150 CRITICISM CRITICISM
A man must serve his time to every trade
Save censure—critics all are ready made.
Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote,
With just enough of learning to misquote:
A mind well skill'd to find or forge a fault;
A turn for punning, call it Attic salt;
To Jeffrey go, be silent and discreet,
His pay is just ten sterling pounds per sheet;
Fear not to lie, 'twill seem a lucky hit;
Shrink not from blasphemy, 'twill pass for wit;
Care not for feeling—pass your proper jest,
And stand a critic, hated yet caress'd.
Byron—English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. L. 63.
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| text = <poem>As soon
Seek roses in December—ice in June,
Hope, constancy in wind, or corn in chaff;
Believe a woman or an epitaph,
Or any other thing that's false, before
You trust in critics.
Byron—English Bards and Scotch Reviewers. L. 75.
Dij6 la sarten & la caldera, quitate alia ojinegra.
Said the pot to the kettle, "Get away,
blackface."
Cervantes
| work = Don Quixote.
| place = II. 67.
Who shall dispute what the Reviewers say?
Their word's sufficient; and to ask a reason,
In such a state as theirs, is downright treason.
Churchill—Apology. L. 94.
Though by whim, envy, or resentment led,
They damn those authors whom they never read.
ChdbchttiTi—The Candidate. L. 57.
A servile race
Who, in mere want of fault, all merit place;
Who blind obedience pay to ancient schools,
Bigots to Greece, and slaves to musty rules.
Churchill—The Rosciad. L. 183.
But spite of all the criticizing elves,
Those who would make us feel—must feel themChurchill—The Rosciad. L. 961.
Reviewers are usually people who would have
been poets, historians, biographers, etc., if they
could: they have tried their talents at one or
the other, and have failed; therefore they turn
critics.
Coleridge—Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton. P. 36.
| seealso = (See also Disraeli, Macaulay, Shelley; also Bismarck under Journalism)
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| text = <poem>Too nicely Jonson knew the critic's part,
Nature in him was almost lost in art.
Collins—Epistle to Sir Thomas Hanmer on
his Edition of Shakespeare.
There are some Critics so with Spleen diseased,
They scarcely come inclining to be pleased:
And sure he must have more than mortal Skill,
Who pleases one against his Will.
Congreve—The Way of the World. Epilogue.
La critique est aisee, et 1'art est difficile.
Criticism is easy, and art is difficult.
Destouches—Glorieux. II. 5.
The press, the pulpit, and the stage,
Conspire to censure and expose our age.
Wentworth Dillon—Essay on Translated
L.7.
You know who critics are?—the men who
have failed in literature and art.
Benj. Disraeli—Lothair. Ch. XXXV.
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{{Hoyt quote
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| text = <poem>It is much easier to be critical than to be correct.
Benj. Disraeli—Speech in the House of Commons. Jan 24, 1860.
The most noble criticism is that in which the
critic is not the antagonist so much as the rival
of the author.
Isaac D'Isbaeli—Curiosities of Literature.
Literary Journals.
Those who do not read criticism will rarely
merit to be criticised.
Isaac D'Israeli—Literary Character of Men
of Genius. Ch. VI.
writers are usually the sharpest censors.
Dryden—Dedication of translations from Ovid.
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| text = They who write ill, and they who ne'er durst
write,
Turn critics out of mere revenge and spite.
Dryden—Prologue to Conquest of Granada.
All who (like him) have writ ill plays before,
For they, like thieves, condemned, are hangmen
made,
To execute the members of their trade.
Dryden—Prologue to Rival Queens.
"I'm an owl: you're another. Sir Critic, good
day." And the barber kept on shaving.
James T. Fields—The Owl^Critic.
Blame where you must, be candid where you can,
And be each critic the Good-natured Man.
| author = Goldsmith
| work = The Good-Natured Man. Epilogue.
Reviewers are forever telling authors they
can't understand them. The author might often
reply: Is that my fault?
J. C. and A. W. Hare—Guesses at Truth.
The readers and the hearers like my books,
And yet some writers cannot them digest;
But what care I? for when I make a feast,
I would my guests should praise it, not the cooks.
Sra John Harrington—Against Writers that
Carp at other Men's Books.
When Poets' plots in plays are damn'd for spite,
They critics turn and damn the rest that write.
John Haynes—Prologue. In Oxford and Cambridge Miscellany Poems. Ed. by Elijah
Fenton.
