The fatal Criticism or Damnation which the Writings of some Authors meet with thro’ their Obscurity, want of Friends and Interest in the World, &c. is very discouraging to the Productions of Literature:  It is the greatest difficulty immaginable, for an obscure Person to Establish a Reputation in any sort of Writing; he’s a long time in the same Condition with Sisyphus, rolling a heavy Stone against an aspiring Mount which perpetually descends again; it must be to his benign Stars, some lucky Subject suiting the Humour of the Times, more than the Beauty of his Performance, which he will be oblig’d for his Rise:  And in this Age Persons in general, are so Estrang’d from bare Merit, that an Author destitute of Patronage will be equally Unsuccessful to a Person without Interest at Court, (and you’ll as rarely find the Friendship of an Orestes, as the Chastity of Penelope) When a Man of Fortune has no other Task, than to give out a stupid Performance to be of his own Composing, and he’s immediately respected as a Celebrated Writer:  And if a Man has the good Fortune to hit the capricious Humour of the Age; after he has attained a Reputation with the utmost Difficulty, he’s sure to meet with the severest Treatment, from a herd of Malicious and Implacable Scriblers.

This was the Case of the late Mr. Dryden, a Man for Learning and universal Writing in Poetry, perhaps the Greatest that England has produc’d; he was Persecuted by Envy, with the utmost Inveteracy for many Years in Succession:  And is the Misfortune at this Juncture of Mr. Pope, a Person tho’ Inferior to Mr. Dryden, yet speaking Impartially has few Superiors in this Age:  From these Considerations it is Evident, (tho’ it seems a Paradox) that it is a Reputation to be Scandaliz’d, as a Person in all Cases of this Nature is allow’d some Merit, when Envy attacks him, and the World might not be sensible of it in General, without a publick Encounter in Criticism; and many Authors would be Buried in Oblivion were they not kept alive by Clamours against their Performances.

The Criticks in this Age are arriv’d to that consummate Pitch of ill-nature, that they’ll by no means permit any Person the favour to Blunder but their mighty selves, and are in all respects, except the Office of a Critick, in some measure ill Writers; I have known an unnatural Brother of the Quill causless condemn Language in the Writings of other Persons, when his own has really been the meanest; to Accuse others of Inconsistency with the utmost Vehemence, when his own Works have not been without their AEra’s, and to find fault with every Line in a Poem, when he has been wholly at a loss to Correct, or at least not capable of Writing one single Page of it.