fessed there are some excellent essays in those papers, and that upon science as well as trade.

V. But there is a danger of mistake in our judgment of books, on the other hand also: for when we have made ourselves masters of any particular theme of knowledge, and surveyed it long on all sides, there is perhaps scarce any writer on that subject who much entertains and pleases us afterwards, because we find little or nothing new in him; and yet, in a true judgment, perhaps his sentiments are most proper and just, his explication clear, and his reasoning strong, and all the parts of the discourse are well connected, and set in a happy light; but we knew most of those things before, and therefore they strike us not, and we are in danger of discommending them.

Thus the learned and the unlearned have their several distinct dangers and prejudices ready to attend them in their judgment of the writings of men. These which I have mentioned are a specimen of them, and indeed but a mere specimen; for the prejudices that warp our judg ment aside from truth are almost infinite and endless.

VI. Yet I cannot forbear to point out two or three more of these follies, that I may attempt something toward the correction of them, or at least to guard others against them.

There are some persons of a forward and lively temper, and who are fond to intermeddle with all appearances of knowledge, will give their judgment on a book as soon as the title of it is mentioned, for they would not willingly seem ignorant of any thing that others know. And especially if they happen to have any superior character or possessions of this world, they fancy they have a right to talk freely upon every thing that stirs or appears, though they have no other pretence to this freedom. Divito is worth forty thousand pounds. Politulus is a fine young gentleman who sparkles in all the shining things of dress and equipage. Aulinus is a small attendant on a minister of state, and is at court almost every day. These three happened to meet in a visit where an excellent book of warm and refined devotions

F

lay in the window. "What dull stuff is here!" said Divito; "I never read so much nonsense in one page in my life; nor would I give a shilling for a thousand such treatises." Aulinus, though a courtier, had not used to speak roughly, yet would not allow there was a line of good sense in the book, and pronounced him a madman that wrote it in his secret retirement, and declared him a fool that published it after his death. Politulus had more manners than to differ from men of such rank and character, and therefore he sneered at the devout expressions as he heard them read, and made the divine treatise a matter of scorn and ridicule; and yet it was well known, that neither this fine gentleman, nor the courtier, nor the man of wealth, had a grain of devotion in them beyond their horses that waited at the door with their gilded chariots. But this is the way of the world; blind men will talk of the beauty of colours, and of the harmony or disproportion of figures in painting; the deaf will prate of discords in music; and those who have nothing to do with religion will arraign the best treatise on divine subjects, though they do not understand the very language of the Scripture, nor the common terms or phrases used in Christianity.

VII. I might here name another sort of judges, who will set themselves up to decide in favour of an author, or will pronounce him a mere blunderer, according to the company they have kept, and the judgment they have heard passed upon a book by others of their own stamp or size, though they have no knowledge or taste of the subject themselves. These, with a fluent and voluble tongue, become mere echoes of the praises or censures of other men. Sonillus happened to be in the room where the three gentlemen just mentioned gave out their thoughts so freely upon an admirable book of devotion: and two days afterwards he met with some friend of his, where this book was the subject of conversation and praise. Sonillus wondered at their dulness, and repeated the jests which he had heard cast upon the weakness of the author. His knowledge of the book, and his decision upon it, was all from hearsay, for he had never seen it:

and if he had read it through, he had no manner of right to judge about the things of religion, having no more knowledge nor taste of any thing of inward piety, than a hedge-hog or a bear has of politeness.

When I had written these remarks, Probus, who knew all the four gentlemen, wished they might have an opportunity to read their own character as it is represented here. Alas! Probus, I fear it would do them very little good, though it may guard others against their folly: for there is never a one of them would find their own name in these characters if they read them; though all their acquaintance would acknowledge the features immediately, and see the persons almost alive in the picture.

VIII. There is yet another mischievous principle, which prevails among some persons in passing a judgment on the writings of others, and that is, when from the secret stimulations of vanity, pride, or envy, they despise a valuable book, and throw contempt upon it by wholesale: and if you ask them the reason of their severe censure, they will tell you, perhaps, they have found a mistake or two in it, or there are a few sentiments or expressions not suited to their tooth and humour. Bavius cries down an admirable treatise of philosophy, and says there is atheism in it, because there are a few sentences that seem to suppose brutes to be mere machines. Under the same influence, Momus will not allow Paradise Lost to be a good poem, because he had read some flat and heavy lines in it, and he thought Milton had too much honour done him. It is a paltry humour that inclines a man to rail at any human performance, because it is not absolutely perfect. Horace would give us a better example:

Sunt delicta quibus nos ignovisse delimus,

Nam neque chorda sonum reddit quam vult manus et mens,
Nec semper feriet quodcunque minabitur arcus:

Atque ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis

Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria judit,

Aut humana parum cavit natura.

Thus Englished:

Be not too rigidly censorious;

Hor. de Art. Poet.

A string may jar in the best master's hand,

And the most skilful archer miss his aim:
So in a poem elegantly writ,

I will not quarrel with a small mistake,
Such as our nature's frailty may excuse.

ROSCOMMON.

This noble translator of Horace, whom I here cite, has a very honourable opinion of Homer in the main; yet he allows him to be justly censured for some grosser spots and blemishes in him:

For who without aversion ever look'd

On holy garbage, though by Homer cook'd;
Whose railing heroes, and whose wounded gods,
Make some suspect he snores as well as nods.

Such wise and just distinctions ought to be made when we pass a judgment on mortal things; but envy condemns by wholesale. Envy is a cursed plant; some fibres of it are rooted almost in every man's nature, and it works in a sly and imperceptible manner, and that even in some persons who in the main are men of wisdom and piety. They know not how to bear the praises that are given to an ingenious author, especially if he be living, and of their profession, and therefore they will, if possible, find some blemish in his writings, that they may nibble and bark at it. They will endeavour to diminish the honour of the best treatise that has been written on any subject, and to render it useless by their censures, rather than suffer their envy to lie asleep, and the little mistakes of that author to pass unexposed. Perhaps they will commend the work in general with a pretended air of candour; but pass so many sly and invidious remarks upon it afterwards, as shall effectually destroy all their cold and formal praises.*

IX. When a persons feels any thing of this invidious humour working in him, he may by the following consideration attempt the correction of it. Let him think

I grant, when wisdom itself censures a weak and foolish performance, it will pass its severe sentence, and yet with an air of candour, if the author has any thing valuable in him; but envy will sometimes imitate the same favourable airs, in order to make its false cavils appear more just and credible, when it has a mind to snarl at some of the brightest performances of a human writer.

with himself how many are the beauties of such an author whom he censures, in comparison of his blemishes, and remember that it is a much more honourable and goodnatured thing to find out peculiar beauties than faults; true and undisguised candour is a much more amiable and divine talent than accusation. Let him reflect again, what an easy matter it is to find a mistake in all human authors, who are necessarily fallible and imperfect.

I confess, where an author sets up himself to ridicule divine writers, and things sacred, and yet assumes an air of sovereignty and dictatorship, to exalt and almost deify all the pagan ancients, and cast his scorn upon all the moderns, especially if they do but savour of miracles and the gospel; it is fit the admirers of this author should know, that nature and these ancients are not the same, though some writers always unite them. Reason and nature never made these ancient heathens their standard, either of art or genius, of writing or heroism. Sir Richard Steele, in his little essay, called the Christian Hero, has shown our Saviour and St. Paul in a more glorious and transcendant light than a Virgil or Homer could do for their Achilles, Ulysses, or Æneas: and I am persuaded, if Moses and David had not been inspired writers, these very men would have ranked them at least with Herodotus and Horace, if not given them the superior place.

But where an author has many beauties consistent with virtue, piety, and truth, let not little critics exalt themselves and shower down their ill nature upon him, without bounds or measure; but rather stretch their own powers of soul till they write a treatise superior to that which they condemn. This is the noblest and surest manner of suppressing what they censure.

A little wit, or a little learning, with a good degree of vanity and ill-nature, will teach a man to pour out whole pages of remark and reproach upon one real or fancied mistake of a great and good author: and this may be dressed up by the same talents, and made entertaining enough to the world, who loves reproach and scandal: but if the remarker would but once make this attempt, and try to outshine the author by writing a better book on the same subject, he would soon be convinced of his