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_A Warning to Critics._--Zoilus, the critic, was called the
rhetorical dog: rhetorical, as his style was elegant, and dog, from
his practice of snarling.--Vitruvius tells us, that when he visited
Alexandria, he recited his writings against the _Iliad_ and
_Odyssey_ of Homer to King Ptolemy, which gave the king such
offence, that he would take no notice of him; and afterwards, when,
urged by indigence, he solicited charity, Ptolemy pulsed him with this
contemptuous reflection, that if Homer, who had been dead one thousand
years, could by his works give maintenance to many thousand people,
a writer so much his superior might surely maintain himself.