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in PROSE; and that it is a creative and glowing IMAGINATION, acer spiritus ac vis," and that alone, that can stamp a writer with this exalted and very uncommon character, which fo few possess, and of which fo few can properly judge.

For one person who can adequately relish and enjoy a work of imagination, twenty are to be found who can taste, and judge of, observations on familiar life, and the manners of the age. The Satires of Ariosto are more read than the Orlando Furioso, or even Dante. Are there so many cordial admirers of Spenfer and Milton, as of Hudibras, if we strike out of the number of these supposed admirers, those who appear such out of fashion, and not of feeling? Swift's Rhapsody on Poetry is far more popular than Akenside's noble Ode to Lord Huntingdon. The EPISTLES on the Characters of Men and Women, and your sprightly Satires, my good friend, are more frequently perused, and quoted, than L'Allegro and Il Penseroso of Milton. Had you written only these Satires, you would, indeed, have gained the title of a man of wit, and a

man of sense; but, I am confident, would not insist on being denominated a POET MERELY on their account.

NON SATIS EST PURIS VERSUM PERSCRIBERE VERBIS.

It is amazing this matter should ever have been mistaken, when Horace has taken particular and repeated pains to fettle and adjust the opinion in question. He has more than once disclaimed all right and title to the name of POET on the score of his ethic and satiric pieces.

NEQUE ENIM CONCLUDERE VERSUM

DIXERIS ESSE SATIS

are lines often repeated, but whose meaning is not extended and weighed as it ought to be. Nothing can be more judicious than the method he prescribes, of trying whether any composition be essentially poetical or not; which is, to drop entirely the measures and numbers, and transpose and invert the order of the words: and in this unadorned manner to peruse the passage. If there be really in it a true poetical spirit, all your inversions and transpositions will not disguise and extinguish it; but it will retain its lustre, like a diamond unset, and thrown back into the rubbish of the mine. Let us make a little experiment on the following well-known lines: “Yes, you despise the man that is confined to books, who rails at humankind from his study; though what he learns, he speaks; and may, perhaps, advance Some general maxims, or may be right by chance. The coxcomb bird, fo grave and fo talkative, that cries whore, knave, and cuckold, from his cage, though he rightly call many a passenger, you hold him no philosopher. 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 sake of the obferver, to obfervations which we ourselves make ; less so to written wisdom, because another's. Maxims are drawn from notions, and those from guess." What shall we say of this passage? 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 see whether, by any process of critical chemistry, you can lower and reduce them to the tameness of prose. You will find that they will appear like Ulysses in his disguise of rags, still a hero, though lodged in the cottage of the herdsman Eumæus. HARMONIEUX, IL DEVINT, ENFIN, LE POETE DE LA RAISON."

The fublime and the pathetic are the two chief nerves of all genuine poesy. What is there transcendently sublime 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 designed : "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,

Our English Poets may, I think, be difposed in four different classes and degrees. In the first class I would place our only three fublime and pathetic poets; SPENSER, SHAKESPEARE, MILTON. In the second class should be ranked such as possessed 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 class may be placed men of wit, of elegant taste, and lively fancy in defcribing familiar life, though not the higher scenes of poetry. Here may be numbered, BUTLER, SWIFT, ROCHESTER, DONNE, DORSET, OLDHAM. In the fourth class, the mere verfifiers, however smooth and mellifluous some of them may be thought, should be disposed. 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