the 'Iron Chest' came out, and Fashion induced them to read Godwin for
themselves; which has very properly changed their opinion.

I remember, in my own case, that, from that reverence for authority
which I hope I share with my neighbours, I used to speak of 'Headlong
Hall' and 'Crotchet Castle'--both great favourites of our
fore-fathers--with much respect, until one wet day in the country I
found myself shut up with them. I won't say what I suffered; better
judges of literature than myself admire them still, I know. I will only
remark that _I_ don't admire them. I don't say they are the dullest
novels ever printed, because that would be invidious, and might do wrong
to works of even greater pretensions; but to my mind they are dull.

When Dr. Johnson is free to confess that he does not admire Gray's
'Elegy,' and Macaulay to avow that he sees little to praise in Dickens
and Wordsworth, why should not humbler folks have the courage of their
own opinions? They cannot possibly be more wrong than Johnson and
Macaulay were, and it is surely better to be honest, though it may
expose one to some ridicule, than to lie. The more we agree with the
verdict of the generations before us on these matters, the more, it is
quite true, we are likely to be right; but the agreement should be an
honest one. At present very extensive domains in literature are, as it
were, enclosed and denied to the public in respect to any free
expression of their opinion. 'They are splendid, they are faultless,'
cries the general voice, but the general eye has not beheld them.
Nothing, of course, could be more futile than that, with every new
generation, our old authors who have won their fame should be arraigned
anew at the bar of public criticism; but, on the other hand, there is no
reason why the mouths of us poor moderns should be muzzled, and still
less that we 'should praise with alien lips.'