, when we have a mind to escape from her inspection, and caprice
and appetite instated in uncontrolled command and boundless dominion!
Such a casuist may surely engage with certainty of success in
vindication of an entertainment which in an instant gives confidence to
the timorous and kindles ardour in the cold, an entertainment where the
vigilance of jealousy has so often been clouded, and the virgin is set
free from the necessity of languishing in silence; where all the
outworks of chastity are at once demolished; where the heart is laid
open without a blush; where bashfulness may survive virtue, and no wish
is crushed under the frown of modesty."

Here is another passage, in which Johnson is speaking upon a topic more
within his proper province; and which contains sound sense under its
weight of words. A man, he says, who reads a printed book, is often
contented to be pleased without critical examination. "But," he adds,
"if the same man be called to consider the merit of a production yet
unpublished, he brings an imagination heated with objections to passages
which he has never yet heard; he invokes all the powers of criticism,
and stores his memory with Taste and Grace, Purity and Delicacy, Manners
and Unities, sounds which having been once uttered by those that
understood them, have been since re-echoed without meaning, and kept up
to the disturbance of the world by constant repercussion from one
coxcomb to another. He considers himself as obliged to show by some
proof of his abilities, that he is not consulted to no purpose, and
therefore watches every opening for objection, and looks round for every
opportunity to propose some specious alteration. Such opportunities a
very small degree of sagacity will enable him to find, for in every work
of imagination, the disposition of parts, the insertion of incidents,
and use of decorations may be varied in a thousand ways with equal
propriety; and, as in things nearly equal that will always seem best to
every man which he himself produces, the critic, whose business is only
to propose without the care of execution, can never want the
satisfaction of believing that he has suggested very important
improvements, nor the power of enforcing his advice by arguments, which,
as they appear convincing to himself, either his kindness or his vanity
will press obstinately and importunately, without suspicion that he may
possibly judge too hastily in favour of his own advice or inquir