(3.) To make a book is as much a trade as to make a clock; something more than intelligence is required to become an author. A certain magistrate was going to be raised by his merit to the highest legal dignity; he was a man of subtle mind and of experience, but must needs print a treatise of morality, which was quickly bought up on account of its absurdity.[43] (4.) It is not so easy to obtain a reputation by a perfect work as to enhance the value of an indifferent one by a reputation already acquired. (5.) A satirical work or a book of anecdotes[44] handed about privately in manuscript from one to another, passes for a masterpiece, even when it is but middling; the printing ruins its reputation. (6.) Take away from most of our works on morality the “Advertisement to the reader,” the “Epistle dedicatory,” the “Preface,” the “Table of contents,” and the “Permission to print,” and there will scarcely be pages enough left to deserve the name of a book. (7.) In certain things mediocrity is unbearable, as in poetry, music, painting, and eloquence. How we are tortured when we hear a dull soliloquy delivered in a pompous tone, or indifferent verses read with all the emphasis of a wretched poet! (8.) Some poets in their tragedies employ a goodly number of big sounding verses, which seem strong, elevated, and filled with lofty sentiments.[45] They are listened to anxiously, with eyes raised and gaping mouths, and are thought to please the public; and where they are understood the least, are admired the most; people have no time to breathe, they have hardly time to exclaim and to applaud. Formerly, when I was quite young, I imagined those passages were clear and intelligible to the actors, the pit, and the galleries; that the authors themselves understood them, and that I must have been very dull not to understand what it was all about. But now I am undeceived. (9.) Up to the present time there exists hardly any literary masterpiece which is the joint labour of several men.[46] Homer wrote the Iliad,[47] Virgil the Æneid, Livy the Decades, and the Roman orator[48] his Orations. (10.) There is in art an acme of perfection, as there is in Nature one of goodness and completeness. Any one who feels this and loves art possesses a perfect taste; but he who is not sensible of it, and loves what is below or above that point, is wanting in taste. Thus there exists a good and a bad taste, and we are right in discussing the difference between them. (11.) Men have generally more vivacity than judgment; or, to speak more accurately, few men exist whose intelligence is combined with a correct taste and a judicious criticism. (12.) The lives of heroes have enriched history, and history has adorned the actions of heroes; and thus I cannot say whether the historians are more indebted to those who provided them with such noble materials, or those great men to their historians.