Legg._ vi. 773, G.]

8
It was such defects as these that the hostile critic[8] Caecilius made
his ground of attack, when he had the boldness in his essay "On the
Beauties of Lysias" to pronounce that writer superior in every respect
to Plato. Now Caecilius was doubly unqualified for a judge: he loved
Lysias better even than himself, and at the same time his hatred of
Plato and all his works is greater even than his love for Lysias.
Moreover, he is so blind a partisan that his very premises are open to
dispute. He vaunts Lysias as a faultless and immaculate writer, while
Plato is, according to him, full of blemishes. Now this is not the case:
far from it.

[Footnote 8: Reading +ho mison auton+, by a conjecture of the
translator.]

XXXIII

But supposing now that we assume the existence of a really unblemished
and irreproachable writer. Is it not worth while to raise the whole
question whether in poetry and prose we should prefer sublimity
accompanied by some faults, or a style which never rising above moderate
excellence never stumbles and never requires correction? and again,
whether the first place in literature is justly to be assigned to the
more numerous, or the loftier excellences? For these are questions
proper to an inquiry on the Sublime, and urgently asking for settlement.

2
I know, then, that the largest intellects are far from being the most
exact. A mind always intent on correctness is apt to be dissipated in
trifles; but in great affluence of thought, as in vast material wealth,
there must needs be an occasional neglect of detail. And is it not
inevitably so? Is it not by risking nothing, by never aiming high, that
a writer of low or middling powers keeps generally clear of faults and
secure of blame? whereas the loftier walks of literature are by their
very loftiness perilous?

3
I am well aware, again, that there is a law by which in all human
productions the weak points catch the eye first, by which their faults
remain indelibly stamped on the memory, while their beauties quickly
fade away.

4
Yet, though I have myself noted not a few faulty passages in Homer and
in other authors of the highest rank, and though I am far from being
partial to their failings, nevertheless I would call them not so much
wilful blunders as oversights which were allowed to pass unregarded
through that contempt of little things, that "brave disorder," which is
natural to an exalted genius; and I still thi