Only from a mind conversant with the First
Philosophy can definitions be expected. Coleridge has contributed
many valuable ones to modern literature. Mr. Landor's definitions
are only enumerations of particulars; the generic law is not seized.
But as it is not from the highest Alps or Andes, but from less
elevated summits, that the most attractive landscape is commanded, so
is Mr. Landor the most useful and agreeable of critics. He has
commented on a wide variety of writers, with a closeness and an
extent of view, which has enhanced the value of those authors to his
readers. His Dialogue on the Epicurean philosophy is a theory of the
genius of Epicurus. The Dialogue between Barrow and Newton is the
best of all criticisms on the Essays of Bacon. His picture of
Demosthenes in three several Dialogues is new and adequate. He has
illustrated the genius of Homer, Aeschylus, Pindar, Euripides,
Thucydides. Then he has examined before he expatiated, and the
minuteness of his verbal criticism gives a confidence in his
fidelity, when he speaks the language of meditation or of passion.
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