It is the Character of a Pedant to be unwilling either to ask a Friend's advice about his Work or to alter what he has been made sensible to be a fault.
We ought to read our Writings to those only, who have Judgment enough to correct what is amiss, and esteem what deserves to be commended.
An Author, ought to receive with an equal Modesty both the Praise and
Censure of other People upon his own Works.
A great facility in submitting to other People's Censure is sometimes as faulty as a great roughness in rejecting it: for there is no Composure so every way accomplisht, but what would be pared and clipped to nothing if a man would follow the advice of every finical scrupulous Critick, who often would have the best Things left out because forsooth, they are not agreeable to his dull Palate.
The great Pleasure some People take in criticizing upon the small Faults of a Book so vitiates their Taste, that it renders them unfit to be affected with it's Beauties.
The same Niceness of Judgment which makes some Men write sence, makes them very often shy and unwilling to appear in Print.
Among the several Expressions We may use for the same Thought, there is but an individual one which is good and proper; any other but that is flat and imperfect, and cannot please an ingenious Man that has a mind to explain what he thinks: And it is no small wonder to me to consider, what Pains, even the best of Writers are sometimes at, to seek out that Expression, which being the most simple and natural, ought consequently to have presented it self without Study.
'Tis to no great purpose that a Man seeks to make himself admir'd by his Composures: Blockheads, indeed, may oftentimes admire him but then they are but Blockheads; and as for Wits they have in themselves the seeds or hints of all the good and fine things that can possibly be thought of or said; and therefore they seldom admire any thing, but only approve of what hits their Palate.
The being a Critick is not so much a Science as a sort of laborious, and painful Employment, which requires more strength of Body, than delicacy of Wit, and more assiduity than natural Parts.
As some merit Praise for writing well, so do others for not writing at all.