Often enough it is only a cloak for
covering the obscurity, incompetence and insignificance of the critic.
It is incredible what impudence these fellows will show, and what
literary trickery they will venture to commit, as soon as they know
they are safe under the shadow of anonymity. Let me recommend a
general _Anti-criticism_, a universal medicine or panacea, to put a
stop to all anonymous reviewing, whether it praises the bad or blames
the good: _Rascal! your name_! For a man to wrap himself up and draw
his hat over his face, and then fall upon people who are walking about
without any disguise--this is not the part of a gentleman, it is the
part of a scoundrel and a knave.
An anonymous review has no more authority than an anonymous letter;
and one should be received with the same mistrust as the other. Or
shall we take the name of the man who consents to preside over what
is, in the strict sense of the word, _une societe anonyme_ as a
guarantee for the veracity of his colleagues?
Even Rousseau, in the preface to the _Nouvelle Heloise_, declares
_tout honnete homme doit avouer les livres qu'il public_; which in
plain language means that every honorable man ought to sign his
articles, and that no one is honorable who does not do so.
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