rable Man, for
wearing out a long Life in poring through a Telescope. Indeed, the
weaknesses of Such are to be mentioned with reverence. But who can bear,
without indignation, the fashionable cant of every trifling Writer, whose
insipidity passes, with himself, for politeness, for pretending to be
shocked, forsooth, with the rude and savage air of _vulgar_ Critics;
meaning such as _Muretus_, _Scaliger_, _Casaubon_, _Salmasius_,
_Spanheim_, _Bentley_. When, had it not been for the deathless labours of
such as these, the western World, at the revival of Letters, had soon
fallen back again into a state of ignorance and barbarity as deplorable as
that from which Providence had just redeemed it.

To conclude with an observation of a fine Writer and great Philosopher of
our own; which I would gladly bind, tho' with all honour, as a Phylactery,
on the Brow of every awful Grammarian, to teach him at once the _Use_ and
_Limits_ of his art: WORDS ARE THE MONEY OF FOOLS, AND THE COUNTERS OF
WISE MEN.

SAMUEL JOHNSON: PREFACE TO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE. 1765.

That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours
due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be
always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope
for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by
disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from
posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the
regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time.

Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of mankind,
has undoubtedly votaries that reverence it, not from reason, but from
prejudice. Some seem to admire indiscriminately whatever has been long
preserved, without considering that time has sometimes co-operated with
chance; all perhaps are more willing to honour past than present
excellence; and the mind contemplates genius through the shades of age, as
the eye surveys the sun through artificial opacity. The great contention
of criticism is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the
ancients. While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his
worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate them by his best.

To works, however, of which the excellence is not absolute and definite,
but gradual and comparative; to works not raised upon principles
demonstrative and scientifi