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deprecatory, with my good lords the critics. Towards some atonement
for this grievous neglect, I do here make humbly bold to present
them with a short account of themselves and their art, by looking
into the original and pedigree of the word, as it is generally
understood among us, and very briefly considering the ancient and
present state thereof.

By the word critic, at this day so frequent in all conversations,
there have sometimes been distinguished three very different species
of mortal men, according as I have read in ancient books and
pamphlets. For first, by this term were understood such persons as
invented or drew up rules for themselves and the world, by observing
which a careful reader might be able to pronounce upon the
productions of the learned, form his taste to a true relish of the
sublime and the admirable, and divide every beauty of matter or of
style from the corruption that apes it. In their common perusal of
books, singling out the errors and defects, the nauseous, the
fulsome, the dull, and the impertinent, with the caution of a man
that walks through Edinburgh streets in a morning, who is indeed as
careful as he can to watch diligently and spy out the filth in his
way; not that he is curious to observe the colour and complexion of
the ordure or take its dimensions, much less to be paddling in or
tasting it, but only with a design to come out as cleanly as he may.
These men seem, though very erroneously, to have understood the
appellation of critic in a literal sense; that one principal part of
his office was to praise and acquit, and that a critic who sets up
to read only for an occasion of censure and reproof is a creature as
barbarous as a judge who should take up a resolution to hang all men
that came before him upon a trial.

Again, by the word critic have been meant the restorers of ancient
learning from the worms, and graves, and dust of manuscripts.

Now the races of these two have been for some ages utterly extinct,
and besides to discourse any further of them would not be at all to
my purpose.

The third and noblest sort is that of the true critic, whose
original is the most ancient of all. Every true critic is a hero
born, descending in a direct line from a celestial stem, by Momus
and Hybris, who begat Zoilus, who begat Tigellius, who begat
Etcaetera the elder, who begat Bentley, and Rymer, and Wotton, and
Perrault, and Dennis, who begat Etcaetera the younger.

And these are the critics from whom the commonwealth of learning has
in all ages received such immense benefits, that the gratitude of
their admirers placed their origin in heaven, among those of
Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, and other great deservers of mankind.
But heroic virtue itself hath not been exempt from the obloquy of

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