I am now myself on the brink of the same
precipice; I have spent some time on the translation of Juvenal and
Persius, and it behoves me to be wary, lest for that reason I should
be partial to them, or take a prejudice against Horace. Yet on the
other side I would not be like some of our judges, who would give
the cause for a poor man right or wrong; for though that be an error
on the better hand, yet it is still a partiality, and a rich man
unheard cannot be concluded an oppressor. I remember a saying of
King Charles II. on Sir Matthew Hale (who was doubtless an uncorrupt
and upright man), that his servants were sure to be cast on any
trial which was heard before him; not that he thought the judge was
possibly to be bribed, but that his integrity might be too
scrupulous, and that the causes of the Crown were always suspicious
when the privileges of subjects were concerned.
It had been much fairer if the modern critics who have embarked in
the quarrels of their favourite authors had rather given to each his
proper due without taking from another's heap to raise their own.
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