THERE are many vexatious accidents and uneasy
situations which raise little compassion for
the sufferer, and which no man but those whom
they immediately distress can regard with
seriousness. Petty mischiefs, that have no influence on
futurity, nor extend their effects to the rest of life,
are always seen with a kind of malicious pleasure.
A mistake or embarrassment, which for the present
moment fills the face with blushes, and the mind
with confusion, will have no other effect upon those
who observe it, than that of convulsing them with
irresistible laughter. Some circumstances of misery
are so powerfully ridiculous, that neither kindness
nor duty can withstand them; they bear down love,
interest, and reverence, and force the friend, the
dependent, or the child, to give way to instantaneous
motions of merriment.
Among the principal of comick calamities, may
be reckoned the pain which an author, not yet
hardened into insensibility, feels at the onset of a
furious critick, whose age, rank, or fortune, gives him
confidence to speak without reserve; who heaps
one objection upon another, and obtrudes his remarks,
and enforces his corrections, without tenderness or awe.
The author, full of the importance of his work,
and anxious for the justification of every syllable,
starts and kindles at the slightest attack; the
critick, eager to establish his superiority, triumphing
in every discovery of failure, and zealous to
impress the cogency of his arguments, pursues him
from line to line without cessation or remorse. The
critick, who hazards little, proceeds with vehemence,
impetuosity, and fearlessness; the author, whose
quiet and fame, and life and immortality, are
involved in the controversy, tries every art of
subterfuge and defence; maintains modestly what he
resolves never to yield, and yields unwillingly what
cannot be maintained. The critick's purpose is to
conquer, the author only hopes to escape; the critick
therefore knits his brow, and raises his voice,
and rejoices whenever he perceives any tokens of
pain excited by the pressure of his assertions, or the
point of his sarcasms. The author, whose endeavour
is at once to mollify and elude his persecutor,
composes his features and softens his accent, breaks the
force of assault by retreat, and rather steps aside
than flies or advances.
As it very seldom happens that the rage of
extemporary criticism inflicts fatal or lasting wounds,
I know not that the laws of benevolence entitle
this distress to much sympathy. The diversion of
baiting an author has the sanction of all ages and
nations, and is more lawful than the sport of teasing
other animals, because, for the most part, he
comes voluntarily to the stake, furnished, as he
imagines, by the patron powers of literature, with
resistless weapons, and impenetrable armour, with
the mail of the boar of Erymanth, and the paws of
the lion of Nemea.
But the works of genius are sometimes produced
by other motives than vanity; and he whom necessity
or duty enforces to write, is not always so well
satisfied with himself, as not to be discouraged by
censorious impudence. It may therefore be necessary
to consider, how they whom publication lays open
to the insults of such as their obscurity secures
against reprisals, may extricate themselves from
unexpected encounters.
Vida, a man of considerable skill in the politicks
of literature, directs his pupil wholly to abandon
his defence, and even when he can irrefragably refute
all objections, to suffer tamely the exultations
of his antagonist.
This rule may perhaps be just, when advice is
asked, and severity solicited, because no man tells
his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received
with implicit veneration; and criticks ought never
to be consulted, but while errours may yet be rectified
or insipidity suppressed. But when the book
has once been dismissed into the world, and can be
no more retouched, I know not whether a very different
conduct should not be prescribed, and whether
firmness and spirit may not sometimes be of use to
overpower arrogance and repel brutality. Softness,
diffidence, and moderation, will often be mistaken
for imbecility and dejection; they lure cowardice
to the attack by the hopes of easy victory, and it
will soon be found that he whom every man thinks
he can conquer, shall never be at peace.
The animadversions of criticks are commonly
such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to
some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.
A man, who by long consideration has familiarized
a subject to his own mind, carefully surveyed the
series of his thoughts, and planned all the parts of
his composition into a regular dependance on each
other, will often start at the sinistrous interpretations
or absurd remarks of haste and ignorance, and
wonder by what infatuation they have been led
away from the obvious sense, and upon what peculiar
principles of judgment they decide against him.
The eye of the intellect, like that of the body, is
not equally perfect in all, nor equally adapted in
any to all objects; the end of criticism is to supply
its defects; rules are the instruments of mental
vision, which may indeed assist our faculties when
properly used, but produce confusion and obscurity
by unskilful application.
Some seem always to read with the microscope
of criticism, and employ their whole attention upon
minute elegance, or faults scarcely visible to
common observation. The dissonance of a syllable, the
recurrence of the same sound, the repetition of a
particle, the smallest deviation from propriety, the
slightest defect in construction or arrangement,
swell before their eyes into enormities. As they
discern with great exactness, they comprehend but
a narrow compass, and know nothing of the justness
of the design, the general spirit of the performance,
the artifice of connection, or the harmony of the
parts; they never conceive how small a proportion
that which they are busy in contemplating bears to
the whole, or how the petty inaccuracies, with which
they are offended, are absorbed and lost in general
excellence.
Others are furnished by criticism with a telescope.
They see with great clearness whatever is too remote
to be discovered by the rest of mankind, but are
totally blind to all that lies immediately before them.
They discover in every passage some secret meaning,
some remote allusion, some artful allegory,
or some occult imitation, which no other reader
ever suspected; but they have no perception of the
cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments,
the various colours of diction, or the flowery
embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the
attention of others they are totally insensible, while
they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves
with phantoms in the clouds.
In criticism, as in every other art, we fail
sometimes by our weakness, but more frequently by our
fault. We are sometimes bewildered by ignorance,
and sometimes by prejudice, but we seldom deviate
far from the right, but when we deliver ourselves
up to the direction of vanity.