If you dislike him, it is at your own peril; he is sure to put in a
caveat beforehand against your understanding, and, like a malefactor in
wit, is always furnished with exceptions against his judges. This puts
him upon perpetual apologies, excuses, and defences, but still by way of
defiance, in a kind of whiffling strain, without regard of any man that
stands in the way of his pageant. Where he thinks he may do it safely,
he will confidently own other men's writings; and where he fears the
truth may be discovered, he will, by feeble denials and feigned
insinuations, give men occasion to suppose it.
If he understands Latin or Greek he ranks himself among the learned,
despises the ignorant, talks criticisms out of Scaliger, and repeats
Martial's bawdy epigrams, and sets up his rest wholly upon pedantry. But
if he be not so well qualified, he cries down all learning as pedantic,
disclaims study, and professes to write with as great facility as if his
Muse was sliding down Parnassus. Whatsoever he hears well said he seizes
upon by poetical license, and one way makes it his own; that is, by
ill-repeating of it. This he believes to be no more theft than it is to
take that which others throw away. By this means his writings are, like
a tailor's cushion of mosaic work, made up of several scraps sewed
together. He calls a slovenly, nasty description great Nature, and dull
flatness strange easiness. He writes down all that comes in his head,
and makes no choice, because he has nothing to do it with that is
judgment.
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