Page:The Cottagers of Glenburnie - Hamilton (1808).djvu/8

 originally formed, and published them as separate pieces, in form and size resembling the tracts in the "Cheap Repository," I should have had no apprehensions concerning the justice of the sentence to be passed upon them; for then they would have had little chance of falling into other hands than those of the class of persons for whose use they were intended. This exclusive perusal is, however, a happiness which no author has a right to expect; and which, to confess the truth, no author would very highly relish. For though we were to be assured, that of the number of readers in this reading age, one half read only with the intention of gratifying their vanity, by shewing their skill in picking out the faults, yet who would not prefer going through the ordeal of this soi-disant criticism, to the mortification of not being read at all?

Of the mode of criticism now in vogue, I believe your opinion coincides exactly with my own. We do not consider it as originating in the pride, or spleen, or malignity of the persons by whom it has been most freely exercised, but in a mistaken notion of the species of vigour and energy attached to the censorial character, and essential to the dignity of the