The opinion of the great body of the reading public is very materially
influenced even by the unsupported assertions of those who assume a
right to criticize. Nor is the public altogether to blame on this
account. Most even of those who have really a great enjoyment in reading
are in the same state, with respect to a book, in which a man who has
never given particular attention to the art of painting is with respect
to a picture. Every man who has the least sensibility or imagination
derives a certain pleasure from pictures. Yet a man of the highest and
finest intellect might, unless he had formed his taste by contemplating
the best pictures, be easily persuaded by a knot of connoisseurs that
the worst daub in Somerset House was a miracle of art.
Just such is the manner in which nine readers out of ten judge of a
book. They are ashamed to dislike what men who speak as having authority
declare to be good.--LORD MACAULAY. _Mr. Robert Montgomery's Poems._