1. CHAPTER I.
Containing instructions very necessary to be perused by modern
critics
Reader, it is impossible we should know what sort of person thou
wilt be; for, perhaps, thou may'st be as learned in human nature as
Shakespear himself was, and, perhaps, thou may'st be no wiser than
some of his editors. Now, lest this latter should be the case, we
think proper, before we go any farther together, to give thee a few
wholesome admonitions; that thou may'st not as grossly misunderstand
and misrepresent us, as some of the said editors have misunderstood
and misrepresented their author.
First, then, we warn thee not too hastily to condemn any of the
incidents in this our history as impertinent and foreign to our main
design, because thou dost not immediately conceive in what manner such
incident may conduce to that design. This work may, indeed, be
considered as a great creation of our own; and for a little reptile of
a critic to presume to find fault with any of its parts, without
knowing the manner in which the whole is connected, and before he
comes to the final catastrophe, is a most presumptuous absurdity.
The allusion and metaphor we have here made use of, we must
acknowledge to be infinitely too great for our occasion; but there is,
indeed, no other, which is at all adequate to express the difference
between an author of the first rate and a critic of the lowest.
Another caution we would give thee, my good reptile, is, that thou
dost not find out too near a resemblance between certain characters
here introduced; as, for instance, between the landlady who appears in
the seventh book and her in the ninth. Thou art to know, friend,
that there are certain characteristics in which most individuals of
every profession and occupation agree. To be able to preserve these
characteristics, and at the same time to diversify their operations,
is one talent of a good writer. Again, to mark the nice distinction
between two persons actuated by the same vice or folly is another;
and, as this last talent is found in very few writers, so is the
true discernment of it found in as few readers; though, I believe, the
observation of this forms a very principal pleasure in those who are
capable of the discovery; every person, for instance, can
distinguish between Sir Epicure Mammon and Sir Fopling Flutter; but to
note the difference between Sir Fopling Flutter and Sir Courtly Nice
requires a more exquisite judgment: for want of which, vulgar
spectators of plays very often do great injustice in the theatre;
where I have sometimes known a poet in danger of being convicted as
a thief, upon much worse evidence than the resemblance of hands hath
been held to be in the law. In reality, I apprehend every amorous
widow on the stage would run the hazard of being condemned as a
servile imitation of Dido, but that happily very few of our play-house
critics understand enough of Latin to read Virgil.
In the next place, we must admonish thee, my worthy friend (for,
perhaps, thy heart may be better than thy head), not to condemn a
character as a bad one, because it is not perfectly a good one. If
thou dost delight in these models of perfection, there are books
enow written to gratify thy taste; but, as we have not, in the
course of our conversation, ever happened to meet with any such
person, we have not chosen to introduce any such here. To say the
truth, I a little question whether mere man ever arrived at this
consummate degree of excellence, as well as whether there hath ever
existed a monster bad enough to verify that
--nulla virtute redemptum
A vitiis--[14]
in Juvenal; nor do I, indeed, conceive the good purposes served by
inserting characters of such angelic perfection, or such diabolical
depravity, in any work of invention; since, from contemplating either,
the mind of man is more likely to be overwhelmed with sorrow and shame
than to draw any good uses from such patterns; for in the former
instance he may be both concerned and ashamed to see a pattern of
excellence in his nature, which he may reasonably despair of ever
arriving at; and in contemplating the latter he may be no less
affected with those uneasy sensations, at seeing the nature of which
he is a partaker degraded into so odious and detestable a creature.
In fact, if there be enough of goodness in a character to engage the
admiration and affection of a well-disposed mind, though there
should appear some of those little blemishes quas humana parum cavit
natura, they will raise our compassion rather than our abhorrence.
Indeed, nothing can be of more moral use than the imperfections
which are seen in examples of this kind; since such form a kind of
surprize, more apt to affect and dwell upon our minds than the
faults of very vicious and wicked persons. The foibles and vices of
men, in whom there is great mixture of good, become more glaring
objects from the virtues which contrast them and shew their deformity;
and when we find such vices attended with their evil consequence to
our favourite characters, we are not only taught to shun them for
our own sake, but to hate them for the mischiefs they have already
brought on those we love.
And now, my friend, having given you these few admonitions, we will,
if you please, once more set forward with our history.
[[14]]
Whose vices are not allayed with a single virtue.