absolute necessity to the commonwealth of learning. For all human
actions seem to be divided like Themistocles and his company. One
man can fiddle, and another can make a small town a great city; and
he that cannot do either one or the other deserves to be kicked out
of the creation. The avoiding of which penalty has doubtless given
the first birth to the nation of critics, and withal an occasion for
their secret detractors to report that a true critic is a sort of
mechanic set up with a stock and tools for his trade, at as little
expense as a tailor; and that there is much analogy between the
utensils and abilities of both. That the "Tailor's Hell" is the
type of a critic's commonplace-book, and his wit and learning held
forth by the goose. That it requires at least as many of these to
the making up of one scholar as of the others to the composition of
a man. That the valour of both is equal, and their weapons near of
a size. Much may be said in answer to these invidious reflections;
and I can positively affirm the first to be a falsehood: for, on
the contrary, nothing is more certain than that it requires greater
layings out to be free of the critic's company than of any other you
can name. For as to be a true beggar, it will cost the richest
candidate every groat he is worth, so before one can commence a true
critic, it will cost a man all the good qualities of his mind, which
perhaps for a less purchase would be thought but an indifferent
bargain.

Having thus amply proved the antiquity of criticism and described
the primitive state of it, I shall now examine the present condition
of this Empire, and show how well it agrees with its ancient self
{88}. A certain author, whose works have many ages since been
entirely lost, does in his fifth book and eighth chapter say of
critics that "their writings are the mirrors of learning." This I