There is in the Arts and Sciences such a Point of Perfection, as there is one of Goodness or maturity in Fruits; and he that can find and relish it must be allowed to have a True Tast; but on the contrary, he that neither perceives it, nor likes any thing on this side, or beyond it, has but a defective Palate.  Hence I conclude that there is a bad Taste and a good one, and that the disputing about Tastes is not altogether unreasonable.

The Lives of Heroes have enricht History and History in requital has embellished and heightened the Lives of Heroes, so that it is no easie matter to determine which of the two is more beholden to the other:  either Historians, to those who have furnished them with so great and noble a matter to work upon; or those great Men, to those Writers that have convey’d their names and Atchievements down to the Admiration of after-Ages.

There are many of our Wits that feed for a while upon the Ancients, and the best of our Modern Authors:  and when they have squeez’d out and extracted matter enough to appear in Print and set up for themselves, most ungratefully abuse them, like children grown strong and lusty by the good milk they have sucked, who generally beat their Nurses.

A Modern Author proves both by Reasons and Examples that the Ancients are inferior to us; and fetches his Arguments from his own particular Tast, and his Examples from his own Writings.  He owns, That the Ancients tho’ generally uneven and uncorrect, have yet here and there some fine Touches, and indeed these are so fine, that the quoting of them is the only thing that makes his Criticisms worth a Mans reading ’em.

Some great Men pronounce for the Ancients against the Moderns:  But their own Composures are so agreeable to the Taste of Antiquity, and bear so great a resemblance with the Patterns they have left us, that they seem to be judges in their own Case and being suspected of Partiality, are therefore ceptionable.

It is the Character of a Pedant to be unwilling either to ask a Friend’s advice about his Work or to alter what he has been made sensible to be a fault.

We ought to read our Writings to those only, who have Judgment enough to correct what is amiss, and esteem what deserves to be commended.

An Author, ought to receive with an equal Modesty both the Praise and Censure of other People upon his own Works.

A great facility in submitting to other People’s Censure is sometimes as faulty as a great roughness in rejecting it:  for there is no Composure so every way accomplisht, but what would be pared and clipped to nothing if a man would follow the advice of every finical scrupulous Critick, who often would have the best Things left out because forsooth, they are not agreeable to his dull Palate.