I’ll undertake this moment to prove it to any man in the world, except to a connoisseur: ----though I declare I object only to a connoisseur in swearing, ----as I would do to a connoisseur in painting, &c., &c., the whole set of ’em are so hung round and _befetish’d_ with the bobs and trinkets of criticism, ----or to drop my metaphor, which by the bye is a pity, ----for I have fetch’d it as far as from the coast of _Guiney_; --their heads, Sir, are stuck so full of rules and compasses, and have that eternal propensity to apply them upon all occasions, that a work of genius had better go to the devil at once, than stand to be prick’d and tortured to death by ’em. --And how did _Garrick_ speak the soliloquy last night? --Oh, against all rule, my lord, --most ungrammatically! betwixt the substantive and the adjective, which should agree together in _number_, _case_, and _gender_, he made a breach thus, --stopping, as if the point wanted settling; --and betwixt the nominative case, which your lordship knows should govern the verb, he suspended his voice in the epilogue a dozen times three seconds and three-fifths by a stop-watch, my lord, each time, --Admirable grammarian! ----But in suspending his voice----was the sense suspended likewise? Did no expression of attitude or countenance fill up the chasm? ----Was the eye silent? Did you narrowly look? ------I look’d only at the stop-watch, my lord. --Excellent observer! And what of this new book the whole world makes such a rout about? ----Oh! ’tis out of all plumb, my lord, ----quite an irregular thing! --not one of the angles at the four corners was a right angle. --I had my rule and compasses, &c., my lord, in my pocket. --Excellent critick! ----And for the epick poem your lordship bid me look at----upon taking the length, breadth, height, and depth of it, and trying them at home upon an exact scale of _Bossu’s_----’tis out, my lord, in every one of its dimensions. --Admirable connoisseur! ----And did you step in, to take a look at the grand picture in your way back? --’Tis a melancholy daub! my lord; not one principle of the _pyramid_ in any one group! ----and what a price! ----for there is nothing of the colouring of _Titian_--the expression of _Rubens_--the grace of _Raphael_--the purity of _Dominichino_--the _corregiescity_ of _Corregio_--the learning of _Poussin_--the airs of _Guido_--the taste of the _Carrachis_--or the grand contour of _Angela_. --Grant me patience, just Heaven! --Of all the cants which are canted in this canting world--though the cant of hypocrites may be the worst----the cant of criticism is the most tormenting! I would go fifty miles on foot, for I have not a horse worth riding on, to kiss the hand of that man whose generous heart will give up the reins of his imagination into his author’s hands----be pleased he knows not why, and cares not wherefore.