Of a piece with the discernment which enables a man to perceive,and with the courage which enables him to avow,the defects of a system of institutions,is that accuracy of conception which enables him to give a clear account of it.No wonder then,in a treatise partly of the expository class,and partly of the censorial,that if the latter department is filled with imbecillity,symptoms of kindred weakness should characterize the former.
The former department,however,of our Author's work,is what,on its own account merely,I should scarce have found myself disposed to intermeddle with.The business of simple exposition is a harvest in which there seemed no likelihood of there being any want of labourers:and into which therefore I had little ambition to thrust my sickle.
At any rate,had I sat down to make a report of it in this character alone,it would have been with feelings very different from those of which I now am conscious,and in a tone very different from that which I perceive myself to have assumed.In determining what conduct to observe respecting it,I should have considered whether the taint of error seemed to confine itself to parts,or to diffuse itself through the whole.In the latter case,the least invidious,and considering the bulk of the work,the most beneficial course would have been to have taken no notice of it at all,but to have sat down and tried to give a better.If not the whole in general,but scattered positions only had appeared exceptionable,I should have sat down to rectify those positions with the same apathy with which they were advanced.To fall in an adverse way upon a work simply expository,if that were all there were of it,would have been alike ungenerous and unnecessary.In the involuntary errors of the understanding there can be little to excite,or at least to justify,resentment.That which alone,in a manner,calls for rigid censure,is the sinister bias of the affections.
If then I may still continue to mention as separate,parts which in the work itself are so intimately,and,indeed,undistinguishably blended,it is the censorial part alone that has drawn from me that sort of animadversion I have been led to bestow indiscriminately on the whole.To lay open,and if possible supply,the imperfections of the other,is an operation that might indeed of itself do service;but that which I thought would do still more service,was the weakening the authority of this.
Under the sanction of a great name every string of words however unmeaning,every opinion however erroneous,will have a certain currency.Reputation adds weight to sentiments from whence no part of it arose,and which had they stood alone might have drawn nothing,perhaps,but contempt.Popular fame enters not into nice distinctions.Merit in one department of letters affords a natural,and in a manner irrecusable presumption of merit in another,especially if the two departments be such between which there is apparently a close affiance.
Wonderful,in particular,is that influence which is gained over young minds,by the man who on account of whatever class of merit is esteemed in the character of a preceptor .Those who have derived,or fancy themselves to have derived knowledge from what he knows,or appears to know,will naturally be for judging as he judges:for reasoning as he reasons;for approving as he approves;for condemning as he condemns.On these accounts it is,that when the general complexion of a work is unsound,it may be of use to point an attack against the whole of it without distinction,although such parts of it as are noxious as well as unsound be only scattered here and there.
On these considerations then it may be of use to shew,that the work before us,in spite of the merits which recommend it so powerfully to the imagination and to the ear,has no better title on one account than on another,to that influence which,were it to pass unnoticed,it might continue to exercise over the judgment.
The Introduction is the part to which,for reasons that have been already stated,it was always my intention to confine myself.It is but a part even of this Introduction that is the subject of the present Essay.What determined me to begin with this small part of it is,the facility I found in separating it from every thing that precedes or follows it.This is what will be more particularly spoken to in another place.
It is not that this part is among those which seemed most open to animadversion.
It is not that stronger traces are exhibited in this part than in another of that spirit in our Author which seems so hostile to Reformation,and to that Liberty which is Reformation's harbinger.
It is not here that he tramples on the right of private judgment,that basis of every thing that an Englishman holds dear.It is not here,in particular,that he insults our understandings with nugatory reasons;stands forth the professed champion of religious intolerance;or openly sets his face against civil reformation.
