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fhewn) together with the affiftances which our Cudworth and Stanley, happily afforded a writer confeffedly ignorant of the Greek tongue, who has yet the infufferable * arrogance to vilify and cenfure, and to think he can confute, the beft writers in that beft language.

* I cannot forbear fubjoining a passage of an excellent writer and accomplished scholar, which is so very appofite to the prefent purpose, that one would think the author had Bolingbroke in his eye, if his valuable work had not been published before the world was bleffed with the First Philofophy. "He who pretends to discuss the Sentiments of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, or any one of the ancient philofophers, or even to cite and translate him, (except in trite and obvious fentiments) without accurately knowing the Greek tongue in general; the nice differences of many words apparently fynonimous; the peculiar ftyle of the author whom he prefumes to handle; the newcoined words, and new fignifications given to old words, used by fuch author and his fect, the whole philofophy of such fect; together with the connections and dependencies of it's several parts, whether Logical, Ethical, or Phyfical; he, I fay, that without this previous preparation, attempts what I have said, will shoot in the dark; will be liable to perpetual blunders; will explain, and praife, and cenfure, merely by chance; and though

HE MAY POSSIBLY TO FOOLS APPEAR AS A WISE MAN, WILL CERTAINLY AMONG THE WISE EVER PASS FOR A FOOL. Such

a man's intellect comprehends antient philofophy, as his eye comprehends a diftant profpect. He may fee perhaps enough. to know mountains from plains, and feas from woods; but for an accurate discernment of particulars and their character, this, without farther helps, 'tis impoffible he should attain.” HERMES, by HARRIS: book 2. chap. 3. pag. 270.

WHEN

WHEN Fontaine, whofe tales indicated a truly comic genius, brought a comedy on the stage, it was received with a contempt equally unexpected and deferved. Terence has left us no tragedy; and the Mourning Bride of Congreve, notwithstanding the praises bestowed on it by POPE, in the Dunciad * is certainly a despicable performance; the plot is unnaturally intricate, and overcharged with incidents, the sentiments trite, and the language turgid and bombast. Heemfkirk and Teniers could not fucceed in a ferious and fublime subject of history-painting. The latter, it is well known, defigned cartoons for tapestry, representing the hiftory of the Turriani of Lombardy. Both the compofition and the expreffion are extremely indifferent; and certain nicer virtuofi have remarked, that in the serious pieces of Titian himself, even in one of his Laft Suppers, a circumftance of the Ridiculous and the Familiar is introduced, which fuits not with

*B. iii. v. 310. In the notes.

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the dignity of his subject. * Hogarth's picture of Richard III. is pure and unmixed with any diffimilar and degrading circumstances, and ftrongly impreffes terror and amazement. The modesty and good sense of the ancients is, in this particular, as in others, remarkable. The fame writer never prefumed to undertake more than one kind of dramatic poetry, if we except the CYCLOPS of Euripides. A poet never prefumed to plead in public, or to write history, or indeed any confiderable work in profe. The fame actors never recited tragedy and comedy: this was obferved long ago, by

*The author gladly lays hold of the opportunity of this SECOND EDITION of his work, to confefs a mistake he had committed with respect to two admirable paintings of Mr. Hogarth, his PAUL PREACHING, and his INFANT MOSES; which, on a closer examination, are not chargeable with the blemishes imputed to them. Juftice obliges him to declare the high opinion he entertains of the abilities of this inimitable artist, who fhines in fo many different lights, and on fuch very diffimilar fubjects; and whose works have more of what the ancients called the HOOE in them, than the compofitions of any other Modern. For the rest, the author begs leave to add, that he is fo far from being afhamed of retracting his error, that he had rather appear a MAN OF CANDOR, than the best CRITIC that ever lived.

Plato,

Plato, in the third book of his REPUBLIC. They seem to have held that diversity, nay univerfality, of excellence, at which the moderns frequently aim, to be a gift unattainable by man. We therefore of Great-Britain have perhaps more reafon to congratulate ourfelves, on two very fingular phenomena; I mean, Shakefpear's being able to pourtray characters fo very different as FALSTAFF, and MACKBETH; and Garrick's being able to perfonate fo inimitably a LEAR, or an ABEL DRUGGER. Nothing can more fully demonftrate the extent and versatility of these two original geniufes. Corneille, whom the French are so fond of oppofing to Shakespear, produced very contemptible comedies; and the PLAIDEURS of Racine is fo clofe a refemblance of Ariftophanes, that it ought not to be here urged. The moft univerfal of authors feems to be Voltaire; who has written almoft equally well, both in profe and verse; and whom either the tragedy of MEROPE,

or the hiftory of Louis XIV, would, alone, have immortalized.

7. Those

7. Those rules of old, discover'd not devis'd, Are nature ftill, but nature méthodiz'd; Nature, like liberty, is but reftrain'd

By the fame laws which first herself ordain'd *.

THE precepts of the art of poefy, were posterior to practice; the rules of the Epopea were all drawn from the Iliad and the Odysfey; and of Tragedy, from the OEDIPUS of Sophocles. A petulant rejection, and an implicit veneration, of the rules of the ancient critics, are equally deftructive of true taste. "It ought to be the firft endeavour of a writer, fays the excellent RAMBLER †, to distinguish nature from cuftom, or that which is established, because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established that he may neither violate effential principles by a defire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of any beauties within his view, by a needlefs fear of breaking rules, where no literary dictator had authority to prescribe." The fame penetrating and judicious author, who always

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