And no wonder, while an eminent vintner
has mistaken his own old hock at nine shillings the bottle for that at
five.
OF WRITING TO THE TASTE OF THE AGE.
Whatever some have pretended, one may reasonably enough doubt whether
ever an author wrote much below himself from any cause but the
necessity of writing too fast. When this happens to a writer who,
with the advantages of leisure and easy circumstances, is capable of
producing such works as might charm succeeding ages, it is a disgrace
to the nation and the times wherein such a genius had the misfortune
to appear.
It belongs to true genius to indulge its own humour; to give a loose
to its own sallies; and to be curbed, restrained and directed by that
sound judgment alone which necessarily attends it. It belongs to it
to improve and correct the public taste; not to humour or meanly
prostitute itself to the gross or low taste which it finds. And
you may depend upon it, that whatever author labours to accommodate
himself to the taste of his age--suppose it, if you please, this
present age--the sickly wane, the impotent decline of the eighteenth
century: which from a hopeful boy became a most insignificant man;
and for any thing that appears at present will die a very fat drowsy
block-head, and be damned to eternal infamy and contempt: every such
author I say, though he may thrive as far as an author can in the
present age, will by degrees languish into obscurity in the next.
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