Chapter i.
A crust for the critics.
In our last initial chapter we may be supposed to have treated thatformidable set of men who are called critics with more freedom thanbecomes us; since they exact, and indeed generally receive, greatcondescension from authors. We shall in this, therefore, give thereasons of our conduct to this august body; and here we shall,perhaps, place them in a light in which they have not hitherto beenseen.
This word critic is of Greek derivation, and signifies judgment. HenceI presume some persons who have not understood the original, and haveseen the English translation of the primitive, have concluded that itmeant judgment in the legal sense, in which it is frequently used asequivalent to condemnation.
I am the rather inclined to be of that opinion, as the greatest numberof critics hath of late years been found amongst the lawyers. Many ofthese gentlemen, from despair, perhaps, of ever rising to the bench inWestminster-hall, have placed themselves on the benches at theplayhouse, where they have exerted their judicial capacity, and havegiven judgment, _i.e._, condemned without mercy.
The gentlemen would, perhaps, be well enough pleased, if we were toleave them thus compared to one of the most important and honourableoffices in the commonwealth, and, if we intended to apply to theirfavour, we would do so; but, as we design to deal very sincerely andplainly too with them, we must remind them of another officer ofjustice of a much lower rank; to whom, as they not only pronounce, butexecute, their own judgment, they bear likewise some remoteresemblance.
But in reality there is another light, in which these modern criticsmay, with great justice and propriety, be seen; and this is that of acommon slanderer. If a person who prys into the characters of others,with no other design but to discover their faults, and to publish themto the world, deserves the title of a slanderer of the reputations ofmen, why should not a critic, who reads with the same malevolent view,be as properly stiled the slanderer of the reputation of books?
Vice hath not, I believe, a more abject slave; society produces not amore odious vermin; nor can the devil receive a guest more worthy ofhim, nor possibly more welcome to him, than a slanderer. The world, Iam afraid, regards not this monster with half the abhorrence which hedeserves; and I am more afraid to assign the reason of this criminallenity shown towards him; yet it is certain that the thief looksinnocent in the comparison; nay, the murderer himself can seldom standin competition with his guilt: for slander is a more cruel weapon thana sword, as the wounds which the former gives are always incurable.One method, indeed, there is of killing, and that the basest and mostexecrable of all, which bears an exact analogy to the vice heredisclaimed against, and that is poison: a means of revenge so base,and yet so horrible, that it was once wisely distinguished by our lawsfrom all other murders, in the peculiar severity of the punishment.
Besides the dreadful mischiefs done by slander, and the baseness ofthe means by which they are effected, there are other circumstancesthat highly aggravate its atrocious quality; for it often proceedsfrom no provocation, and seldom promises itself any reward, unlesssome black and infernal mind may propose a reward in the thoughts ofhaving procured the ruin and misery of another.
Shakespear hath nobly touched this vice, when he says--
"Who steals my purse steals trash; 't is something, nothing; 'Twas mine, 'tis his, and hath been slave to thousands: But he that filches from me my good name Robs me of that WHICH NOT ENRICHES HIM, BUT MAKES ME POOR INDEED."
With all this my good reader will doubtless agree; but much of it willprobably seem too severe, when applied to the slanderer of books. Butlet it here be considered that both proceed from the same wickeddisposition of mind, and are alike void of the excuse of temptation.Nor shall we conclude the injury done this way to be very slight, whenwe consider a book as the author's offspring, and indeed as the childof his brain.
The reader who hath suffered his muse to continue hitherto in a virginstate can have but a very inadequate idea of this kind of paternalfondness. To such we may parody the tender exclamation of Macduff,"Alas! Thou hast written no book." But the author whose muse hathbrought forth will feel the pathetic strain, perhaps will accompany mewith tears (especially if his darling be already no more), while Imention the uneasiness with which the big muse bears about her burden,the painful labour with which she produces it, and, lastly, the care,the fondness, with which the tender father nourishes his favourite,till it be brought to maturity, and produced into the world.
Nor is there any paternal fondness which seems less to savour ofabsolute instinct, and which may so well be reconciled to worldlywisdom, as this. These children may most truly be called the riches oftheir father; and many of them have with true filial piety fed theirparent in his old age: so that not only the affection, but theinterest, of the author may be highly injured by these slanderers,whose poisonous breath brings his book to an untimely end.
Lastly, the slander of a book is, in truth, the slander of the author:for, as no one can call another bastard, without calling the mother awhore, so neither can any one give the names of sad stuff, horridnonsense, &c., to a book, without calling the author a blockhead;which, though in a moral sense it is a preferable appellation to thatof villain, is perhaps rather more injurious to his worldly interest.
Now, however ludicrous all this may appear to some, others, I doubtnot, will feel and acknowledge the truth of it; nay, may, perhaps,think I have not treated the subject with decent solemnity; but surelya man may speak truth with a smiling countenance. In reality, todepreciate a book maliciously, or even wantonly, is at least a veryill-natured office; and a morose snarling critic may, I believe, besuspected to be a bad man.
I will therefore endeavour, in the remaining part of this chapter, toexplain the marks of this character, and to show what criticism I hereintend to obviate: for I can never be understood, unless by the verypersons here meant, to insinuate that there are no proper judges ofwriting, or to endeavour to exclude from the commonwealth ofliterature any of those noble critics to whose labours the learnedworld are so greatly indebted. Such were Aristotle, Horace, andLonginus, among the antients, Dacier and Bossu among the French, andsome perhaps among us; who have certainly been duly authorised toexecute at least a judicial authority _in foro literario_.
But without ascertaining all the proper qualifications of a critic,which I have touched on elsewhere, I think I may very boldly object tothe censures of any one past upon works which he hath not himselfread. Such censurers as these, whether they speak from their own guessor suspicion, or from the report and opinion of others, may properlybe said to slander the reputation of the book they condemn.
Such may likewise be suspected of deserving this character, who,without assigning any particular faults, condemn the whole in generaldefamatory terms; such as vile, dull, d--d stuff, &c., andparticularly by the use of the monosyllable low; a word which becomesthe mouth of no critic who is not RIGHT HONOURABLE.
Again, though there may be some faults justly assigned in the work,yet, if those are not in the most essential parts, or if they arecompensated by greater beauties, it will savour rather of the maliceof a slanderer than of the judgment of a true critic to pass a severesentence upon the whole, merely on account of some vicious part. Thisis directly contrary to the sentiments of Horace:
_Verum ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis Offendor maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura----_
But where the beauties, more in number, shine, I am not angry, when a casual line (That with some trivial faults unequal flows) A careless hand or human frailty shows.--MR FRANCIS.
For, as Martial says, _Aliter non fit, Avite, liber_. No book can beotherwise composed. All beauty of character, as well as ofcountenance, and indeed of everything human, is to be tried in thismanner. Cruel indeed would it be if such a work as this history, whichhath employed some thousands of hours in the composing, should beliable to be condemned, because some particular chapter,
or perhapschapters, may be obnoxious to very just and sensible objections. Andyet nothing is more common than the most rigorous sentence upon bookssupported by such objections, which, if they were rightly taken (andthat they are not always), do by no means go to the merit of thewhole. In the theatre especially, a single expression which doth notcoincide with the taste of the audience, or with any individual criticof that audience, is sure to be hissed; and one scene which should bedisapproved would hazard the whole piece. To write within such severerules as these is as impossible as to live up to some spleneticopinions: and if we judge according to the sentiments of some critics,and of some Christians, no author will be saved in this world, and noman in the next.