from 273 276 285 CHAP. I. Containing Inftructions very necessary to be perused by modern Critics. R EADER, it is impoffible we should know what Sort of Perfon thou wilt be: For perhaps, thou may'ft be as learned in Human Nature as Shakespear himself was, and, perhaps, thou may'ft be no wifer than fome of his Editors. Now left this latter fhould be the Cafe, we think proper, before we go any farther together, to give thee a few wholesome Admonitions; that thou may'st not as grofly mifunderVOL. III. B ftand ftand and mifreprefent us, as fome of Editors have misunderstood and mifrep their Author. First, then, we warn thee not too I condemn any of the Incidents in this our as impertinent and foreign to our main because thou doft not immediately com what Manner fuch Incident may conduc Defign. This Work may, indeed, b dered as a great Creation of our own; a little Reptile of a Critic to prefume to fi with any of its Parts, without knowing t ner in which the Whole is connected, fore he comes to the final Catastrophe, prefumptuous Abfurdity. The Allufion taphor we have here made ufe of, we r knowledge to be infinitely too great for eafion; but there is, indeed, no other, at all adequate to exprefs the Difference an Author of the first Rate, and a Criti lowest. Another Caution we would give th good Reptile, is, that thou doft not find near a Resemblance between certain Ch here introduced; as for Inftance, betw Landlady who appears in the Seventh Bo her in the Ninth. Thou art to know, that there are certain Characteristics, moft Individuals of. every Profeffion and pation agree. To be able to preserve th racteristics, and at the fame Time to their Operations, is one Talent of a go ter. Again, to mark the nice Diftinc tween two Perfons actuated by the fame Folly is another; and as this laft Talent in very few Writers, fo is the true Disc : X. faid ented Fly to tory, efign, ve in o that confi d for Fault Mand be moft Metacr Ocich is ween of the my acters and Fiend, which Occu : Chaverfify Wri -n be ice or found ament of it found in as few Readers; though, I believe, the Obfervation of this forms a very principal Pleasure in those who are capable of the Difcovery: Every Perfon, for Inftance, can distinguish between Sir Epicure Mammon, and Sir Fopling Flutter; but to note the Difference between Sir Fopling Flutter and Sir Courtly Nice, requires a more exquifite Judgment: For want of which, vulgar Spectators of Plays very often do great Injuftice in the Theatre; where I have fometimes known a Poet in Danger of being convicted as a Thief, upon much worfe Evidence than the Refemblance of Hands hath been held to be in the Law. In Reality, I apprehend every amorous Widow on the Stage would run the Hazard of being condemned as a fervile Imitation of Dido, but that happily very few of our Play-houfe Cri→ tics understand enough of Latin to read Virgil. In the next Place, we muft admonish thee, my worthy Friend, (for, perhaps, thy Heart may be better than thy Head) not to condemn a Character as a bad one, because it is not perfectly a good one. If thou doft delight in thefe Models of Perfection, there are Books enow written to gratify thy Tafte; but as we have not, in the courfe of our Converfation, ever happened to meet with any fuch Perfon, we have not chofen to introduce any fuch here. To fay the Truth, I a little queftion whether mere Man ever arrived at this confummate Degree of Excellence, as well as whether there hath ever existed a Monster bad enough to verify that HECA Whofe Vices are not allayed with a fing'e Virtue. BOD |