206 BACON 



Now reading is either regulated by the assistance of a master, 

 or left to everyone's private industry ; but both depend upon 

 criticism and school-learning. 



Criticism regards, first, the exact correcting and publishing 

 of approved authors ; whereby the honor of such authors is pre- 

 served, and the necessary assistance afforded to the reader. 

 Yet the misapplied labors and industry of some have in this re- 

 spect proved highly prejudicial to learning; for many critics 

 have a way, when they fall upon anything they do not under- 

 stand, of immediately supposing a fault in the copy. Thus, in 

 that passage of Tacitus, where a certain colony pleads a right 

 of protection in the senate, Tacitus tells us they were not favor- 

 ably heard; so that the ambassadors distrusting their cause, 

 endeavored to procure the favor of Titus Vinius by a present, 

 and succeeded ; upon which Tacitus has these words : " Turn 

 dignitas et antiquitas colonise valuit :" " Then the honor and 

 antiquity of the colony had weight," in allusion to the sum re- 

 ceived.o But a considerable critic here expunges " turn," and 

 substitutes " tantum," which quite corrupts the sense. And 

 from this ill practice of the critics, it happens that the most cor- 

 rected copies are often the least correct. And to say the truth, 

 unless a critic is well acquainted with the sciences treated in the 

 books he publishes, his diligence will be attended with danger. 



A second thing belonging to criticism is the explanation and 

 illustration of authors, comments, notes, collections, etc. But 

 here an ill custom has prevailed among the critics of skipping 

 over the obscure passages, and expatiating upon such as a're 

 sufficiently clear, as if their design were not so much to illus- 

 trate their author, as to take all occasions of showing their own 

 learning and reading. It were therefore to be wished, that 

 every original writer who treats an obscure or noble subject, 

 would add his own explanations to his own work, so as to keep 

 the text continued and unbroken by digressions or illustrations, 

 and thus prevent any wrong interpretation by the notes of 

 others. 



Thirdly, there belongs to criticism the thing from whence its 

 name is derived; viz., a certain concise judgment or censure 

 of the authors published, and a comparison of them with other 

 writers who have treated the same subject. Whence the stu- 

 dent may be directed in the choice of his books, and come the 

 better prepared to their perusal; and this seems to be the ulti- 



