From "[Samuel] Johnson as Critic and Poet" by T.S. Eliot

"Johnson did not confuse his judgment of what an author was saying, with his judgment about the way in which he said it. Now I observe sometimes in contemporary criticism of poetry, and in the more ambitious reviewing of poetry, a confusion of these judgments. The standard of edification has been fractured into a variety of prejudices: with no common opinion as to what poetry ought to teach, the critic is not necessarily liberated from moral judgment, but will frequently declare a poem good or bad, according to his sympathy with, or antipathy from, the author’s point of view. Not infrequently too, the critic’s knowledge of the author’s views will be derived from other sources than the particular poem presented for his criticism, and will influence his judgment upon that poem. And with the question whether a poem is well or ill written, whether it could be improved, whether the cadences are musical, whether the choice of words is fastidious and literate, whether the imagery is happily found and properly distributed, whether the syntax is correct and whether the violations of normal construction are justified: such questions are avoided as if they laid the questioner under suspicion of pedantry. The result is too often comment which is of no value to the author, except when, if favorable, it may be good advertisement; a criticism of the hustings, by which reviewers range themselves for or against a particular poet."

I found this passage marked in my old copy of On Poetry and Poets by T. S. Eliot. Probably the first book of literary criticism I ever read, and it must have impressed me at the time. It still does—though I cannot help notice that, whether for criticism or review, the "value to the author" was probably not a consideration when the judgement was construed.