s author. Because of this and its prevailing sound critical
qualities the anonymous essay ranks with the more important
Shakespearian documents of the century. The editors of the _Augustan_
Reprints are to be commended for their decision to give it a place in
their valuable series. A critical work which is so viable, which has so
many points of contact with other good Shakespearian criticism, and
which is in itself so stimulating in approach and specific idea deserves
the added accessibility which such publication permits.

University of Michigan Clarence D. Thorpe

Reprinted from the British Museum copy by permission of The Trustees of
the British Museum.

_There is hardly any Thing which has been more abus'd than the Art of
Criticism; it has been turned to so many bad Purposes among us, that the
very Word it self has almost totally lost its genuine and natural
Signification; for People generally understand by Criticism, finding
fault with a Work; and from thence, when we call a Man a Critick, we
usually mean, one disposed to blame, and seldom to commend. Whereas in
Truth, a real Critick, in the proper Sense of that Word, is one whose
constant Endeavour it is to set in the best Light all Beauties, and to
touch upon Defects no more than is necessary; to point out how such may
be avoided for the future, and to settle, if possible, a right Taste
among those of the Age in which he lives.

Ill-nature, and a Propensity to set any Work in a ridiculous and false
Light, are so far from being the Characteristicks of a true Critick,
that they are the certain Marks whereby we may know that a Man has not
the true Spirit of Criticism in him.

There is a Weakness opposite to this, which indeed is better natur'd,
but is, however, vicious; and that is, the being bigotted to an Author;
insomuch that Men of this Stamp, when they undertake to explain or
comment upon any Writer, they will not allow him to have any Defects;
nay, so far from that, they find out Beauties in him which can be so to
none but themselves, and give Turns to his Expressions, and lend him
Thoughts which were never his Design, or never enter'd into his Brain.

Of all our Countrymen, Mr._ Addison _is the best in Criticism, the most
exempt from the Faults I mention; for his Papers upon_ Milton's Paradise
Lost, _I look upon as the true Model for all Criticks to follow. In
those we see the Beauties and Faults of that great Poet weigh'd in