criticism, as now exercised, and by me explained, is wholly modern; and consequently, that the critics of Great Britain and France, have no title to an original so ancient and illustrious as I have deduced. Now, if I can clearly make out, on the contrary, that the most ancient writers have particularly described both the person and the office of a true critic, agreeable to the definition laid down by me; their grand objection, from the silence of authors, will fall to the ground.

I confess to have for a long time borne a part in this general error; from which I should never have acquitted myself, but through the assistance of our noble moderns: whose most edifying volumes I turn indefatigably over night and day, for the improvement of my mind, and the good of my country. These have with unwearied pains made many useful searches into the weak sides of the ancients, and given a comprehensive list of them. Besides, they have proved beyond contradiction, that the very finest things, delivered of old, have been long since invented, and brought to light by much later pens *; and that the noblest discoveries, those ancients ever made of art and nature, have all been produced by the transcending genius of the present age. Which clearly shews, how little merit those ancients can

* See Wotton of ancient and modern learning.

justly pretend to; and takes off that blind admiration paid them by men in a corner, who have the unhappiness of conversing too little with present things. Reflecting maturely upon all this, and taking in the whole compass of human nature, I easily concluded, that these ancients, highly sensible of their many imperfections, must needs have endeavoured, from some passages in their works, to obviate, soften, or divert the censorious reader, by satire or panegyric, upon the true critics, in imitation of their masters, the moderns. Now, in the common places of both these*, I was plentifully instructed, by a long course of useful study in prefaces and prologues; and therefore immediately resolved to try what I could discover of either, by a diligent perusal of the most ancient writers, and especially those who treated of the earliest times. Here I found, to my great surprise, that although they all entered, upon occasion, into particular descriptions of the true critic, according as they were governed by their fears or their hopes; yet whatever they touched of that kind, was with abundance of caution, adventuring no farther than mythology and hieroglyphic. This, I suppose, gave ground to superficial readers, for urging the silence of authors against the antiquity of the true critic; though the types

Satire and panegyric upon critics.

are so apposite, and the applications so necessary and natural, that it is not easy to conceive, how any reader of a modern eye and taste could overlook them. I shall venture, from a great number to produce a few, which, I am very confident, will put this question beyond dispute.

It well deserves considering, that these ancient writers, in treating enigmatically upon the subject, have generally fixed upon the very same hieroglyph; varying only the story, according to their affections, or their wit. For, first, Pausanias is of opinion, that the perfection of writing correct, was entirely owing to the institution of critics. And that he can possibly mean no other than the true critic, is, I think, manifest enough from the following description. He says,

*

They were a race of men who delighted to nibble at the superfluities and excrescences of books; which the learned at length observing, took warning, of their own accord, to lop the luxuriant, the rotten, the dead, the sapless, and the overgrown branches, from their works." But now, all this he cunningly shades under the following allegory: "That the Nauplians in Argos learned, the art of pruning their vi nes, by observing, that when an ASS had brow sed upon one of them, it thrived the better, and bore fairer fruit." But Herodotus†, holding the

* Lib.

+ Lib. 4,

very same hieroglyph, speaks much plainer, and almost in terminis. He hath been so bold as to tax the true critics of ignorance and malice, telling us openly, for I think nothing can be plainer, that "in the western part of Libya, there were ASSES with horns." Upon which relation Ctesias yet refines, mentioning the very same animal about India: adding, "that whereas all other AssEs wanted a gall, these horned ones were so redundant in that part, that their flesh was not to be eaten, because of its extreme bitterness."

*

Now, the reason why those ancient writers treated this subject only by types and figures, was, because they durst not make open attacks against a party so potent and terrible, as the critics of those ages were; whose very voice was so dreadful, that a legion of authors would tremble, and drop their pens at the sound: for so Herodotus tells us expressly in another place†, how “a vast army of Scythians was put to flight in a panic terror by the braying of an Ass." From hence it is. conjectured by certain profound philologers, that the great awe and reverence paid to a true critic by the writers of Britain, have been derived to us from those our Scythian ancestors. In short,

* Vide excerpta ex eo apud Photium.

↑ Lib. 4.