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/ The Least Perceptive Literary Critic                                            \
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| The most important critic in our field of study is Lord Halifax. A most         |
| individual judge of poetry, he once invited Alexander Pope round to give a      |
| public reading of his latest poem.                                              |
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| Pope, the leading poet of his day, was greatly surprised when Lord Halifax      |
| stopped him four or five times and said, "I beg your pardon, Mr. Pope, but      |
| there is something in that passage that does not quite please me."              |
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| Pope was rendered speechless, as this fine critic suggested sizeable and unwise |
| emendations to his latest masterpiece. "Be so good as to mark the place and     |
| consider at your leisure. I'm sure you can give it a better turn."              |
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| After the reading, a good friend of Lord Halifax, a certain Dr. Garth, took the |
| stunned Pope to one side. "There is no need to touch the lines," he said. "All  |
| you need do is leave them just as they are, call on Lord Halifax two or three   |
| months hence, thank him for his kind observation on those passages, and then    |
| read them to him as altered. I have known him much longer than you have, and    |
| will be answerable for the event."                                              |
|                                                                                 |
| Pope took his advice, called on Lord Halifax and read the poem exactly as it    |
| was before. His unique critical faculties had lost none of their edge. "Ay", he |
| commented, "now they are perfectly right. Nothing can be better."               |
|                                                                                 |
\ -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"                                  /
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