Leigh Hunt, ‘Appendix’ [Rules for the Theatrical Critic of a Newspaper]

Etiquette like Fate has an unlimited sway, and like most despotic rulers, it does not always give a reason for what it commands: authors have never heard a single good argument why the plays on benefit nights should not be criticised, but as etiquette forbids them to criticise them, and as the Theatres are just now occupied with nothing else, they can say nothing further. Whenever they obtain, however, an interval in criticism, they are not idle; they study the criticisms of others, they meditate on those profound theatrical essays which adorn the Daily Papers, and which, like all productions of real wit, boast so inimitable a brevity, and though they cannot think of imitating, yet they take the greatest pains to understand them.