sure of numbers for a time. If he write with more abundant elegance, it may escape the organs of such readers; but he will have a chance for such applause as will more sensibly affect him. Let a writer then in his first performances neglect the idea of profit, and the vulgar's applause entirely : let him address him to the judicious few, and then profit and the mob will follow. His first appearance on the stage of letters will engross the politer compliments; and his latter will partake of the irrational huzza.

III. ON ALLOWING MERIT IN OTHERS.

A CERTAIN gentleman was expressing himself as follows:

"I confess I have no great taste for poetry; but, if I had, I am apt to believe I should read no other poetry than that of Mr. Pope. The rest but barely arrive at a mediocrity in their art; and, to be sure, poetry of that stamp can afford but slender pleasure."

"I know not," says another, "what may be the gentleman's motive to give this opinion; but I am persuaded numbers pretend the same through mere jealousy or envy.

"A reader considers an author as one who lays claim to a superior genius. He is ever inclined to dispute it, because, if he happen to invalidate his title, he has at least one superior the less. Now though a man's absolute merit may not depend upon the inferiority of another, yet his comparative worth varies in regard to that of other people. Self-love, therefore, is ever attentive to pursue the single

point of admitting no more into the class of superiors than it is impossible to exclude. Could it even limit the number to one, they would soon attempt to undermine him. Even Mr. Pope had been refused his honours, but that the very constraint, and even absurdity, of people's shutting their eyes, grew as disagreeable to them as that excellence, which, when open, they could not but discover.

"But self-love obtains its wishes in another respect also. It hereby not only depresses the characters of many that have wrote, but stifles the genius of such as might hereafter rise from amongst our inferiors.

"Let us not deny to Mr. Pope the praises which a person enamoured of poetry would bestow on one that excelled in it: but let us consider Parnassus rather as a republic than a monarchy; where, although some may be in possession of a more cultivated spot, yet others may possess land as fruitful, upon equal cultivation.

"On the whole, let us reflect, that the nature of the soil, and the extent of its fertility, must remain undiscovered, if the gentleman's desponding principle should meet with approbation.

"Mr. Pope's chief excellence lies in what I would term consolidating or condensing sentences, yet preserving ease and perspicuity. In smoothness of verse, perhaps, he has been equalled: in regard to invention, excelled.

"Add to this, if the writers of antiquity may be esteemed our truest models, Mr. Pope is much more witty, and less simple, than his own Horace appears in any of his writings: more witty, and less simple, than the modern monsieur Boileau, who claimed

the merit of uniting the style of Juvenal and Persius with that of Horace.

"Satire gratifies self-love. This was one source of his popularity; and he seems even so very conscious of it, as to stigmatize many inoffensive characters.

"The circumstance of what is called alliteration, and the nice adjustment of the pause, have conspired to charm the present age, but have at the same time given his verses a very cloying peculiarity.

"But, perhaps, we must not expect to trace the flow of Waller, the landscape of Thomson, the fire of Dryden, the imagery of Shakspeare, the simplicity of Spenser, the courtliness of Prior, the humour of Swift, the wit of Cowley, the delicacy of Addison, the tenderness of Otway, and the invention, the spirit, and sublimity of Milton, joined in any single writer. The lovers of poetry, therefore, should allow some praise to those who shine in any branch of it, and only range them into classes according to that species in which they shine.

"Quare agite, O juvenes !"

Banish the self-debasing principle, and scorn the disingenuity of readers. Humility has depressed many a genius into a hermit, but never yet raised one into a poet of eminence."

IV. THE IMPROMPTU.

THE critics, however unable to fix the time which it is most proper to allow for the action of an epic poem, have universally agreed that some certain space is not to be exceeded. Concerning this,

Aristotle, their great Lycurgus, is entirely silent. Succeeding critics have done little more than cavil concerning the time really taken up by the greatest epic writers; that, if they could not frame a law, they might at least establish a precedent of unexceptionable authority. Homer, say they, confined the action of his Iliad, or rather his action may be reduced, to the space of two months. His Odyssey, according to Bossu and Dacier, is extended to eight years. Virgil's Eneid has raised very different opinions in his commentators. Tasso's poem includes a summer. But leaving such knotty points to persons that appear born for the discussion of them, let us endeavour to establish laws that are more likely to be obeyed than controverted. An epic writer, though limited in regard to the time of his action, is under no sort of restraint with regard to the time he takes to finish his poem. Far different is the case with a writer of impromptus. He indeed is allowed all the liberties that he can possibly take in his composition, but is rigidly circumscribed with regard to the space in which it is completed and no wonder; for whatever degree of poignancy may be required in this composition, its peculiar merit must ever be relative to the expedition with which it is produced.

It appears, indeed, to me to have the nature of that kind of salad, which certain eminent adepts in chemistry have contrived to raise while a joint of mutton is roasting. We do not allow ourselves to blame its unusual flatness and insipidity, but extol the flavour it has, considering the time of its vegetation.

An extemporaneous poet, therefore, is to be

judged as we judge a race-horse; not by the gracefulness of his motion, but the time he takes to finish his course. The best critic upon earth may err in determining his precise degree of merit, if he have neither a stop-watch in his hand, nor a clock within his hearing.

To be a little more serious. An extemporaneous piece ought to be examined by a compound ratio; or a medium compounded of its real worth, and the shortness of the time that is employed in its production. By this rule, even Virgil's poem may be in some sort deemed extemporaneous; as the time he took to perfect so extraordinary a composition, considered with its real worth, appears shorter than the time employed to write the distics of Cosconius.

On the other hand, I cannot allow this title to the flashes of my friend S**** in the magazine, which have no sort of claim to be called verses, besides their instantaneity.

Having ever made it my ambition to see my writings distinguished for something poignant, unexpected, or, in some respects, peculiar, I have acquired a degree of fame by a firm adherence to the Concetti. I have stung folks with my epigrams, amused them with acrostics, puzzled them with rebusses, and distracted them with riddles: it remained only for me to succeed in the impromptu, for which I was utterly disqualified by a whoreson slowness of apprehension.

Still desirous, however, of the immortal honour to grow distinguished for an extempore, I petitioned Apollo to that purpose in a dream. His answer was as follows: "That whatever piece of wit,