:

weeders of an author; they collect the weeds for their own ufe, and permit others to gather the herbs and flowers it would be of more advantage to mankind, when once an author is faithfully published, to turn our thoughts from the words to the fentiments, and make them more easy and intelligible. A skill in verbal criticisin is in reality but a skill in gueffing, and confequently he is the best critic who gueffes beft: a mighty attainment! And yet with what pomp is a trivial alteration ushered into the world! Such writers are like Caligula, who raised a mighty army, and alarmed the whole world, and then led it to gather cockle-fhells. In short, the queftion is not what the author might have faid, but what he has actually faid; it is not whether a different word will agree with the fenfe, and turn of the period, but whether it was used by the author; if it was, it has a good title fill to maintain its poft, and the authority of the manufcript ought to be followed rather than the fancy of the editor: for can a modern be a better judge of the language of the pureft of the antients, than thofe antients who wrote it in the greateft purity? or if he could, was ever any author fo happy, as always to choose the most proper word? Experience fhews the impoflibility. Befides, of what ufe is verbal críticifin when once we have a faithful edition? It embarraffes the reader instead of giving new light, and hinders his proficiency by engrofling his time, and calling off the attention from the author to the editor: it encreafts the expence of books, and makes us pay an high price for trifles, and often for abfurdities. I will only add, with

Sir Henry Saville, that various lections are now grown fo voluminous, that we begin to value the first editions of books as most correct, because leaft corrected.

Of partial

Critics.

:

There are other critics who think themfelves obliged to fee no imperfections in their author: from the moment they undertake his caufe, they look upon him, as a lover upon his mistress, he has no faults, or his very faults improve into beauties this, indeed, is a well-natured error, but ftill blameable, because it mifguides the judgment. Such critics act no less erronecufly, than a judge who should refolve to acquit a perfon, whether innocent or guilty, who comes before him upon his trial. It is frequent for the partial critic to praife the work as he likes the author; he admires a book as an antiquary a medal, folely from the impreffion of the name, and not from the intrinsic value : the copper of a favourite writer fhall be more efteemed than the finest gold of a lefs acceptable author: for this reafon many perfons have chofen to publish their works without a name, and by this method, like Apelles, who ftood unfeen behind his own Venus, have received a praife, which perhaps might have been denied if the author had been visible.

and mali

But there are other critics who act a contrary part,' and condemn all as criminals whom they try: Of envious they dwell only on the faults of an author, and endeavour to raise a reputation by dif praising every thing that other men praife; they have an antipathy to a fhining character, like fome animals, that hate the fun only because of its

cious cri

tics.

bright

brightnefs: it is a crime with them to excel; they are a kind of Tartars in learning, who feeing a perfon of diftinguished qualifications, immediately endeavour to kill him, in hopes to attain juft fo much merit as they destroy in their adverfary. I never look into one of thefe critics but he puts me in mind of a giant in romance: the glory of the giant confifts in the number of the limbs of men whom he has deftroyed; that of the critic in viewing

If ever he accidentally deviates into praife, he does it that his enfuing blame may fall with the greater weight; he adorns an author with a few flowers, as the antients thofe victims which they were ready to facrifice: he ftudies criticifm as if it extended only to difpraise; a practice, which, when moft fuccefsful, is leaft defirable. A painter might justly be thought to have a perverfe imagination, who should delight only to draw the deformities and diftortions of human nature, which, when executed by the most masterly hand, ftrike the beholder with most horror. It is ufual with envious critics to attack the writings of others, because they are good; they conftantly prey upon the fairest fruits, and hope to spread their own works by uniting them to thofe of their adversary. But this is like Mezentius in Virgil, to join a dead carcass to a living body; and the only effect of it, to fill every well-natured mind with deteftation: their malice becomes impotent, and, contrary, to their defign, they give a teftimony of their enemy's

5

merit,

merit, and shew him to be an hero by turning all their weapons against him: fuch critics are like dead coals, they may blacken, but cannot burn. Thefe writers bring to my memory a passage in the Iliad, where all the inferior powers, the Plebs Superùm, or rabble of the sky, are fancied to unite their endeavours to pull Jupiter down to the earth: but by the attempt they only betray their own inability; Jupiter is ftill Jupiter, and by their unavailing efforts they manifeft his fuperiority.

Modefty is effential to true criticifm: no man has a title to be a dictator in knowledge, and the fenfe of our own infirmities ought to teach us to treat others with humanity. The envious critic ought to confider, that if the authors be dead whom he cenfures, it is inhumanity to trample upon their afhes with infolence; that it is cruelty to fummon, implead, and condemn them with rigour and animofity, when they are not in a capacity to answer his unjuft allegations: If the authors be alive, the common laws of fociety oblige us not to commit any cutrage against another's reputation; we ought modeftly to convince, not injurioufly infult; and contend for truth, not victory: and yet the envious critic is like the tyrants of old, who thought it not enough to conquer, unless their enemics were made a public fpectacle, and dragged in triumph at their chariot-wheels but what is fuch a triumph but a barbarous infult over the calamities of their fellowcreatures? The noife of a day, purchafed with the mifery of nations? However, I would not be thought

to

to be pleading for an exemption from criticifin; I would only have it circumfcribed within the rules of candour and humanity: writers may be told of their errors, provided it be with the decency and tenderness of a friend, not the malice and paffion of an enemy; boys may be whipped into fenfe, but men are to be guided with reafon.

If we grant the malicious critic all that he claims, and allow him to have proved his adverfary's dulnefs, and his own acutenefs, yet, as long as there is virtue in the world, modeft dulnefs will be preferable to learned arrogance: Dulnefs may be a misfortune, but arrogance is a crime; and where is the mighty advantage, if, while he discovers more learning, he is found to have lefs virtue than his adverfary? And though he be a better critic, yet proves himself to be a worfe man? Befides, no one is to be envied the skill in finding fuch faults as others are fo dull as to miftake for beauties. What advantage is fuch a quickfightedness even to the poffeffors of it? It makes them difficult to be pleased, and gives them pain, while others receive a pleasure : they refemble the fecond-fighted people in Scotland, who are fabled to see more than other perfons; but all the benefit they reap from this privilege, is to discover objects of horror, ghofts, and apparitions.

But it is time to end, though I have too much reafon to enlarge the argument for candour in criticism, through a consciousness of my own deficiency: I have in reality been pleading my own caufe, that if I appear too guilty to obtain a pardon, I may find fo much

mercy