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who have discoursed concerning the nature and extent of criticism, take notice, that editions of authors, the interpretations of them, and the judgment which is passed upon each, are the three branches into which the art divides itself. But the last of these, that directs in the choice of books, and takes care to prepare us for reading them, is by the learned Bacon called the chair of the critics. In this chair (to carry on the figure) have sate Aristotle, Demetrius Phalereus, Dionysius Halicarnassensis, Cicero, Horace, Quintilian, and Longinus; all great names of antiquity, the censors of those ages which went before, and the directors of those that come after them, with respect to the natural and perspicuous manners of thought and expression, by which a correct and judicious genius may be able to write for the pleasure and profit of mankind.

But whatever has been advanced by men really great in themselves, has been also attempted by others of capacities either unequal to the undertaking, or which have been corrupted by their passions, and drawn away into partial violences: so that we have sometimes seen the province of criticism usurped, by such who judge with an