The Works of Alexander Pope Author:William John Courthope, John Wilson Croker, Alexander Pope Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE1. I Am inclined to think that both the writers of books, and the readers of them, are generally not a little unreasonable in their exp... more »ectations. The first seem to fancy the world must approve whatever they produce, and the latter 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 1 The clearness, the closeness, and the elegance of style with which this preface is written, render it one of the best pieces of prose in our language. It abounds in strong good sense, and profound knowledge of life. It is written with such simplicity that scarcely a single metaphor is to be found in it. Atterbury was so delighted with it, that he tells our Author he had read it over twice with pleasure, and desired him not to balance a moment about printing it; " always provided there is nothing said there that you may have occasion to unsay hereafter." These words are remarkable. This preface far excels those of Pelis- son, Vaugelas, and D'Ablancourt, of which the French boast so highly. May I be allowed just to add, that the finest prefaces ever written, were, perhaps, that of Thuanus to his History, of Calvin to his Institutes, and of Casaubon to his Polybiiu. 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 s...« less