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This defect our Author has, however, well fupplied; and the picture he has drawn of that celebrated Hollander, is one of the most shining paffages in the book:-to which we refer, and proceed with the Poem.

But fee each Mufe in Leo's golden days

Starts from her trance, and trims her wither'd bays;
Rome's ancient genius o'er its ruins fpread

Shakes off the duft, and rears his rev'rend head.

The Critic, on this beautiful paffage, adds, with justice, one age of learning to the four mentioned by Voltaire.

The firft age is that of Philip and Alexander, the fecond that of Ptolomy Philadelphus King of Egypt, (this is the age added by our Author) the third is the age of Julius Cæfar and Auguftus, the fourth is that of Julius II. and of Leo X. and the laft is that of Lewis XIV. in France, and of King William and Q. Anne in England. In these several ages, the human mind exerted itself in an extraordinary manner, as literature and the fine arts then attained to a perfection not equalled in other periods, The Critic has given us a lift of the extraordinary men who flourished in those ages, but in all of them has omitted fome eminent names.

We come now to the encomium on Mr. Walsh.

Such late was Walsh, the Mufes judge and friend. Upon this he makes the following excellent remark.

If Pope has given too advantageous a character of Walsh, it must be attributed to friendship rather than judgment. Walsh was in general a frigid, flimfy writer. But Pope owed • much to Walsh; it was he who gave him an important piece ⚫ of advice in his early youth; for he used to tell our author, that there was one way left him by which he might excel any of • his predeceffors; which was by correctness: that though, in• deed, we had several great poets, we as yet could boaft of none that were perfectly correct, and that, therefore, he advised him to make this quality his particular study.

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Correctness is a vague term, frequently used without meaning and precifion. It is perpetually the naufeous cant of the French Critics and their pupils, that the English writers are generally incorrect. If Correctnefs implies an abfence of petty faults, this, perhaps, may be granted. If it means that because their tragedians have avoided the irregularities of Shakefpear, and have obferved a juster œconomy in their Fables,

rance of the prefent, in a language which might extend farther than that in which the trifle (as he is pleased to call it) about Criticism was written.

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⚫ that therefore their Athalia is perferable to Lear, the notion is abfurd. The Henriad is free from any grofs faults; but ⚫ who will dare to rank it with the Paradife Loft? The declamations with which fome of their most perfect tragedies abound, may be reckoned as contrary to the nature of that fpecies of poetry, and as deftructive of its end, as the fools 6 or grave-diggers of Shakespear. That the French may boast fome excellent Critics, particularly Boffu, Boileau, Fenelon, and Brumoy, cannot be denied; but that they 6 are fufficient to form a tafte upon, without having recourse to the genuine fountains of all polite literature, I mean the Grecian writers, no one but a fuperficial Sciolift can allow.

I conclude thefe reflections with a remarkable fact. In no polished nation, after Criticifm has been much fudied, and • the rules of writing established, has any very extraordinary < work ever appeared. This has vifibly been the cafe in Greece, in Rome, and in France, after Ariftotle, Horace, and Boileau, had written their Arts of Poetry. In our own country, the rules of the drama, for inftance, were never more compleatly understood than at prefent, yet what uninterefting, though faultlefs tragedies have we lately feen?"

We conceive this laft obfervation is not hiftorically true. Was ever critical knowlege more generally known than in the time of Ptolomy Philadelphus? but did the poetical conftellation that adorned that period produce no very extraordinary 'work? Has any age left us a more wonderful performance than Lycophron's Alexandra? If Shakespear and Lee are fo much praised for hitting off the fhort character of a frantic perfon, what an atchievement was it to fill a whole poem with the fingle reprefentation of a poffeffed woman? In drawing the image of common madness, it is enough to be bandfomely abfurd; but when the frenzy is fuppofed to be divine, and the fit to proceed from a miraculous transport, then there must be a dark confiftency of fpeech as well as an appearing diffraction; there must be the obfcure certainty as well as the open fury of an oracle. This Lycophron has performed to admiration; and thofe who can read that poem must acknowlege, that it is one of the most original pieces of antiquity. But further, is there nothing very extraordinary in Callimachus's Hymns, efpecially thofe to Jupiter, and Apollo? nothing in the Idylliums of Theocritus? Did not the latter invent and bring to perfection, a fpecies of poetry, for which he will be admired for ever? Is there nothing very extraordinary in the Phænomena of Aratus, which Cicero took the trouble to tranflate? If the Critic means, by a very extraordinary

ordinary work, an Epic Poem, he must go a little further back than the time of Ariftotle, for we may venture to affirm, that Homer has exhaufted all the great fources of heroic invention; so that nothing has been added by his poetical pofterity. The inventive faculties are much more circumfcribed than is commonly fuppofed. A few fimple ideas are all its exbauftlefs ftores. Our Author has not fufficiently attended to this when he accufes Pope of barrennefs. He who inriches a work with a new moral fentiment, is as much an inventor as he who recites a tale of fancy. But what poet ever introduced fo many new things, in that way, as Pope? If the Critic does not allow that there is any thing very extraordinary in Lucan, Statius, Silius Italicus, and Valerius Flaccus, he will not deny that epithet to Taffo's Gierufalemme Liberata? and yet it is certain that Ariftotle's Poetics had been published with an excellent Commentary by Caftelvetro, (not to mention four Treatifes on Poetry, and particularly one on Heroic Poetry, by Taffo's father) long before the Jerufalem was composed; and was not the Heroic Comic invented in that country but the last century? We recollect no poem of a very extraordinary nature produced in France before Boileau published his Art of Poetry. If any exception, be brought in favour of fome of Corneile's pieces, we afk, was he ignorant of Ariftotle ?

The fourth fection is confined to obfervations on the Rape of the Lock. Here we have the moft ftriking conviction, how much the Critic was pleafed with his fubject; for he really inspires his readers with the fatisfaction he felt. And in juftice to this part of his work, we muft obferve, that where all is fo excellent, extracts must prove inadequate to its merit; and therefore the original fhould be confulted.

The Heroic-comic Poem, the Author rightly obferves, was unknown to the antients; and because more delicate in its reproof, and more engaging from its narrative nature, may juftly be esteemed the most excellent kind of fatyr. And if the moderns have excelled the antients in any fpecies of writing, it seems to be in this.

Tafloni, (according to our Author) or Bracciolini, first introduced the heroi-comic into Italy, as Boileau* did into France; Garth + imitated him in England, and Pope furpaffed them all.‡

The Critic's account of the Secchia rapita, and of the Lutrin, is very entertaining; but we cannot help thinking, that he has allowed too little originality, (to ufe an expreffion of *In his Lutrin. + In his Difpenfary.

In his Rape of the Lock.

his own) to Dr. Garth's performance; nor can we conceive how he could venture to mention the Sangrado of Le Sage as a better fatyr on Physicians than the Difpenfary. But as an examination of these matters would lead us wide of our purpofe, we fhall only obferve, that we think it no exaggerated panegyric to say, with him, that the Rape of the Lock is the beft fatyr extant ;-that it contains the trueft and liveliest ⚫ picture of modern life, and that the fubject is of a more elegant nature, as well as more artfully conducted than that of any other heroi-comic poem. Pope here appears in the light of a man of gallantry, and of a thorough knowlege of the world; and, indeed, he had nothing in his carriage of that affected fingularity, which has induced fome men of < genius to defpife, and depart from, the established rules of politenefs and civil life.'

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The Critic then praifing the Splendid Shilling, the Muscipula, and the Scribleriad of Mr. Cambridge, thus concludes. • If fome of the most candid among the French Critics begin to acknowlege, that they have produced nothing in point of • fublimity and majesty equal to the Paradife Loft, we may alfo venture to affirm, that in point of delicacy, elegance, • fine turned raillery, on which they have fo much valued themselves, they have produced nothing equal to the Rape ' of the Lock. It is in this compofition that Pope principally

appears a Poet, in which he has difplayed more imagination • than in all his other works taken together. It fhould, how< ever, be remembered, that he was not the first former of those beautiful machines the Sylphs, on which his claim to • imagination is chiefly founded; he found them existing really to his hand, but has, indeed, employed them with fingular judgment and artifice.'

The fifth fection contains obfervations on the Elegy to an unfortunate Lady, and the Epilogue to Jane Shore..

The firft of thefe pieces, as it came from the heart, fo the Critic juftly ftiles it, very tender and natural; more fo than any other copy of verfes, (to ufe a phrafe he has not difdained to adopt) of our author. He praises the ftriking abruptness, and ftrong imagery, of the beginning, the execration on the Lady's

In enumerating the mock-heroic poems of Englishmen, our Author takes no notice of Addifon's Battle of the Pygmies andCranes, his Machine Gefliculantes and Bowling Green in Latin, and of Mr. Somervile's Hobbinol, which has none of the faults imputed by Mr. Cambridge to the Lutrin, the Difpenfary, the Rape of the Lock, and the Dunciad.

relations,

relations, who had driven her to that deplorable extremity, the defolation of the family, for its lively circumftances and profopopæia, the incident of her dying in a foreign country, and the poetical use he has made of her being denied the rite of fepulture, from the manner of her death.

What tho' no facred earth allow thee room,

Nor hallow'd dirge be mutter'd o'er thy tomb? Yet fhall thy grave with rifing flow'rs be dreft, And the green turf lie lightly on thy breast : There fhall the Morn her earliest tears beftow, There the first roses of the year shall blow. If this Elegy be fo excellent,' adds the Critic, it may be ascribed to this cause, that the occafion of it was real, ⚫ for it is an indifputable maxim, that nature is more powerful than fancy; that we can always feel more than we can imagine; and that the most artful fiction must give way to • truth.'

There is fome obscurity in this indifputable maxim. When a genius copies nature, yet engages his heroe in adventures which, though they never did happen to any one perfon, might have happened, may not our tears be as plentiful and genuine as thofe that are shed for any accident, however well attefted by historians? For inftance, do we not feel as much concern for Amyntor in the Hermit, as if his diftreffes had been founded in hiftory? Nay, has not Fancy here the advantage of Truth? for, by selecting circumftances from the whole poffible round of misery, the may engage the heroe of the piece in events, which never yet were the lot of one man. We willingly, indeed, allow that we are less interested in the diftreffes of mere imaginary Beings. Milkah* affects us lefs in her fufferings than Clariffa.

• Pope's Prologue to Addifon's Cato is fuperior,' fays our Author,. to any of Dryden's Prologues. Thofe of Dryden are fatyrical and facetious, this of Pope is folemn and fublime. Dryden's contain general topics of wit and criti cifm, and may precede any play; Pope's Prologue to Cato is appropriated to the tragedy it was defigned to introduce, as the most striking images and allufions it contains, are taken with judgment from fome paflages in the life of Cato himself. Of this the Critic produces two fine instances. See the Effay itself.

* The name of a Fairy in a beautiful poem of Tickel's, on Kenfington garden.

REV. July, 1756.'

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