Page:The Poetical Works of Thomas Parnell (1833).djvu/299

Rh of fables, to exclaim violently. We had, says he, ''a frog and a mouse hitherto, and now we get a bull and a princess to illustrate their actions: when will there be an end of this fabling -folly and poetry, which I value myself for being unacquainted with? great Polycrates, how happily hast thou observed in thy accusation against Socrates, that whatever he was before, he deserved his poison when he began to make verses!'' Now, if the question be concerning Homer's good or bad poetry, this is an unqualifying speech, which affords his friends just grounds of exception against the critic. Wherefore, be it known to all present and future censors, who have, or shall presume to glory in an ignorance of poetry, and at the same time take upon them to judge of poets, that they are in all their degrees for ever excluded the post they would usurp. In the first place, they who know neither the use, nor practice of the art; in the second, they who know it but by halves, who have hearts insensible of the beauties of poetry, and are, however, able to find fault by rules; and thirdly, they who, when they are capable of perceiving beauties and pointing out defects, are still so ignorant in the nature of their business as to imagine the province of criticism extends itself only on the side of dispraise and reprehension. How could any one at this rate be seen with his proper balance of perfection and error? Or what were the best performances in this indulgence of ill-nature,