Some seem always to read with the microscope
of criticism, and employ their whole attention upon
minute elegance, or faults scarcely visible to
common observation. The dissonance of a syllable, the
recurrence of the same sound, the repetition of a
particle, the smallest deviation from propriety, the
slightest defect in construction or arrangement,
swell before their eyes into enormities. As they
discern with great exactness, they comprehend but
a narrow compass, and know nothing of the justness
of the design, the general spirit of the performance,
the artifice of connection, or the harmony of the
parts; they never conceive how small a proportion
that which they are busy in contemplating bears to
the whole, or how the petty inaccuracies, with which
they are offended, are absorbed and lost in general
excellence.
Others are furnished by criticism with a telescope.
They see with great clearness whatever is too remote
to be discovered by the rest of mankind, but are
totally blind to all that lies immediately before them.
They discover in every passage some secret meaning,
some remote allusion, some artful allegory,
or some occult imitation, which no other reader
ever suspected; but they have no perception of the
cogency of arguments, the force of pathetick sentiments,
the various colours of diction, or the flowery
embellishments of fancy; of all that engages the
attention of others they are totally insensible, while
they pry into worlds of conjecture, and amuse themselves
with phantoms in the clouds.
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