Page:Homer's Battle of the Frogs and Mice - Parnell (1717).djvu/42

 Honour of the Birth of, so several have contended for the Honour of the Death of. With him likewise perish'd his great Work on the Iliad, and the Odysses; concerning which we observe also, that as the known Worth of Poetry makes him survive himself with Glory; so the bare Memory of  Criticism makes him survive himself with Infamy. These are deservedly the Consequences of that ill Nature which made him fond of Detraction, that Envy, which made him choose so excellent a Character for its Object, and those partial Methods of Injustice with which he treated the Object he had chosen.

Yet how many commence Criticks after him, upon the same unhappy Principles? How many labour to destroy the Monuments of the dead, and summon up the Great from their Graves to answer for Trifles before them? How many, by Misrepresentations, both hinder the World from favouring Men of Genius, and discourage them in themselves; like Boughs of a baneful and barren Nature, that shoot a-cross a Fruit-Tree; at once to screen the Sun from it, and hinder it by their Droppings from producing any Thing of Value? But if these who thus follow, meet not the same Severities of Fate, because they come short of his Indefatigableness, or their Object is not so universally the Concern of Mankind; they shall ne-