Samuel Cobb

“ For, tho' Homer and Virgil, Pindar and Horace be laid before us as Examples of exquisite Writing in the Heroic and Lyric Kind, yet, either thro' the Distance of Time, or Diversity of Customs, we can no more expect to find like Capacities, than like Complexions. Let a Man follow the Talent that Nature has furnish'd him with, and his own Observation has improv'd, we may hope to see Inventions in all Arts, which may dispute Superiority with the best of the Athenian and Roman Excellencies. ”

“ Thro' Air, and Earth, and Seas, I wou'd disperse
His Fame, and sing it in the loudest Verse.
The rowling Waves to hear me shou'd grow tame,
And Winds should calm a Tempest with his Name
But we must all decline: The Muse grows dumb,
Not weary'd with his Praise, but overcome.
Who shall describe Him? or what Eye can trace
The Matchless Glories of his Princely Race?
What Prince can equal what no Muse can praise?
No Land but Britain, must pretend to shine
With Gods and Heroes of an equal Line.* The Duke of Glouceiter. Here the Author laments he prov'd so bad a Prophet. ”

“ Some have fail'd in the Lyric Way who have been excellent in the Dramatic. And, Sir, would you not think a Physician would gain more Profit and Reputation by Hippocrates and Galen well-studied, than by Homer and Virgil ill-copied?
Horace, who was as great a Master of Judgment, as he was an Instance of Wit, would have laid the Errours of an establish'd Writer on a pardonable Want of Care, or excus'd them by the Infirmity of Human Nature; he would have wondred at the corrupt Palates now a-days, who quarrel with their Meat, when the Fault is in their Taste. ”

“ The Soul, when it leaves this earthly Habitation, and has no more Use for those Vertues, which were serviceable in the Conduct of human Life, such as Temperance, Fortitude and the like, will certainly carry Love and Gratitude along with it to Heaven. This may suffice to let the World know what Obligations you have laid upon me.
By this Letter (the room of which, for your sake I could willingly have supply'd) you will plainly see, that no Place, however remote, is able to secure you from the Zeal of a Friend, and the Vanity of a Poet. ”

“ To reform which, if our Moderns would lay aside the malicious Grin and drolling Sneer, the Passions and Prejudices to Persons and Circumstances, we should have better Poems, and juster Criticisms. Nothing casts a greater Cloud on the Judgment than the Inclination (or rather Resolution) to praise or condemn, before we see the Object. The Rich and the Great lay a Trap for Fame, and have always a numerous Crowd of servile Dependants, to clap their Play, or admire their Poem.
For noble Scriblers are with Flattery fed,
And none dare tell their Fault who eat their Bread.
Dryden's Pers.. ”

“ Than gentle Cowley's never-dying Verse.
The Thames should sweep his briny way before,
And with his Name salute each distant Shore.Milton.
Then You, like Glorious Milton had been known
To Lands which Conquest has insur'd our Own.
Milton! whose Muse Kisses th' embroider'd Skies,
While Earth below grows little, as She Flies.
Thro' trackless Air she bends her winding Flight,
Far as the Confines of retreating Light. ”

“ Nothing is perfect in every Part. He that expects to see any thing so, must have patience till Dooms-day. The Worship we pay to our own Opinion, generally leads its to the Contempt of another's. This blind Idolatry of Self is the Mother of Errour; and this begets a secret Vanity in our Modern Censurers, who, when they please to think a Meaning for an Author, would thereby insinuate how much his Judgment is inferiour to their inlighten'd Sagacity. When, perhaps, the Failings they expose are a plain Evidence of their own Blindness. ”

“ A slavish Fear of committing an Oversight, betrays a Man to more inextricable Errours, than the Boldness of an enterprizing Author, whose artful Carelesness is more instructive and delightful than all the Pains and Sweat of the Poring and Bookish Critick.
Some Failings, like Moles in a beautiful Countenance, take nothing from the Charms of a happy Composure, but rather heighten and improve their Value. Were our modern Reflecters Masters of more Humanity than Learning, and of more Discernment than both, the Authors of the Past and Present Ages, would have no reason to complain of Injustice ”

“ They seem irregular to Us by reason of the Fondness and Bigottry we pay to Custom, which is no Standard to the Brave and the Wise. The Rules we receive in our first Education, are laid down with this Purpose, to restrain the Mind; which by reason of the Tenderness of our Age and the ungovernable Disposition of Young Nature, is apt to start out into Excess and Extravagance. But when Time has ripen'd us, and Observation has fortify'd the Soul, we ought to lay aside those common Rules with our Leading strings; and exercise our Reason with a free, generous and manly Spirit. ”

“ Whereas their Manner of Writing, which takes Notice only of Words, Customs, and chiefly Chronology, with a blind Admiration of all they read, is unpleasant to a fine Genius, and deters it from the pursuit of the Belles Lettres. ”

“ He is a Gentleman who cannot write ill. Yet some of our Criticks have fell upon it, as the Viper did on the File, to the detriment of their Teeth. So that Criticism, which was formerly the Art of judging well, is now become the pure Effect of Spleen, Passion and Self-conceit. ”

“ Evremont (an Author whom you us'd to praise, and whom therefore I admire) that some Persons, who would be Poets, which they cannot be, become Criticks which they can be. The censorious Grin, and the loud Laugh, are common and easy things, according to Juvenal; and according to Scripture, the Marks of a Fool. These Men are certainly in a deplorable Condition, who cannot be witty, but at another's Expence, and who take an unnatural kind of Pleasure in being uneasy at their Own.
Rules they can write, but, like the College Tribe,
Take not that Physick which their Rules prescribe. ”

“ Juvenal shews his Aversion to this Prepossession, when his old disgusted Friend gives this among the rest of his Reasons why he left the Town,
—Mentiri nescio: librum
Si malus est, nequeo laudare & poscere.
To conquer Prejudice is the part of a Philosopher; and to discern a Beauty is an Argument of good Sense and Sagacity; and to find a Fault with Allowances for human Frailty, is the Property of a Gentleman.
Who then is this Critick? You will find him in Quintilius Varus, of Cremona, who when any Author shew'd him his Composure, laid aside the Fastus common to our supercilious Readers ”

“ Rapin, and above all, Bossu, have done more Justice to Homer and to Virgil, to Livy and Thucydides, to Demosthenes and to Cicero, &c. and have bin more beneficial to the Republick of Learning, by their nice Comparisons and Observations, than all the honest Labours of those well-meaning Men, who rummage musty Manuscripts for various Lections. ”