feathers for the caps of others, and still more to plume the shafts in
the quivers of my enemies, of them that unprovoked have lain in wait
against my soul.

Sic vos, non vobis, mellificatis, apes!




CHAPTER III

The Author's obligations to critics, and the probable occasion--
Principles of modern criticism--Mr. Southey's works and character.


To anonymous critics in reviews, magazines, and news-journals of
various name and rank, and to satirists with or without a name in
verse or prose, or in verse-text aided by prose-comment, I do
seriously believe and profess, that I owe full two-thirds of whatever
reputation and publicity I happen to possess. For when the name of an
individual has occurred so frequently, in so many works, for so great
a length of time, the readers of these works--(which with a shelf or
two of beauties, elegant Extracts and Anas, form nine-tenths of the
reading of the reading Public [14])--cannot but be familiar with the
name, without distinctly remembering whether it was introduced for
eulogy or for censure. And this becomes the more likely, if (as I
believe) the habit of perusing periodical works may be properly added
to Averroes' catalogue of Anti-Mnemonics, or weakeners of the memory
[15]. But where this has not been the case, yet the reader will be apt
to suspect that there must be something more than usually strong and