Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/269

Rh obscure diligence, and a certain dryness of understanding, incapable of comprehending a figurative style, or being moved by the beauties of imagination; and at other times by such, whose natural moroseness in general, or particular designs of envy, has rendered them indefatigable against the reputation of others.

In this last manner is Zoilus represented to us by antiquity, and with a character so abandoned, that his name has been since made use of to brand all succeeding critics of his complexion. He has a load of infamy thrown upon him, great, in proportion to the fame of Homer, against whom he opposed himself: if the one was esteemed as the very residence of wit, the other is described as a profligate, who would destroy the temple of Apollo and the Muses, in order to have his memory preserved by the envious action. I imagine it may be no ungrateful undertaking to write some account of this celebrated person, from whom so many derive their character; and I think the life of a critic is not unseasonably put before the works of his poet, especially when his censures accompany him. If what he advances be just, he stands here as a censor; if otherwise, he appears as an addition to the poet's fame, and is placed before him with the justice of antiquity in its sacrifices, when, because such a beast had offended such a deity, he was brought annually to his altar to be slain upon it.

Zoilus was born at Amphipolis, a city of Thrace,