Anthony Trollope: Autobiography of Anthony Trollope

11. CHAPTER XI - "THE CLAVERINGS," THE "PALL MALL GAZETTE," "NINA BALATKA," AND "LINDA TRESSEL" (continued)

The answer to all this seems to be ready enough. The judgment, whether cruel or tender, should not be ill-judgment. He who consents to sit as judge should have capacity for judging. But in this matter no accuracy of judgment is possible. It may be that the matter subjected to the critic is so bad or so good as to make an assured answer possible. "You, at any rate, cannot make this your vocation;" or "You, at any rate, can succeed, if you will try." But cases as to which such certainty can be expressed are rare. The critic who wrote the article on the early verses of Lord Byron, which produced the English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, was justified in his criticism by the merits of the Hours of Idleness. The lines had nevertheless been written by that Lord Byron who became our Byron. In a little satire called The Biliad, which, I think, nobody knows, are the following well-expressed lines:--

"When Payne Knight's Taste was issued to the town,
A few Greek verses in the text set down
Were torn to pieces, mangled into hash,
Doomed to the flames as execrable trash,--
In short, were butchered rather than dissected,
And several false quantities detected,--
Till, when the smoke had vanished from the cinders,
'Twas just discovered that--THE LINES WERE PINDAR'S!"

There can be no assurance against cases such as these; and yet we are so free with our advice, always bidding the young aspirant to desist.