The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Works of Samuel Johnson by Samuel Johnson: all objections, to suffer tamely the exultations
of his antagonist.
This rule may perhaps be just, when advice is
asked, and severity solicited, because no man tells
his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received
with implicit veneration; and criticks ought never
to be consulted, but while errours may yet be rectified
or insipidity suppressed. But when the book
has once been dismissed into the world, and can be
no more retouched, I know not whether a very different
conduct should not be prescribed, and whether
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