Thus, though they have not the same perverseness with the others, they are however drawn into the same practices, while they ruin reputations, lest they should not seem to be learned; as some women turn prostitutes, lest they should not be thought handsome enough to have admirers.
P. 59. v. 5. Their dreadful trumpets.]Upon the reading of this, Zoilus becomes full of discoveries. He recollects, that Homer makes his Greeks come to battle with silence, and his Trojans with shouts; from whence he discovers, that he knew nothing of trumpets. Again, he sees, that the hornet is made a trumpeter to the battle; and hence he discovers, that the line must not be Homer's. Now had he drawn his consequences fairly, he could only have found by the one, that trumpets were not in use at the taking of Troy; and by the other, that the battle of frogs and mice was laid by the Poet for a later scene of action than that of the Iliad. But the boast of discoveries accompanies the affectation of knowledge; and the affectation of knowledge is taken up with a design to gain a command over the opinions of others. It is too heavy a task for some critics to sway our rational judgments by rational inferences; a pompous pretence must occasion admiration, the eyes of mankind must be obscured by a glare of pedantry, that they may consent to be led blindfold, and permit that an opinion should be dictated to them without demanding that they may be reasoned into it.
