THE WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE

I am inclined to think that both the writers of books, and the readers

of them, are generally not a little unreasonable in their expectations.

The first seem to fancy that the world must approve whatever they

produce, and the latter to imagine that authors are obliged to please

them at any rate. Methinks, as on the one hand, no single man is

born with a right of controlling the opinions of all the rest; so on the

other, the world has no title to demand, that the whole care and time

of any particular person should be sacrificed to its entertainment.

Therefore I cannot but believe that writers and readers are under

equal obligations for as much fame, or pleasure, as each affords the

other.

Every one acknowledges, it would be a wild notion to expect

perfection in any work of man: and yet one would think the

contrary was taken for granted, by the judgment commonly passed

upon poems. A critic supposes he has done his part if he proves a

writer to have failed in an expression, or erred in any particular

point: and can it then be wondered at if the poets in general seem

resolved not to own themselves in any error? For as long as one side

will make no allowances, the other will be brought to no

acknowledgments.