I would not be understood in this, or any thing else, to endeavour to lessen the Opinion the People have generally and justly of the _Spectator_'s Perfections: I verily believe, there is no Production of the Mind, ancient or modern, where are to be found more Wit, Politeness, fine Raillery, good Sense, Learning, and Eloquence; but what I have said, is to shew, that great Wits as well as little have their Passions, their Piques and Prejudices, when the least Blemish is discovered in their Glory. In the same _Spectator_, we have another Hint, that no Body ought to criticise on that Author's Writings, unless he could write as elegantly as himself, which effectually cuts off all _Criticism_. These _professed Criticks cannot put ten Words together with Elegance, or common Propriety_. What an arbitrary Way of arguing is this? These Criticks are Smatterers; _They vilify only the Productions that gain Applause; the Blemishes they descry are imaginary; their Arguments are far fetched; Their Works are like those of the Sophists, they are thought deep, because unintelligible; they instruct the People in Absurdities_. Would the _Spectator_ allow this positive Air in any other Writer? How does it appear that one Word of all this is true? _Ipse dixit._ That must satisfy, though he is in this Case too much a Party, to be a Judge. _These_ Criticks _are led themselves into Absurdities, by not considering, That there is sometimes a greater Judgement shewn in deviating from the Rules of Art, than adhering to them_. The Word _sometimes_ here would make every right Argument wrong, and every Truth Falsehood, because _sometimes_ there may be an Exception to a general Rule. Why, does he not tell us, wherein himself, or any one else shewed his Judgement in deviating from the Rules of Art? The _Critical Smatterers_ do not charge him in those Places where Judgement was shewn in such deviating, but where the Want of Judgement appeared in it. I shall have occasion to touch this Subject a little elsewhere; though I hope what I have said here, is enough to prove that just _Criticisms_ are not the Productions of Ignorance and Envy, as the _Spectator_ intimates; but that they are, on the contrary, useful and necessary to be a Check on the greatest Genius's, who want the Rein much more than the Spur; and what, in a few Years, would become of all good Writing, if those great Genius's could impose their very Blemishes on the World for the most shining Beauties? The _Spectator_ gives us another Mark, by which we may discover a Critick, who has neither Taste nor Learning, and that is, _He seldom ventures to praise any Passage in an Author, which has not been before received and applauded by the Publick_. If this Remark had been infallible and universal, it must have deprived the _Spectator_ himself of the two greatest Beauties in all his Quotations out of _Milton_ which are in every one's Mouth. The One in the sublime Kind in the Speech to the _Sun_.