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The Works of Henry Fielding, Esq (7); With an Essay on His Life and Genius
The Works of Henry Fielding Esq With an Essay on His Life and Genius - 7 Author:Henry Fielding Volume: 7 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1871 Original Publisher: Bickers and son Subjects: Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing t... more »ext. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: THE HISTORY OP A FOUNDLING BOOK XI. Containing about three days. CHAPTER I. A crust for the critics. Is our last initial chapter, we may be supposed to have treated that formidable set of men, who are called Critics, with more freedom than becomes us ; since they exact, and indeed generally receive, great condescension from authors. We shall in this, therefore, give the reasons of our conduct to this august body; and here we shall, perhaps, place them in a light in which they have not hitherto been seen. This word critic is of Greek derivation, and signifies judgment. Hence I presume some persons who have not understood the original, and have seen the English translation of the primitive, have concluded that itmeant judgment in the legal sense, in which it is frequently used as equivalent to condemnation. I am the rather inclined to be of that opinion, as the greatest number of critics hath of late years been found amongst the lawyers. Many of these gentlemen, from despair, perhaps, of ever rising to the bench in Westminster-hall, have placed themselves on the benches at the playhouse, where they have exerted their judicial capacity, and have given judgment, i. e. condemned without mercy. The gentlemen would, perhaps, be well enough pleased, if we were to leave them thus compared to one of the most important and honourable offices in the common- wcalth, and if we intended to apply to their favour, we would do so; but as we design to deal ve...« less