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Section III - A Digression Concerning Critics
Though I have been hitherto as cautious as I could, upon all
occasions, most nicely to follow the rules and methods of writing
laid down by the example of our illustrious moderns, yet has the
unhappy shortness of my memory led me into an error, from which I
must immediately extricate myself, before I can decently pursue my
principal subject. I confess with shame it was an unpardonable
omission to proceed so far as I have already done before I had
performed the due discourses, expostulatory, supplicatory, or
deprecatory, with my good lords the critics. Towards some atonement
for this grievous neglect, I do here make humbly bold to present
them with a short account of themselves and their art, by looking
into the original and pedigree of the word, as it is generally
understood among us, and very briefly considering the ancient and
present state thereof.
By the word critic, at this day so frequent in all conversations,
there have sometimes been distinguished three very different species
of mortal men, according as I have read in ancient books and
pamphlets. For first, by this term were understood such persons as
invented or drew up rules for themselves and the world, by observing
which a careful reader might be able to pronounce upon the
productions of the learned, form his taste to a true relish of the
sublime and the admirable, and divide every beauty of matter or of
style from the corruption that apes it. In their common perusal of
books, singling out the errors and defects, the nauseous, the
fulsome, the dull, and the impertinent, with the caution of a man
that walks through Edinburgh streets in a morning, who is indeed as
careful as he can to watch diligently and spy out the filth in his
way; not that he is curious to observe the colour and complexion of
the ordure or take its dimensions, much less to be paddling in or
tasting it, but only with a design to come out as cleanly as he may.
These men seem, though very erroneously, to have understood the
appellation of critic in a literal sense; that one principal part of
his office was to praise and acquit, and that a critic who sets up
to read only for an occasion of censure and reproof is a creature as
barbarous as a judge who should take up a resolution to hang all men
that came before him upon a trial.
Again, by the word critic have been meant the restorers of ancient
learning from the worms, and graves, and dust of manuscripts.
Now the races of these two have been for some ages utterly extinct,
and besides to discourse any further of them would not be at all to
my purpose.
The third and noblest sort is that of the true critic, whose
original is the most ancient of all. Every true critic is a hero
born, descending in a direct line from a celestial stem, by Momus
and Hybris, who begat Zoilus, who begat Tigellius, who begat
Etcaetera the elder, who begat Bentley, and Rymer, and Wotton, and
Perrault, and Dennis, who begat Etcaetera the younger.
And these are the critics from whom the commonwealth of learning has
in all ages received such immense benefits, that the gratitude of
their admirers placed their origin in heaven, among those of
Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, and other great deservers of mankind.
But heroic virtue itself hath not been exempt from the obloquy of
evil tongues. For it hath been objected that those ancient heroes,
famous for their combating so many giants, and dragons, and robbers,
were in their own persons a greater nuisance to mankind than any of
those monsters they subdued; and therefore, to render their
obligations more complete, when all other vermin were destroyed,
should in conscience have concluded with the same justice upon
themselves, as Hercules most generously did, and hath upon that
score procured for himself more temples and votaries than the best
of his fellows. For these reasons I suppose it is why some have
conceived it would be very expedient for the public good of learning
that every true critic, as soon as he had finished his task
assigned, should immediately deliver himself up to ratsbane or hemp,
or from some convenient altitude, and that no man's pretensions to
so illustrious a character should by any means be received before
that operation was performed.
Now, from this heavenly descent of criticism, and the close analogy
it bears to heroic virtue, it is easy to assign the proper
employment of a true, ancient, genuine critic: which is, to travel
through this vast world of writings; to peruse and hunt those
monstrous faults bred within them; to drag out the lurking errors,
like Cacus from his den; to multiply them like Hydra's heads; and
rake them together like Augeas's dung; or else to drive away a sort
of dangerous fowl who have a perverse inclination to plunder the
best branches of the tree of knowledge, like those Stymphalian birds
that ate up the fruit.
These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a
true critic: that he is a discoverer and collector of writers'
faults; which may be further put beyond dispute by the following
demonstration:- That whoever will examine the writings in all kinds
wherewith this ancient sect hath honoured the world, shall
immediately find from the whole thread and tenor of them that the
ideas of the authors have been altogether conversant and taken up
with the faults, and blemishes, and oversights, and mistakes of
other writers, and let the subject treated on be whatever it will,
their imaginations are so entirely possessed and replete with the
defects of other pens, that the very quintessence of what is bad
does of necessity distil into their own, by which means the whole
appears to be nothing else but an abstract of the criticisms
themselves have made.
Having thus briefly considered the original and office of a critic,
as the word is understood in its most noble and universal
acceptation, I proceed to refute the objections of those who argue
from the silence and pretermission of authors, by which they pretend
to prove that the very art of criticism, as now exercised, and by me
explained, is wholly modern, and consequently that the critics of
Great Britain and France have no title to an original so ancient and
illustrious as I have deduced. Now, if I can clearly make out, on
the contrary, that the most ancient writers have particularly
described both the person and the office of a true critic agreeable
to the definition laid down by me, their grand objection--from the
silence of authors--will fall to the ground.
I confess to have for a long time borne a part in this general
error, from which I should never have acquitted myself but through
the assistance of our noble moderns, whose most edifying volumes I
turn indefatigably over night and day, for the improvement of my
mind and the good of my country. These have with unwearied pains
made many useful searches into the weak sides of the ancients, and
given us a comprehensive list of them {84a}. Besides, they have
proved beyond contradiction that the very finest things delivered of
old have been long since invented and brought to light by much later
pens, and that the noblest discoveries those ancients ever made in
art or nature have all been produced by the transcending genius of
the present age, which clearly shows how little merit those ancients
can justly pretend to, and takes off that blind admiration paid them
by men in a corner, who have the unhappiness of conversing too
little with present things. Reflecting maturely upon all this, and
taking in the whole compass of human nature, I easily concluded that
these ancients, highly sensible of their many imperfections, must
needs have endeavoured, from some passages in their works, to
obviate, soften, or divert the censorious reader, by satire or
panegyric upon the true critics, in imitation of their masters, the
moderns. Now, in the commonplaces {84b} of both these I was
plentifully instructed by a long course of useful study in prefaces
and prologues, and therefore immediately resolved to try what I
could discover of either, by a diligent perusal of the most ancient
writers, and especially those who treated of the earliest times.
Here I found, to my great surprise, that although they all entered
upon occasion into particular descriptions of the true critic,
according as they were governed by their fears or their hopes, yet
whatever they touched of that kind was with abundance of caution,
adventuring no further than mythology and hieroglyphic. This, I
suppose, gave ground to superficial readers for urging the silence
of authors against the antiquity of the true critic, though the
types are so apposite, and the applications so necessary and
natural, that it is not easy to conceive how any reader of modern
eye and taste could overlook them. I shall venture from a great
number to produce a few which I am very confident will put this
question beyond doubt.
It well deserves considering that these ancient writers, in treating
enigmatically upon this subject, have generally fixed upon the very
same hieroglyph, varying only the story according to their
affections or their wit. For first, Pausanias is of opinion that
the perfection of writing correct was entirely owing to the
institution of critics, and that he can possibly mean no other than
the true critic is, I think, manifest enough from the following
description. He says they were a race of men who delighted to
nibble at the superfluities and excrescences of books, which the
learned at length observing, took warning of their own accord to lop
the luxuriant, the rotten, the dead, the sapless, and the overgrown
branches from their works. But now all this he cunningly shades
under the following allegory: That the Nauplians in Argia learned
the art of pruning their vines by observing that when an ass had
browsed upon one of them, it thrived the better and bore fairer
fruit. But Herodotus holding the very same hieroglyph, speaks much
plainer and almost in terminis. He hath been so bold as to tax the
true critics of ignorance and malice, telling us openly, for I think
nothing can be plainer, that in the western part of Libya there were
asses with horns, upon which relation Ctesias {85} yet refines,
mentioning the very same animal about India; adding, that whereas
all other asses wanted a gall, these horned ones were so redundant
in that part that their flesh was not to be eaten because of its
extreme bitterness.
Now, the reason why those ancient writers treated this subject only
by types and figures was because they durst not make open attacks
against a party so potent and so terrible as the critics of those
ages were, whose very voice was so dreadful that a legion of authors
would tremble and drop their pens at the sound. For so Herodotus
tells us expressly in another place how a vast army of Scythians was
put to flight in a panic terror by the braying of an ass. From
hence it is conjectured by certain profound philologers, that the
great awe and reverence paid to a true critic by the writers of
Britain have been derived to us from those our Scythian ancestors.
In short, this dread was so universal, that in process of time those
authors who had a mind to publish their sentiments more freely in
describing the true critics of their several ages, were forced to
leave off the use of the former hieroglyph as too nearly approaching
the prototype, and invented other terms instead thereof that were
more cautious and mystical. So Diodorus, speaking to the same
purpose, ventures no farther than to say that in the mountains of
Helicon there grows a certain weed which bears a flower of so damned
a scent as to poison those who offer to smell it. Lucretius gives
exactly the same relation.
"Est etiam in magnis Heliconis montibus arbos,
Floris odore hominem retro consueta necare."--Lib. 6. {86}
But Ctesias, whom we lately quoted, has been a great deal bolder; he
had been used with much severity by the true critics of his own age,
and therefore could not forbear to leave behind him at least one
deep mark of his vengeance against the whole tribe. His meaning is
so near the surface that I wonder how it possibly came to be
overlooked by those who deny the antiquity of the true critics. For
pretending to make a description of many strange animals about
India, he has set down these remarkable words. "Among the rest,"
says he, "there is a serpent that wants teeth, and consequently
cannot bite, but if its vomit (to which it is much addicted) happens
to fall upon anything, a certain rottenness or corruption ensues.
These serpents are generally found among the mountains where jewels
grow, and they frequently emit a poisonous juice, whereof whoever
drinks, that person's brain flies out of his nostrils."
There was also among the ancients a sort of critic, not
distinguished in specie from the former but in growth or degree, who
seem to have been only the tyros or junior scholars, yet because of
their differing employments they are frequently mentioned as a sect
by themselves. The usual exercise of these young students was to
attend constantly at theatres, and learn to spy out the worst parts
of the play, whereof they were obliged carefully to take note, and
render a rational account to their tutors. Fleshed at these smaller
sports, like young wolves, they grew up in time to be nimble and
strong enough for hunting down large game. For it has been
observed, both among ancients and moderns, that a true critic has
one quality in common with a whore and an alderman, never to change
his title or his nature; that a grey critic has been certainly a
green one, the perfections and acquirements of his age being only
the improved talents of his youth, like hemp, which some naturalists
inform us is bad for suffocations, though taken but in the seed. I
esteem the invention, or at least the refinement of prologues, to
have been owing to these younger proficients, of whom Terence makes
frequent and honourable mention, under the name of Malevoli.
Now it is certain the institution of the true critics was of
absolute necessity to the commonwealth of learning. For all human
actions seem to be divided like Themistocles and his company. One
man can fiddle, and another can make a small town a great city; and
he that cannot do either one or the other deserves to be kicked out
of the creation. The avoiding of which penalty has doubtless given
the first birth to the nation of critics, and withal an occasion for
their secret detractors to report that a true critic is a sort of
mechanic set up with a stock and tools for his trade, at as little
expense as a tailor; and that there is much analogy between the
utensils and abilities of both. That the "Tailor's Hell" is the
type of a critic's commonplace-book, and his wit and learning held
forth by the goose. That it requires at least as many of these to
the making up of one scholar as of the others to the composition of
a man. That the valour of both is equal, and their weapons near of
a size. Much may be said in answer to these invidious reflections;
and I can positively affirm the first to be a falsehood: for, on
the contrary, nothing is more certain than that it requires greater
layings out to be free of the critic's company than of any other you
can name. For as to be a true beggar, it will cost the richest
candidate every groat he is worth, so before one can commence a true
critic, it will cost a man all the good qualities of his mind, which
perhaps for a less purchase would be thought but an indifferent
bargain.
Having thus amply proved the antiquity of criticism and described
the primitive state of it, I shall now examine the present condition
of this Empire, and show how well it agrees with its ancient self
{88}. A certain author, whose works have many ages since been
entirely lost, does in his fifth book and eighth chapter say of
critics that "their writings are the mirrors of learning." This I
understand in a literal sense, and suppose our author must mean that
whoever designs to be a perfect writer must inspect into the books
of critics, and correct his inventions there as in a mirror. Now,
whoever considers that the mirrors of the ancients were made of
brass and fine mercurio, may presently apply the two principal
qualifications of a true modern critic, and consequently must needs
conclude that these have always been and must be for ever the same.
For brass is an emblem of duration, and when it is skilfully
burnished will cast reflections from its own superficies without any
assistance of mercury from behind. All the other talents of a
critic will not require a particular mention, being included or
easily deducible to these. However, I shall conclude with three
maxims, which may serve both as characteristics to distinguish a
true modern critic from a pretender, and will be also of admirable
use to those worthy spirits who engage in so useful and honourable
an art.
The first is, that criticism, contrary to all other faculties of the
intellect, is ever held the truest and best when it is the very
first result of the critic's mind; as fowlers reckon the first aim
for the surest, and seldom fail of missing the mark if they stay not
for a second.
Secondly, the true critics are known by their talent of swarming
about the noblest writers, to which they are carried merely by
instinct, as a rat to the best cheese, or a wasp to the fairest
fruit. So when the king is a horseback he is sure to be the
dirtiest person of the company, and they that make their court best
are such as bespatter him most.
Lastly, a true critic in the perusal of a book is like a dog at a
feast, whose thoughts and stomach are wholly set upon what the
guests fling away, and consequently is apt to snarl most when there
are the fewest bones {89}.
Thus much I think is sufficient to serve by way of address to my
patrons, the true modern critics, and may very well atone for my
past silence, as well as that which I am like to observe for the
future. I hope I have deserved so well of their whole body as to
meet with generous and tender usage at their hands. Supported by
which expectation I go on boldly to pursue those adventures already
so happily begun.
Content of Section III - A Digression Concerning Critics [Jonathan Swift's ebook: A Tale of a Tub]
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