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Updated: May 31, 2025
Never was any biographer more sparing of his praise, or more abundant in his censures. He seemingly delights more in exposing blemishes, than in recommending beauties; slightly passes over excellencies, enlarges upon imperfections, and not content with his own severe reflections, revives old scandal, and produces large quotations from the forgotten works of former criticks.
The stories, which we now find only in remoter authours, were in his time accessible and familliar. The fable of "As You Like It", which is supposed to be copied from Chaucer's Gamelyn, was a little pamphlet of those times; and old Mr. Cibber remembered the tale of Hamlet in plain English prose, which the criticks have now to seek in Saxo Grammaticus.
Yet conjectural criticism has been of great use in the learned world; nor is it my intention to depreciate a study, that has exercised so many mighty minds, from the revival of learning to our own age, from the Bishop of Aleria to English Bentley. The criticks on ancient authours have, in the exercise of their sagacity, many assistances, which the editor of Shakespeare is condemned to want.
There is often on both sides a vigilance not over-benevolent; and as attention is strongly excited, so that nothing drops unheeded, any difference in taste or opinion, and some difference where there is no restraint will commonly appear, immediately generates dislike. 'Never let criticisms operate upon your face or your mind; it is very rarely that an authour is hurt by his criticks.
Criticks, I saw, that other's names efface, And fix their own, with labour, in the place; Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd, Or disappear'd, and left the first behind. Pope.
It will be thought strange, that, in enumerating the defects of this writer, I have not yet mentioned his neglect of the unities: his violation of those laws which have been instituted and established by the joint authority of poets and criticks.
For my own part I am so professed an Admirer of this antiquated Song, that I shall give my Reader a Critick upon it, without any further Apology for so doing. The greatest Modern Criticks have laid it down as a Rule, that an Heroick Poem should be founded upon some important Precept of Morality, adapted to the Constitution of the Country in which the Poet writes.
Criticks, I saw, that other's names efface, And fix their own, with labour, in the place; Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd, Or disappear'd, and left the first behind,
To descend still to a lower Order of Criticks, you'll find very few Coffee-Houses in this opulent City without an illiterate Mechanick, Commenting upon the most material Occurrences, and Judging the Actions of the greatest Councils in Europe, and rarely a Victualing House, but you meet with a Tinker, a Cobler, or a Porter, Criticizing upon the Speeches of Majesty, or the Writings of the most celebrated Men of the Age.
The captain tells me, it is the opinion of some of the Indian criticks, that he was an academy-keeper, who wrote for the instruction of his scholars; and of others, that he was a fond father who wrote for the entertainment of his children; but as it is very possible that both of them may be mistaken, I shall not presume to decide which of them have been so fortunate as to discover the truth in a matter of such evident importance.
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