uthor that portion of
fallibility of which I am conscious myself.

[Footnote 88: It is said, very sensibly, by La Bruyere, I
will allow that good writers are scarce enough; but then I
ask where are the people that know how to read and judge? A
union of these qualities, which are seldom found in the same
person, seems to be indispensably necessary to form an able
critic; he ought to possess strong good sense, lively
imagination, and exquisite sensibility. And of these three
qualities, the last is the most important; since, after all
that can be said on the utility or necessity of rules and
precepts, it must be confessed that the merit of all works
of genius must be determined by taste and sentiment. "Why do
you so much admire the Helen of Zeuxis?" said one to
Nicostratus. "You would not wonder why I so much admired it
(replied the painter) if you had my eyes."--WARTON: Note to
Pope's Essay on Criticism. _Pope's Works_, vol. i. 196,
edit. 1806.]

"I see then," rejoined Philemon, "that you are an enemy to
_Reviews_."[89] "Far from it," replied Lysander, "I think them of
essential service to literature. They hold a lash over ignorance and
vanity; and, at any rate, they take care to bestow a hearty
castigation upon vicious and sensual publications. Thus far they do
good: but, in many respects, they do ill--by substituting their own
opinions for those of an author; by judging exclusively according to
their own previously formed decisions in matters of religion and
politics; and by shutting out from your view the plan, and real
tendency, of the book which they have undertaken to review, and
therefore ought to analyze. It is, to be sure, amusing to read the
clamours which have been raised against some of the most valuable, and
now generally received, works! When an author recollects the pert
conclusion of Dr. Kenrick's review of Dr. Johnson's Tour to the
Hebrides,[90] he need not fear the flippancy of a reviewer's wit, as
decisive of the fate of his publication!

[Footnote 89: The earliest publications, I believe, in this
country, in the character of REVIEWS were there
[Transcriber's Note: the] _Weekly Memorials for the
Ingenious_, &c. Lond. 1683, 4to.--and _The Universal
Historical Bibliotheque_: or an Account of most of the
considerable Books printed in all Languages, in the Month of
January 1686. London, 1