Note 219 — AN ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
Reading edition
Dryden's Prologue to the University of Oxford:
Be kind to wit, which but endeavours well, And, where you judge, presumes not to excel.
The feelings of antiquity were doubtless represented truly by Horace when he said that indifferent poets were not tolerated by anybody. There is not the least foundation for Pope's statement that it was the habit of old to praise bad authors for endeavouring well, and if it had been, the authors would not have cared for commendations on their abortive industry to the disparagement of their intellect.