n my endeavour to distinguish between realities and
appearances, and to separate true merit from the pretence to it. As it
shall ever be my study to make discoveries of this nature in human life,
and to settle the proper distinctions between the virtues and
perfections of mankind, and those false colours and resemblances of them
that shine alike in the eyes of the vulgar; so I shall be more
particularly careful to search into the various merits and pretences of
the learned world. This is the more necessary, because there seems to be
a general combination among the pedants to extol one another's labours,
and cry up one another's parts; while men of sense, either through that
modesty which is natural to them, or the scorn they have for such
trifling commendations, enjoy their stock of knowledge like a hidden
treasure, with satisfaction and silence. Pedantry indeed in learning is
like hypocrisy in religion, a form of knowledge without the power of it,
that attracts the eyes of the common people, breaks out in noise and
show, and finds its reward not from any inward pleasure that attends it,
but from the praises and approbations which it receives from men.

Of this shallow species there is not a more importunate, empty, and
conceited animal, than that which is generally known by the name of a
critic. This, in the common acceptation of the word, is one that,
without entering into the sense and soul of an author, has a few general
rules, which, like mechanical instruments, he applies to the works of
every writer, and as they quadrate with them, pronounces the author
perfect or defective. He is master of a certain set of words, as "unity,
style, fire, phlegm, easy, natural, turn, sentiment," and the like;
which he varies, compounds, divides, and throws together, in every part
of his discourse, without any thought or meaning. The marks you may know
him by are, an elevated eye, and dogmatical brow, a positive voice, and
a contempt for everything that comes out, whether he has read it or not.
He dwells altogether in generals. He praises or dispraises in the lump.
He shakes his head very frequently at the pedantry of Universities, and
bursts into laughter when you mention an author that is not known at
Will's. He has formed his judgment upon Homer, Horace, and Virgil, not
from their own works, but from those of Rapin and Bossu. He knows his
own strength so well, that he never dares praise anything in which he
has not a French autho