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176 whom he censures; and therefore if they esteem themselves critics, they set enthroned in fancy at the head of literature. Criticism indeed deserves a noble elogy, when it is enlarged by such a comprehensive learning as Aristotle and Cicero were masters of; when it adorns its precepts with the consummate exactness of Quintilian, or is exalted into the sublime sentiments of Longinus. But let not such men tell us they participate in the glory of these great men, and place themselves next to Phœbus, who, like Zoilus, entangle an author in the wrangles of grammarians, or try him with a positive air and barren imagination, by the set of rules they have collected out of others.

P. 54. v. 17. Ye frogs, the mice.]At this speech of the herald's, which recites the cause of the war, Zoilus is angry with the author, for not finding out a cause entirely just; for, says he, it appears not from his own fable, that Physignathus invited the prince with any malicious intention to make him away. To this we answer, 1st, That it is not necessary in relating facts to make every war have a just beginning. 2nd, This doubtful cause agrees better with the moral, by showing, that ill-founded leagues have accidents to destroy them, even without the intention of parties. 3d, There was all appearance imaginable against the frogs; and if we may be allowed to retort on our adversary the practice of his posterity, there is more humanity in an