words: and in this unadorned manner to perufe the paffage. If there be really in it a true poetical spirit, all your inverfions and transpofitions will not disguise and extinguish it; but it will retain its luftre, like a diamond unfet, and thrown back into the rubbish of the mine. Let us make a little experiment on the following well-known lines: "Yes, you defpife the man that is confined to books, who rails at humankind from his ftudy; though what he learns, he speaks; and may, perhaps, advance Jome general maxims, or may be right by chance. The coxcomb bird, fo grave and Jo talkative, that cries whore, knave, and cuckold, from his cage, though he rightly call many a passenger,

you

hold him no philofopher. And yet, fuch is the fate of all extremes, men may be read too much, as well as books. We grow more partial, for the fake of the obferver, to obfervations which we ourselves make; lefs fo to written wisdom, because another's. Maxims are drawn from notions, and thofe from guess." What shall we fay of this paffage? Why, that it is most excellent sense, but just as poetical as the "Qui fit Mæcenas" of the author who recommends this method of trial. Take ten lines of the Iliad, Paradise Loft, or even of

the

the Georgics of Virgil, and fee whether, by any process of critical chemistry, you can lower and reduce them to the tameness of profe. You will find that they will appear like Ulyffes in his disguise of rags, ftill a hero, though lodged in the cottage of the herdsman Eumæus.

The fublime and the pathetic are the two chief nerves of all genuine poesy. What is there tranfcendently fublime or pathetic in POPE? In his Works there is, indeed, “nihil inane, nihil arceffitum; puro tamen fonti quam magno flumini proprior;" as the excellent Quintilian remarks of Lyfias. And because I am, perhaps, unwilling to speak out in plain English, I will adopt the following passage of Voltaire, which, in my opinion, as exactly characterizes POPE as it does his model Boileau, for whom it was originally defigned:

"INCAPABLE PEUT-ETRE DU SUBLIME QUI ELEVE L'AME, ET DU SENTIMENT QUI L'ATTENDRIT, MAIS FAIT POUR ECLAIRER CEUX A QUI LA NATURE ACCORDA L'UN ET L'AUTRE, LABORIEUX, SEVERE, PRECIS, PUR, HARMONIEUX,

1

HARMONIEUX, IL DEVINT, ENFIN, LE POETE DE LA RAISON."

Our English Poets may, I think, be difposed in four different claffes and degrees. In the first class I would place our only three fublime and pathetic poets; SPENSER, SHAKESPEARE, MILTON. In the fecond class should be ranked fuch as poffeffed the true poetical genius, in a more moderate degree, but who had noble talents for moral, ethical, and panegyrical poesy. At the head of these are DRYDEN, PRIOR, ADDISON, COWLEY, WALLER, GARTH, FENTON, GAY, DENHAM, PARNELL. In the third clafs may be placed men of wit, of elegant taste, and lively fancy in describing familiar life, though not the higher scenes of poetry. poetry. Here may be numbered, BUTLER, SWIFT, ROCHESTER, DONNE, DORSET, OLDHAM. In the fourth clafs, the mere verfifiers, however fmooth and mellifluous fome of them may be thought, should be difpofed. Such as PITT, SANDYS, FAIRFAX, BROOME, BUCKINGHAM, LANSDOWN. This enumeration is not intended as a complete catalogue of writers, and in their proper order,

but

but only to mark out briefly the different spécies of our celebrated authors. In which of these claffes POPE deserves to be placed, the following Work is intended to determine.

1756.

I am,

DEAR SIR,

Your affectionate

And faithful Servant.