it is said, of one of the odes of Gray, disgusted him with poetry and Racine acknowledged to his son, that the petulant attacks of the meanest scribbler gave him pain more acute than the highest eulogies of taste and learning had given him pleasure.

But if bad writers (says S. Johnson in his life of Pope) were to pass without reprehension, what should restrain them? and upon bad writers alone will censure have much effect. The satire, which brought Theobald and Moore into contempt, dropped impotent from Bentley, like the javelin of Priam."

Instead of saying, upon bad writers alone will censure have much effect, he ought to have said, upon the works of bad writers. All this may be true; and perhaps there is much justice in a remark I have somewhere seen attributed to Bentley, that no man was ever written down but by himself. But of what importance is it to a man that his works survive his persecutors, if his peace while living was disturbed? Of what importance is it to Tasso or Racine that, while the memory of their opponents shall not follow them, their own fame "spreads and grows brighter with the length of days."

Can Honour's voice provoke the filent duft?

Or Flattery foothe the dull cold ear of death ? (†)

In short, unless a writer is himself dogmatical and overbearing, unless he attacks the interests of religion. and morality, he ought never to be treated in a manner as cruel as if he were an enemy to society. And

surely neglect is of itself a sufficient punishment for attempting to please the public, without having the misfortune aggravated by the wantonness of insult, and the taunts of petulance.

NOTES

NOTES

ΤΟ

DISSERTATION I.

NOTE (a) p. 5.-Machiavel has employed a chapter in his Discourses on Livy, to prove that, in order that a sect or republic may long subfift, it must sometimes be winded up as it were, or restored to its original Spring. A volere che una fetta, o una republica viva lungamente, è neceffario ritirarla fpeffo verfo il fuo principio. This certainly holds in many things, and is perhaps true in poetry; it began with the creations of fancy, with wonderful fictions and fablings: it left thefe for wit and fatire, which however, not being very convenient for poetical writers, many of them (indeed the great proportion) contented themfelves with mere rhyme. In order to restore poetry, it will be neceffary perhaps to return to the study of Homer, and to the old Gothic fictions. A difpofition of this fort has of late manifested itself, and is a favourable symptom of the revival of the art. "I may tell you, fays Milton, whither my younger feet wandered: I betook me among thofe lofty fables and romances which recount, in folemn cantos, the deeds of knighthood." Nor did he cease to wander into the haunts of the Grecian and Roman muse. It was this, and the being smit with the love of fame and of song, that hath rendered his name immortal; and it is to fimilar circumftances that the world must be

indebted for its future Miltons and Taffes.

Note (1) p. 7.-St Jerome, in his work against Jovian, lib. 2. cap. 6. tells his readers the following anecdote, when speaking of

The nations which each other eat,

The Anthropophagi,

Quid loquar de ceteris nationibus? cum ipse adolefcentulus in Gallia viderim Scotos gentem Britannicam humanis vefci carnibus, et cum per Sylvas pecorum greges, et armentorum pecudumque reperiunt; paftorum nates, et foeminarum papillas folere abfcindere, et has folas ciborum delicias arbitrari.

Note (c) p. 9.—“ The Ancients (says Joseph Warton, in his Remarks on the Life and Writings of Pope) conftantly availed themselves of the mention of particular mountains, rivers, and other objects of nature; and indeed almost confine themselves to the tales and traditions of their respective countries. Whereas we have been strangely neglectful of celebrating our own Severn, Thames or Malvern, and have therefore fallen into trite repetitions of claffical images, as well as claffical names. Our mufes have feldom been

Playing on the steep,

Where our old bards the famous druids lie."

There are few works more amufing than that from which the above extract is taken. It is indeed (to ufe an expreffion of Mr Cibber) "a mere ragout toffed up from the offal of other authors," but the cookery is excellent. One thing a perfon does not like, is the declamation against French critics and criticism, while fuch use is making of them; and, in particular, almost whole pages tranfcribed from the work of the Abbe du Bos.

Note (d) p. 9.-That what the editor here mentions was early the ambition of BURNS, we may collect from the following stanzas to a brother ruftic poet.

Note (e) p. 11. From these fairy palaces the Italian poets borrowed their splendid defcriptions, which in turn were adopted and imitated by our early English poets. Ariofto, in his 34th canto, when he makes Aftolpho afcend to the terreftrial paradife, where he fees and converfes with the apostle John, thus defcribes the country,