The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift/Volume 2/A Tale of a Tub/Section 3

by Jonathan Swift

SECT. III.

A DIGRESSION CONCERNING CRITICKS^[1].

ALTHOUGH 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 errour, from which I must 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 criticks. 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 critick, 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 was 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 corrruption that apes it: in their common perusal of books, singling out the errours 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 may seem, though very erroneously, to have understood the appellation of critick in a literal sense; that one principal part of his office was to praise and acquit; and that a critick, 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 critick have been meant, the restorers of ancient learning from the worms, and graves, and dust of manuscripts.

Now the races of those two, have been for some ages utterly extinct; and besides, to discourse any farther of them would not be at all to my purpose.

The third and noblest sort is that of the TRUE CRITICK, whose original is the most ancient of all. Every true critick 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 Etcætera the elder; who begat Bentley, and Rymer, and Wotton, and Perrault, and Dennis; who begat Etcætera the younger.

And these are the criticks, 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 heroick virtue itself, has not been exempt from the obloquy of evil tongues. For it has 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. Hercules most generously did, and has upon that score procured to 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 publick good of learning, that every true critick, as soon as he had finished his task assigned, should immediately deliver himself up to ratsbane, or hemp, or leap from some convenient altitude; and that no man's pretensions to so illustrious a character, should by any means be received, before that operation were performed.

Now, from this heavenly descent of criticism, and the close analogy it bears to heroick virtue, it is easy to assign the proper employment of a true ancient genuine critick; which is, to travel through this vast world of writings; to pursue and hunt those monstrous faults bred within them; to drag out the lurking errours, like Cacus from his den; to multiply them like Hydra's heads; and rake them together like Augeas's dung: or else 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 eat up the fruit.

These reasonings will furnish us with an adequate definition of a true critick: that he is discoverer and collector of writers faults; which may be farther put beyond dispute by the following demonstration: that whoever will examine the writings in all kinds, wherewith this ancient sect has honoured the world, shall immediately find, from the whole thread and tenour 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 intirely 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 critick, 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 criticks 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 ancient writers have particularly described both the person and the office of a true critick, agreeable^[2] 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, born a part in this general errour^[3]; 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. 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, of 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 panegyrick upon the criticks, in imitation of their masters, the moderns. Now, in the common-places of both these^[4], I was plentifully instructed, by along 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 surprize, that although they all entered, upon occasion, into particular descriptions of the true critick, 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 farther than mythology and hieroglyplick. This, I suppose, gave ground to superficial readers for urging the silence of authors against the antiquity of the true critick, though the types are so apposite, and the applications so necessary and natural, that it is not easy to conceive, how any reader, of a 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 dispute.

It well deserves considering^[5], that these ancient writers, in treating enigmatically upon the 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^[6] was intirely owing to the institution of criticks; and, that he can possibly mean no other than the true critick, 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 excrescencies 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 Argos 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 has been so bold as to tax the true criticks, of ignorance and malice; telling us openly, for I think nothing can be plainer, that in the western part of Lybia, there were ASSES with horns: upon which relation Ctesias 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 terrible, as the criticks 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 panick terrour, by the braying of an ASS. From hence^[7] it is conjectured by certain profound philologers, that the great awe and reverence paid to a true critick, 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 criticks 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 tetro consueta necare^[8].

Lib. 6.

But Ctesias, whom we lately quoted, has been a great deal bolder; he had been used with much severity by the true criticks 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 true criticks. 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 any thing, 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 brains fly out of his nostrils.

There was also among the ancients a sort of criticks, not distinguished in species from the former, but in growth or degree, who seem to have been only the tyroes or junior scholars; yet, because of their differing employments, they are frequently mentioned as a sect by themselves. The usual exercise of these younger 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 critick has one quality in common with a whore, and an alderman, never to change his title or his nature; that a gray critick, 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 criticks, 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 criticks; and withal, an occasion for their secret detractors to report, that a true critick is a sort of mechanick, set up with a stock and tools for his trade, at as little expense as a taylor; and that there is much analogy between the utensils, and abilities of both: that the taylor's hell is the type of a critick's common-place 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^[9] of a size. Much may be said in answer to those invidious reflections; and I can positively affirm the first to be a falshood: for on the contrary, nothing is more certain, than that it requires greater layings out, to be free of the critick'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 critick, 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. A certain author^[10], whose works have many ages since been intirely lost, does, in his fifth book, and eighth chapter, say of criticks, 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 criticks, and correct his invention there, as in a mirror. Now, whoever considers, that the mirrors of the ancients were made of brass, and sine mercurio, may presently apply the two principal qualifications of a true modern critick, 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 critick, will not require a particular mention, being included, or easily reducible to these. However, I shall conclude with three maxims, which may serve both as characteristicks to distinguish a true modern critick 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 critick's mind: as fowlers reckon the first aim for the surest, and seldom fail of missing the mark, if they stay for a second.

Secondly, the true criticks 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 on 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 critick, 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.

Thus much, I think, is sufiicient to serve by way of address to my patrons, the true modern criticks; and may very well atone for my past silence, as well as that which I am like^[11] to observe for the future.

I hope I have deserved so well of their whole body, as to meet with generous and tender usage from their hands. Supported by which expectation, I go on boldly to pursue those adventures, already so happily begun.

1. The several digressions are written in ridicule of bad criticks, dull commentators, and the whole fraternity of Grub-street philosophers. Orrery.
2. Swift often uses the adjective instead of the adverb; it should have been 'agreeably to,' &c.
3. This is ungrammatical; the proper mode of expressing here, would be, 'I confess that I have, for a long time, born a part,' &c.
4. Satire, and panegyrick upon criticks.
5. This expression is faulty; it should be, 'It well deserves to be considered:' or, 'it well deserves consideration,' &c.
6. Correct, for correctly.
7. From hence, frequently used by our author, as well as, 'from thence,' and 'from whence,' are improper phrases, as the preposition from is included in each of those vords. Hence, signifying from this; thence, from that; and whence, from which.
8. Near Helicon, and round the learned hill,
   Grow trees, whose blossoms with their odour kill.
9. Near, for nearly.
10. A quotation after the manner of a great author. Vide Bentley's dissertation, &c.
11. Like, for likely.