and shewing, from all that goes before and all that follows, the
inelegance and absurdity of the old reading; then by proposing
something, which to superficial readers would seem specious, but
which the editor rejects with indignation; then by producing the
true reading, with a long paraphrase, and concluding with loud
acclamations on the discovery, and a sober wish for the advancement
and prosperity of genuine criticism.

All this may be done, and perhaps done sometimes without impropriety. But
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires
many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot
without so much labour appear to be right. The justness of a happy
restoration strikes at once, and the moral precept may be well
applied to criticism, quod dubitas ne feceris.

To dread the shore which he sees spread with wrecks, is natural to
the sailor. I had before my eye, so many critical adventures ended
in miscarriage, that caution was forced upon me. I encountered
in every page Wit struggling with its own sophistry, and Learning
confused by the multiplicity of its views. I was forced to censure
those whom I admired, and could not but reflect, while I was
dispossessing their emenations, how soon the same fate might happen
to my own, and how many of the readings which I have corrected may
be some other editor defended and established.

Criticks, I saw, that other's names efface,
And fix their own, with labour, in the place;
Their own, like others, soon their place resign'd,
Or disappear'd, and left the first behind.--Pope.