The World of the Sea

Abstract

THERE are two methods of reviewing a book, the ungracious and the gracious. One, and the easier, is to find all possible fault with it; to prove, at least to the critic's own satisfaction, how much better he could have written the book, if he too had had the time, and the money, and the will. As for the talent, the critic has that, as a matter of course; for is not a critic one who judges other men, and is therefore wiser than they? And as for the knowledge, that is not needed. He may acquire that in the very process of reviewing, from the book which he reviews. Thus, following nature in economising force as much as possible, he is at once learner and teacher; judge and—parasite? Taking another man's materials, he shows the world how much better a house he could have built with them; and so has the clear profit of all the author's work, his carrying of the bricks and mortar, even his planning the house, beside all the expenses incident thereto, at the cost on his own part of a few suggestions which he is not even at the trouble of seeing carried out. Thus he leaves the hapless man, who has tried to do something, instead of sitting still like the reviewer, and seeing others do it, to cry Sic vos non vobis; and after a few more attempts to write books, to give up in despair, and take to the more easy and profitable employment (at which every lad can now earn an honest penny), of showing how books should have been written.

The World of the Sea.

Translated and enlarged by the Rev. H. Martyn Hart, M.A., from “Le Monde de la Mer,” by M. Moquin Tandon, Membre de l'Institut, &c. Demy 8vo. pp. 500, with coloured and tinted plates and numerous woodcuts, price 21s. (London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.)