Tuesday, Jan. 11, 1836.—­Last meeting of the class.  Mr. Dana made some remarks intended as a sort of leave-taking.  He spoke of the importance of having some fixed principles of criticism.  These principles should be obtained from within—­from the study of our own minds.  If we try many criticisms by this standard, we shall turn away from them dissatisfied.  Addison’s criticisms on Milton are often miserable, and, where he is right, it seems to be by a sort of accident.  He constantly appeals to the French critics as authorities.  Another advantage will result from establishing principles of judging—­we shall acquire self-knowledge.  We can not ask ourselves, Is this true? does it accord with my own consciousness? etc., without gaining an acquaintance with ourselves.  And then, in general, the more the taste is cultivated and refined, the more we shall find to like.  Critics by rule, who have one narrow standard by which they try everything, may find much to condemn and little to approve:  but it is not so in nature, nor with those who judge after nature.  The great duty is to learn to be happy in ourselves....  I am surprised (said Mr. Dana) to find how much my present tastes and judgments are those of my childhood.  In some respects, to be sure, I have altered; but, in general, the authors I loved and sympathised with then, I love and sympathise with now.  When I was connected with the North-American, I wrote a review of Hazlitt’s British Poets, in which I expressed my opinion of Pope and of Wordsworth.  The sensation it excited is inconceivable.  One man said I was mad and ought to be put in a strait-jacket.  However, I did not mind it much, so long as they did not put me in one—­that, to be sure, I should not have liked very well.  Public opinion has changed since then.  Many of the old prose writers are very fine.  Jeremy Taylor, though I admire him exceedingly, has been, I think, rather indiscriminately praised....  To come to the poets again, Young should be read and thought upon.  He is often antithetical, but is a profound thinker.  I was quite ashamed the other day on taking up his works to find how many of my thoughts he had expressed better than I could express them.  I am convinced there is nothing new under the sun.  Collins has written but little, but he is a most graceful and beautiful creature.  For faithfulness of portraiture and bringing out every-day characters, Crabbe is unrivalled in modern days.  And Wordsworth—­he and Coleridge have been obliged to make minds to understand them.  Who equals Wordsworth in purity, in majesty, in tranquil contemplation, in childlikeness?  Coleridge is exerting a great influence in this country, especially over the minds of some of the young men.