I am sensible how unjustly the very best _classical_ Critics have been treated. It is said that our great Philosopher spoke with much contempt of the two finest Scholars of this Age, Dr. _Bentley_ and Bishop _Hare_, for squabbling, as he expressed it, about an old Play-book; meaning, I suppose, _Terence_’s Comedies. But this Story is unworthy of him; tho’ well enough suiting the fanatic turn of the wild Writer that relates it; such censures are amongst the follies of men immoderately given over to one Science, and ignorantly undervaluing all the rest. Those learned Critics might, and perhaps did, laugh in their turn (tho’ still, sure, with the same indecency and indiscretion) at that incomparable Man, for wearing out a long Life in poring through a Telescope. Indeed, the weaknesses of Such are to be mentioned with reverence. But who can bear, without indignation, the fashionable cant of every trifling Writer, whose insipidity passes, with himself, for politeness, for pretending to be shocked, forsooth, with the rude and savage air of _vulgar_ Critics; meaning such as _Muretus_, _Scaliger_, _Casaubon_, _Salmasius_, _Spanheim_, _Bentley_. When, had it not been for the deathless labours of such as these, the western World, at the revival of Letters, had soon fallen back again into a state of ignorance and barbarity as deplorable as that from which Providence had just redeemed it. To conclude with an observation of a fine Writer and great Philosopher of our own; which I would gladly bind, tho’ with all honour, as a Phylactery, on the Brow of every awful Grammarian, to teach him at once the _Use_ and _Limits_ of his art: WORDS ARE THE MONEY OF FOOLS, AND THE COUNTERS OF WISE MEN. SAMUEL JOHNSON: PREFACE TO EDITION OF SHAKESPEARE. 1765. That praises are without reason lavished on the dead, and that the honours due only to excellence are paid to antiquity, is a complaint likely to be always continued by those, who, being able to add nothing to truth, hope for eminence from the heresies of paradox; or those, who, being forced by disappointment upon consolatory expedients, are willing to hope from posterity what the present age refuses, and flatter themselves that the regard which is yet denied by envy, will be at last bestowed by time. Antiquity, like every other quality that attracts the notice of mankind, has undoubtedly votaries that reverence it, not from reason, but from prejudice. Some seem to admire indiscriminately whatever has been long preserved, without considering that time has sometimes co-operated with chance; all perhaps are more willing to honour past than present excellence; and the mind contemplates genius through the shades of age, as the eye surveys the sun through artificial opacity. The great contention of criticism is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the ancients. While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate them by his best.