century: which from a hopeful boy became a most insignificant man;
and for any thing that appears at present will die a very fat drowsy
block-head, and be damned to eternal infamy and contempt: every such
author I say, though he may thrive as far as an author can in the
present age, will by degrees languish into obscurity in the next.
For though naked and bare-faced vanity; though an active exertion of
little arts, and the most unremitting perseverance in them; though
party, cabal, and intrigue; though accidental advantages, and even
whimsical circumstances; may conspire to make a very moderate genius
the idol of the implicit multitude: works that lean upon such fickle
props, that stand upon such a false foundation, will not be long able
to support themselves against the injuries of time. Such buildings
begin to totter almost as soon as their scaffolding is struck.

But if you find it necessary to comply with the humour of your age;
the writing best calculated to please a false taste is what has
something of the air of good writing, without being really so. For
to the vulgar eye the specious is more striking than the genuine. The
best writing is apt to be too plain, too simple, too unaffected, and
too delicate to stir the callous organs of the generality of critics,
who see nothing but the tawdry glare of tinsel; and are deaf to every
thing but what is shockingly noisy to a true ear. They are struck
with the fierce glaring colours of old _Frank_; with attitudes and
expressions violent, distorted, and unnatural: while the true, just
and easy, the graceful, the moving, the sublime representations of
_Raphael_ have not the least power to attract them. The bullying,
noisy march in _Judas Macchabeus_ has perhaps more sincere admirers
than that most pathetic one in _Saul_: and in conversation pertness
and mere vivacity is more felt by the general run of company than easy
unaffected wit; as flashy, bouncing, flatulent cyder boasts of more