Abstract
It has often been pointed out, but not so easily illustrated, that a study of the particular often leads to a better understanding of the general. I mean to supply that lack of illustration. In my ease the general refers to that broad field of literary criticism from Socrates to today in which I have been mildly interested for some time. The need for a particular point of concentration brought to mind an essay on Dryden I had read somewhere awhile ago. It was not a particularly erudite work as I recalled, but it had introduced me to Dryden in so charming a manner that I had not forgotten him. The author, I soon discovered, was James Hussell Lowell, but that was the very least of my discoveries, as I hope I have made clear in the following pages, however, not only have I learned about Lowell, whom I now realize is the first American critic of importance, but (to return to my illustration) I believe I have come a little closer that great body of critical knowledge by this examination of one of its members.