Y OF

THE

BRITISH CRITIC,

FOR

JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH, APRIL,

MAY, JUNE.

MDCCCX.

Efte procul lites, et amaræ prælia linguæ.

OviD,

VOLUME XXXV.

London:

PRINTED FOR F. C. AND J. RIVINGTON,

NO. 62, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD.

1810.

Pewted by Law an. Gilbert, St. Jului's Square, Clerkenwalde

PREFACE.

URNING over the well-known pages of our

friend Izaak Walton, as an amusement suited to the season, while a brother of the quill was gone to realize his precepts on a neighbouring river, we could not but be struck with an analogy, if not a resemblance, between our critical occupation and that of the patient angler. Perpetually watching the great stream of literature, we sometimes bring to land a noble filh, which affords us excellent sport, and supplies a pleasing narrative for our friends; while the Smaller fry, which for ever play at the surface, and seem to court the hook, are packed together in our basket; and if they prove not fit to make a separate dith, are employed as garnish for their nobler brethren ; or, when they appear entirely worthlefs, are thrown to the cars and dogs, which continually spit and growl beneath the Cricic's table. Our Preface is a felect feast, made only from the nobler captures ; a

; a course of luxuries, to which we now once more invite our readers to sit down. Let us hope that our work may always prove, if not “a rest after tedious fiudy,” as Sir H. Wotton faid of angling, yet a study not in itself tedious; and in general, according to the remainder of that character, “a chearer of spirits, a diverter of fadness, à calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of [evil] paflions, and a procurer of contentedness”

See Iz. Walton. Hawkins's Edit. 1775, p. 43.
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