I would not however be thought to insult the editor, nor to censure him with too much petulance, for having failed in little things, of whom I have been told, that he excels in greater. But I may without indecency observe, that no man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself; and that those who, like Themistocles, have studied the arts of policy, and can teach a small state how to grow great, should, like him, disdain to labour in trifles, and consider petty accomplishments as below their ambition *. *To this article, when first printed, Dr. Johnson affixed Proposals for a new edition of Shakespeare. These he afterwards dilated into the larger Prospectus. C. |