In our own Country a Man seldom sets up for a Poet, without attacking the Reputation of all his Brothers in the Art.  The Ignorance of the Moderns, the Scribblers of the Age, the Decay of Poetry, are the Topicks of Detraction, with which he makes his Entrance into the World:  But how much more noble is the Fame that is built on Candour and Ingenuity, according to those beautiful Lines of Sir John Denham, in his Poem on Fletchers Works!

  But whither am I strayed?  I need not raise
  Trophies to thee from other Mens Dispraise: 
  Nor is thy Fame on lesser Ruins built,
  Nor needs thy juster Title the foul Guilt
  Of Eastern Kings, who, to secure their Reign,
  Must have their Brothers, Sons, and Kindred slain.

I am sorry to find that an Author, who is very justly esteemed among the best Judges, has admitted some Stroaks of this Nature into a very fine Poem; I mean The Art of Criticism, which was publish’d some Months since, and is a Master-piece in its kind. [2] The Observations follow one another like those in Horace’s Art of Poetry, without that methodical Regularity which would have been requisite in a Prose Author.  They are some of them uncommon, but such as the Reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that Elegance and Perspicuity in which they are delivered.  As for those which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a Light, and illustrated with such apt Allusions, that they have in them all the Graces of Novelty, and make the Reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their Truth and Solidity.  And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so very well enlarged upon in the Preface to his Works, that Wit and fine Writing doth not consist so much in advancing Things that are new, as in giving Things that are known an agreeable Turn.  It is impossible for us, who live in the lat[t]er Ages of the World, to make Observations in Criticism, Morality, or in any Art or Science, which have not been touched upon by others.  We have little else left us, but to represent the common Sense of Mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon Lights.  If a Reader examines Horace’s Art of Poetry, he will find but very few Precepts in it, which he may not meet with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by all the Poets of the Augustan Age.  His Way of expressing and applying them, not his Invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire.

For this Reason I think there is nothing in the World so tiresome as the Works of those Criticks who write in a positive Dogmatick Way, without either Language, Genius, or Imagination.  If the Reader would see how the best of the Latin Criticks writ, he may find their Manner very beautifully described in the Characters of Horace, Petronius, Quintilian, and Longinus, as they are drawn in the Essay of which I am now speaking.