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The former poet sinned often against the conviction of his own opinion, "that the execution of an irregular ode, as it is familiarly and justly called, was liable to all the severity of criticism;" as we may see in the following lines of this ingenious bard:

'Tis not to force some lifeless verses meet

With their five gouty feet.

All every where like man's must be the soul,
And reason the inferior powers controul.
Such were the numbers which could call
The stones into the Theban wall.

Such miracles are ceased, and now we see
No towns, or houses, raised by poetry.

Cowley's Ode on Wit, stanza 4.

Novelty of Thoughts.

The following illustration of this subject seems eminently happy. "I own that there is something in the glitter of a new thought like that of a new coin it, of course, catches our attention for some moments, and we view it, perhaps, in two or three different lights; but, when that is over, we lay no more value upon it, or believe that it has really any more weight than the coins of former princes. It is just so with our thoughts; they may lose something of their lustre by being given and taken so often upon common occasions, but their real value is the same."- Clarke's Letter to Bowyer. Selection of Articles from the Gent. Mag. 1814.

Reading and Thinking.

Many a reader is contented with the recollection of what he gains by means of books, and remains inattentive to the consideration that he cannot really profit by them, unless he has used the powers of his own mind in reflecting and meditating on their contents. To a literary man, in the solitude of a country life, this is a very baneful neglect. In a letter of Shenstone, he observes, "I am miserable to think that I have not thought enough to amuse me. I walk a day together, and have no idea, but what comes in at my eyes."Letter 26. Leasowes, November 1742.

Horace's Greek Style.

This very sensible and amusing author seems, to young students, replete with difficulties in his peculiar phrases and idioms. This embarrassment arises from their not considering that Horace, who remained a long time at Athens, (then the fashionable school of literature,) had contracted much of the then most agreeable peculiarities of the Greek tongue; as a young Englishman who had been resident for years at Paris, would now express himself often in French or Gallic modes of phraseology. With this recollection, Horace soon becomes easy and familiar to a Greek student.

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"The Double Mistress," in Martinus Scriblerus.

In some late editions of Pope, this tale is praised for its humour and originality. To the latter recommendation it is not entitled, as it is recorded as an anatomical fact by a French author.* The anatomical record is made a vehicle of much humour and wit by Pope and his friend Dr. Arbuthnot, though the former had totally forgotten his own sensible and modest remark,

Immodest words admit of no defence,

For want of decency is want of sense.

It is certainly too gross for republication on any

account.

The Laurel.

It is the theory of some French critic,+ (if I remember rightly, a female,) that much of the ancient mythology, connected with poetry, owed its origin to certain appearances and discoveries in natural history. Whoever has observed the rays of a strong sun reflected from the leaves of a large laurel with excessive splendour, will be led to suppose that this plant was dedicated by the ancient poets to Apollo (or the sun), from this remarkable

* L'Art d'orner l'Esprit, &c., by M. Gayot de Pitaval, à Paris, 1728.

↑ Madame Necker, MSS. p. 304. Paris, edit. 1793,

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A. Pope with the prophetic and poetic eye of taste, has designated the future race of Lords and Squires mounted on their own coach-boxes. The goddess Dulness', in her speech to her favourite sons, in assigning to them employments suited to their respective talents and accomplishments, says,

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From stage to stage the licensed Earl may run,
Paired with his fellow charioteer, the sun.*

Here the four-in-hand gentlemen drivers are clearly described; and their carriages, made in the style of stages," accurately pourtrayed.

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Dull Men.

It would be the extreme of inhumanity not to make every allowance for the defects of persons of this description, did they demean themselves with any degree of modesty and humility. The oppo-. site of all this is the conduct of these antipodes of genius. They are in general arrogant and assuming, as men of cowardly characters are known to

* Dunciad, b. 4, line 587.

be often bullies and Hectors, till they meet with an Achilles. Our great moral poet says, or rather sings, of them,

What the weak head with strongest bias rules

Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools;
Whatever nature has in worth deny'd,

She gives in large recruits of needful pride.
For as in bodies, thus in souls, we find,

What wants in blood and spirits, swell'd with wind.
Pride, where wit fails, steps in to our defence,

And fills up all the mighty void of sense.

Pope's Essay on Criticism, l. 203.

Voltaire

Has with great humour, in his "Candide," described an every-day critic, a man of fastidious turn, without taste or knowledge. "Poco Curante', condemns and disapproves every thing in art or literature. "Surely," says an auditor of these universal censures, "this Poco Curante must be a great man, he likes nothing." La Bruyére, with equal feeling, good sense, and fine taste, has delivered an excellent lesson on this subject: "Quand une lecture vous éléve l'esprit et qu'elle vous inspire les sentimens nobles et courageux, ne cherchez pas une autre régle pour juger d'ouvrage ; il est bon, et fait de main de l'ouvrier." How different are these sentiments from the affected taste and pedantic dulness wnich characterize the little minds of minor critics.

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