignorant of the subjects which they treat. But you can always find fault
with the _title_ of the story which comes into your hands, a stupid
reviewer never fails to do this. You can also copy out as much of the
preface as will fill your eighth of a column, and add, that the
performance is not equal to the promise. You must never feel nor shew
the faintest interest in the work reviewed, that would be fatal. Never
praise heartily, that is the sign of an intelligence not mediocre. Be
vague, colourless, and languid, this deters readers from approaching the
book. If you have glanced at it, blame it for not being what it never
professed to be; if it is a treatise on Greek Prosody, censure the lack
of humour; if it is a volume of gay verses, lament the author's
indifference to the sorrows of the poor or the wrongs of the Armenians.
If it has humour, deplore its lack of thoughtfulness; if it is grave,
carp at its lack of gaiety. I have known a reviewer of half a dozen
novels denounce half a dozen _kinds_ of novels in the course of his two
columns; the romance of adventure, the domestic tale, the psychological
analysis, the theological story, the detective's story, the story of
"Society," he blamed them all in general, and the books before him in
particular, also the historical novel.
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