Page:Poems on Several Occasions - Broome (1739, 2nd edition).djvu/21

 zentius in Virgil, to join a dead Carcass to a living Body; and the only effect of it, to fill every well-natur'd Mind with Detestation: their Malice becomes impotent, and, contrary to their Design, they give a testimony of their Enemy's Merit, and shew him to be an Heroe by turning all their Weapons against him: Such Critics are like dead Coals, they may blacken, but cannot burn. These Writers bring to my memory a Passage in the Iliad, where all the inferior Powers, the Plebs Supersûm, or Rabble of the Sky, are fancy'd to unite their Endeavours to pull Jupiter down to the Earth: but by the Attempt they only betray their own Inability; Jupiter is still Jupiter, and by their unavailing Efforts they manifest his Superiority.

Modesty is essential to true Criticism: no Man has a title to be a Dictator in Knowledge, and the sense of our own Infirmities ought to teach us to treat others with humanity. The envious Critic ought to consider, that if the Authors be dead whom he