THE WORKS OF ALEXANDER POPE

I am inclined to think that both the writers of books, and the readers
of them, are generally not a little unreasonable in their expectations.
The first seem to fancy that the world must approve whatever they
produce, and the latter to imagine that authors are obliged to please
them at any rate. Methinks, as on the one hand, no single man is
born with a right of controlling the opinions of all the rest; so on the
other, the world has no title to demand, that the whole care and time
of any particular person should be sacrificed to its entertainment.
Therefore I cannot but believe that writers and readers are under
equal obligations for as much fame, or pleasure, as each affords the
other.

Every one acknowledges, it would be a wild notion to expect
perfection in any work of man: and yet one would think the
contrary was taken for granted, by the judgment commonly passed
upon poems. A critic supposes he has done his part if he proves a
writer to have failed in an expression, or erred in any particular
point: and can it then be wondered at if the poets in general seem
resolved not to own themselves in any error? For as long as one side
will make no allowances, the other will be brought to no
acknowledgments.