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Lucretius gives
exactly the same relation.


"Est etiam in magnis Heliconis montibus arbos,
Floris odore hominem retro consueta necare."--Lib. 6. {86}


But Ctesias, whom we lately quoted, has been a great deal bolder; he
had been used with much severity by the true critics of his own age,
and therefore could not forbear to leave behind him at least one
deep mark of his vengeance against the whole tribe. His meaning is
so near the surface that I wonder how it possibly came to be
overlooked by those who deny the antiquity of the true critics. For
pretending to make a description of many strange animals about
India, he has set down these remarkable words. "Among the rest,"
says he, "there is a serpent that wants teeth, and consequently
cannot bite, but if its vomit (to which it is much addicted) happens
to fall upon anything, a certain rottenness or corruption ensues.
These serpents are generally found among the mountains where jewels
grow, and they frequently emit a poisonous juice, whereof whoever
drinks, that person's brain flies out of his nostrils."

There was also among the ancients a sort of critic, not
distinguished in specie from the former but in growth or degree, who
seem to have been only the tyros or junior scholars, yet because of
their differing employments they are frequently mentioned as a sect
by themselves. The usual exercise of these young students was to
attend constantly at theatres, and learn to spy out the worst parts
of the play, whereof they were obliged carefully to take note, and
render a rational account to their tutors. Fleshed at these smaller
sports, like young wolves, they grew up in time to be nimble and
strong enough for hunting down large game. For it has been
observed, both among ancients and moderns, that a true critic has
one quality in common with a whore and an alderman, never to change
his title or his nature; that a grey critic has been certainly a
green one, the perfections and acquirements of his age being only
the improved talents of his youth, like hemp, which some naturalists
inform us is bad for suffocations, though taken but in the seed. I
esteem the invention, or at least the refinement of prologues, to
have been owing to these younger proficients, of whom Terence makes
frequent and honourable mention, under the name of Malevoli.

Now it is certain the institution of the true critics was of
absolute necessity to the commonwealth of learning. For all human
actions seem to be divided like Themistocles and his company. One
man can fiddle, and another can make a small town a great city; and
he that cannot do either one or the other deserves to be kicked out
of the creation. The avoiding of which penalty has doubtless given
the first birth to the nation of critics, and withal an occasion for

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