‘I need not say how much flattered I am by your request, nor how happy I should be to render any service in my power to any young man of genius, but I would recommend to him a much better scheme, if I may say so, than you propose.
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‘Let him lay aside his composition for some months and then look at it with fresh eyes, and let him in the interval read attentively some of the great masters (Milton or Dryden for instance) and then read what he has written. His good sense and feeling will then enable him to come to a much better judgment concerning himself than any criticism of mine. I may be wrong, but such was my practice, and I would recommend it to others.’
‘P.S. Few, says Sir J. Reynolds, have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers. Some, says Gibbon, praise from politeness, and some criticise from vanity. The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; no one has so deeply meditated on the subject; no one is so interested in the event.’
