The allusion and metaphor we have here made use of, we must
acknowledge to be infinitely too great for our occasion; but there is,
indeed, no other, which is at all adequate to express the difference
between an author of the first rate and a critic of the lowest.
Another caution we would give thee, my good reptile, is, that thou
dost not find out too near a resemblance between certain characters
here introduced; as, for instance, between the landlady who appears in
the seventh book and her in the ninth. Thou art to know, friend,
that there are certain characteristics in which most individuals of
every profession and occupation agree. To be able to preserve these
characteristics, and at the same time to diversify their operations,
is one talent of a good writer. Again, to mark the nice distinction
between two persons actuated by the same vice or folly is another;
and, as this last talent is found in very few writers, so is the
true discernment of it found in as few readers; though, I believe, the
observation of this forms a very principal pleasure in those who are
capable of the discovery; every person, for instance, can
distinguish between Sir Epicure Mammon and Sir Fopling Flutter; but to
note the difference between Sir Fopling Flutter and Sir Courtly Nice
requires a more exquisite judgment: for want of which, vulgar
spectators of plays very often do great injustice in the theatre;
where I have sometimes known a poet in danger of being convicted as
a thief, upon much worse evidence than the resemblance of hands hath
been held to be in the law.
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