in company, with a Coxcomb, juft after she had left a Monkey THE PREFACE. OF all the various fpecies of Compofition, that which valus to which seems to have the greatest licence allowed to it, and whofe abufe it is moft difficult (at leaft in many cases) either to detect, or to rectify, is the Art of Criticism. This difficulty arifeth partly from that series of objects, almost perpetually diverfified, which the various researches of this Art present to the mind; partly from the complicated ingredients, of which particular objects are found to confift when examined separately; but principally, no doubt, from the degrees of excellence and defect exhibited, not merely in fome performances, but appearing in every one, as indicating (in all cafes whatever) imperfection of that mind from which it derived its origin. It is the natural effect of thefe caufes, that as a discourse, whofe parts in general are difproportioned, may be fhewn in a favourable point of view, VOL. I. a where where the most unexceptionable paffages are selected for this purpose; fo, where the contrary is really the case, the Reader may receive an unfavourable prepoffeffion from having fuch objects only placed before him, in a connection likewife foreign to their original state, as tend to mislead and impose upon his judgment. In order therefore to remove, at least fome part of this difficulty in the present cafe, I fhall here, by way of introduction to the following pieces, tried, as these have been, by ftandards of Criticifin extremely different, throw together a few obfervations on the Art, which may enable an impartial Reader to distinguish betwixt weakness and malevolence in a Critic in the various spheres of his profeffion, particularly in that where an extenfive field and diverfified fcenery render his errors leaft fufceptible of immediate detection. CRITICISM, confidered in general as an Art, extends its influence to every fubject on which the mind is converfant. In the Sciences it judgeth of the precifion, importance, and difpofition of fentiment, character or events, as in what we denominate the Fine Arts, it decides principally of imitative beauty, arifing from the conformity betwixt an Original and a Copy. In both the fpheres above-mentioned, we may obferve with truth as general criterions, that an understanding 2 |