knowledge of the compass, I was sailing in a vast ocean without
other help than the pole-star of the ancients and the rules of the
French stage amongst the moderns (which are extremely different from
ours, by reason of their opposite taste), yet even then I had the
presumption to dedicate to your lordship--a very unfinished piece, I
must confess, and which only can be excused by the little experience
of the author and the modesty of the title--"An Essay." Yet I was
stronger in prophecy than I was in criticism: I was inspired to
foretell you to mankind as the restorer of poetry, the greatest
genius, the truest judge, and the best patron.

Good sense and good nature are never separated, though the ignorant
world has thought otherwise. Good nature, by which I mean
beneficence and candour, is the product of right reason; which of
necessity will give allowance to the failings of others by
considering that there is nothing perfect in mankind; and by
distinguishing that which comes nearest to excellency, though not
absolutely free from faults, will certainly produce a candour in the
judge. It is incident to an elevated understanding like your
lordship's to find out the errors of other men; but it is your
prerogative to pardon them; to look with pleasure on those things
which are somewhat congenial and of a remote kindred to your own
conceptions; and to forgive the many failings of those who, with
their wretched art, cannot arrive to those heights that you possess
from a happy, abundant, and native genius which are as inborn to you
as they were to Shakespeare, and, for aught I know, to Homer; in
either of whom we find all arts and sciences, all moral and natural
philosophy, without knowing that they ever studied them.

There is not an English writer this day living who is not perfectly