s voluntarily to the stake, furnished, as he imagines, by
the patron powers of literature, with resistless weapons, and
impenetrable armour, with the mail of the boar of Erymanth, and the paws
of the lion of Nemea.

But the works of genius are sometimes produced by other motives than
vanity; and he whom necessity or duty enforces to write, is not always
so well satisfied with himself, as not to be discouraged by censorious
impudence. It may therefore be necessary to consider, how they whom
publication lays open to the insults of such as their obscurity secures
against reprisals, may extricate themselves from unexpected encounters.

Vida, a man of considerable skill in the politicks of literature,
directs his pupil wholly to abandon his defence, and even when he can
irrefragably refute all objections, to suffer tamely the exultations of
his antagonist.

This rule may perhaps be just, when advice is asked, and severity
solicited, because no man tells his opinion so freely as when he
imagines it received with implicit veneration; and criticks ought never
to be consulted, but while errours may yet be rectified or insipidity
suppressed. But when the book has once been dismissed into the world,
and can be no more retouched, I know not whether a very different
conduct should not be prescribed, and whether firmness and spirit may
not sometimes be of use to overpower arrogance and repel brutality.
Softness, diffidence, and moderation, will often be mistaken for
imbecility and dejection; they hire cowardice to the attack by the hopes
of easy victory, and it will soon be found that he whom every man thinks
he can conquer, shall never be at peace.

The animadversions of criticks are commonly such as may easily provoke
the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of
reply. A man, who by long consideration has familiarized a subject to
his own mind, carefully surveyed the series of his thoughts, and planned
all the parts of his composition into a regular dependance on each
other, will often start at the sinistrous interpretations or absurd
remarks of haste and ignorance, and wonder by what infatuation they have
been led away from the obvious sense, and upon what peculiar principles
of judgment they decide against him.

The eye of the intellect, like that of the body, is not equally perfect
in all, nor equally adapted in any to all objects; the end of criticism
is to supply its defects; rules are the instrumen