After this Consciousness of my real Defects, you will easily judge, Sir, how little I presume that my Poetical Labours may outlive those of my mortal _Cotemporaries_.[53]
At the same time that I am so humble in my Pretensions to Fame, I would not be thought to undervalue it; Nature will not suffer us to despise it, but she may sometimes make us too fond of it. I have known more than one good Writer very near ridiculous from being in too much Heat about it. Whoever intrinsically deserves it will always have a proportionable Right to it. It can neither be resign'd nor taken from you by Violence. Truth, which is unalterable, must (however his Fame may be contested) give every Man his Due: What a Poem weighs it will be worth; nor is it in the Power of Human Eloquence, with Favour or Prejudice, to increase or diminish its Value. Prejudice, 'tis true, may a while discolour it; but it will always have its Appeal to the Equity of good Sense, which will never fail in the End to reverse all false Judgment against it. Therefore when I see an eminent Author hurt, and impatient at an impotent Attack upon his Labours, he disturbs my Inclination to admire him; I grow doubtful of the favourable Judgment I have made of him, and am quite uneasy to see him so tender in a Point he cannot but know he ought not himself to be judge of; his Concern indeed at another's Prejudice or Disapprobation may be natural; but to own it seems to me a natural Weakness. When a Work is apparently great it will go without Crutches; all your Art and Anxiety to heighten the Fame of it then becomes low and little.[54] He that will bear no Censure must be often robb'd of his due Praise. Fools have as good a Right to be Readers as Men of Sense have, and why not to give their Judgments too? Methinks it would be a sort of Tyranny in Wit for an Author to be publickly putting every Argument to death that appear'd against him; so absolute a Demand for Approbation puts us upon our Right to dispute it; Praise is as much the Reader's Property as Wit is the Author's; Applause is not a Tax paid to him as a Prince, but rather a Benevolence given to him as a Beggar; and we have naturally more Charity for the dumb Beggar than the sturdy one. The Merit of a Writer and a fine Woman's Face are never mended by their talking of them: How amiable is she that seems not to know she is handsome!