Why is it that we hear no more of Gentle Readers? Is it that having become critical in this age of Magazines and Reviews, they have ceased to be gentle? But all are not critical; The baleful dregs Of these late ages,—that Circæan draught Of servitude and folly, have not yet,— Yet have not so dishonour'd, so deform'd The native judgement of the human soul.[1] [Footnote 1: AKENSIDE.] In thus applying these lines I mean the servitude to which any rational man degrades his intellect when he submits to receive an opinion from the dictation of another, upon a point whereon he is just as capable of judging for himself;—the intellectual servitude of being told by Mr. A. B. or C. whether he is to like a book or not,—or why he is to like it: and the folly of supposing that the man who writes anonymously, is on that very account entitled to more credit for judgement, erudition and integrity, than the author who comes forward in his own person, and stakes his character upon what he advances. All Readers however,—thank Heaven, and what is left among us of that best and rarest of all senses called Common Sense,—all Readers however are not critical. There are still some who are willing to be pleased, and thankful for being pleased; and who do not think it necessary that they should be able to _parse_ their pleasure, like a lesson, and give a rule or a reason why they are pleased, or why they ought not to be pleased. There are still readers who have never read an Essay upon Taste;—and if they take my advice they never will; for they can no more improve their taste by so doing, than they could improve their appetite or their digestion by studying a cookery book. I have something to say to all classes of Readers: and therefore having thus begun to speak of one, with that class I will proceed. It is to the youthful part of my lectors—(why not lectors as well as auditors?) it is _virginibus puerisque_ that I now address myself. Young Readers, you whose hearts are open, whose understandings are not yet hardened, and whose feelings are neither exhausted nor encrusted by the world, take from me a better rule than any professors of criticism will teach you!