principal affistant. This was the first attempt of that fort; and, I fear, we fhall never fee another fet on foot in our days: even though Mr. Johnson has lately given us fo excellent a dictionary. It may be remarked to the praise of Rofcommon, that he was the first critic who had taste and fpirit enough, publicly to praise the Paradise Loft; with a noble encomium of which, and a rational recommendation of blank verfe, he concludes his performance. Fenton, in his Obfervations on Waller, has accurately delineated his character. "His imagination might have probably been more fruitful, and sprightly, if his judgment had been lefs fevere: but that feverity, delivered in a mafculine, clear, fuccinct ftyle, contributed to make him fo eminent in the didactical manner, that no man with juftice can affirm, he was ever equalled by any of our own nation, without confeffing at the fame time, that he is inferior to none. In fome other kinds of writing, his genius feems to have wanted fire to attain the point of perfection: but who can attain it*?”

*Edit. 12mo. pag. 136.

51. Such

51. Such late was WALSH, the muse's judge and friend *.

IF POPE has here given too magnificent an elogy to Walsh, it must be attributed to friendship, rather than to judgment. Walsh was in general a flimzy and frigid writer. The Rambler calls his works PAGES OF INANITY. His three letters to POPE, however, are well written. His remarks on the nature of pastoral poetry, on borrowing from the ancients, and against florid conceits, are worthy perufal†. POPE owed much to Walsh: it was he who gave him a very important piece of advice, in his early youth; for he ufed to tell our author, that there was one way ftill left open for him, by which he might excel any of his predeceffors, which was, by CORRECTNESS; that though indeed we had several great poets, we as yet could boast of none that were perfectly CORRECT; and that therefore, he advifed him to make this quality his particular study.

* Ver. 730.

+ Vol. 7. pag. 67. &c. CORRECT

CORRECTNESS is a vague term, frequently used without meaning and precifion. It is perpetually the naufeous cant of the French critics, and of their advocates and pupils, that the English writers are generally INCORRECT. If CORRECTNESS implies an abfence of petty faults, this perhaps may be granted. If it means, that, because their tragedians have avoided the irregularities of Shakespeare, and have observed a jufter œconomy in their fables, therefore the Athalia, for instance, is preferable to Lear, the notion is groundless and abfurd. The Henriade is free from any very grofs faults; but who will dare to rank it with the Paradise Loft? The declamations with which fome of their most perfect tragedies abound, may be reckoned as contrary to the nature of that fpecies of poetry, and as destructive of it's end, as the fools or gravediggers of Shakespeare. That the French may boast some excellent critics, particularly Boffu, Boileau, Fenelon, and Brumoy, cannot be denied; but that these are fufficient to form a tafte upon, without having recourse to the

genuine

genuine fountains of all polite literature, I mean the Grecian writers, no one but a superficial fciolift can allow.

In our

I CONCLUDE thefe reflections with a remarkable fact. In no polifhed nation, after criticism has been much studied, and the rules of writing established, has any very extraordinary work ever appeared. This has vifibly been the cafe, in Greece, in Rome, and in France; after Ariftotle, Horace, and Boileau, had written their ARTS OF POETRY. own country, the rules of the drama, for instance, were never more completely understood than at prefent: yet what UNINTERESTING, though FAULTLESS, tragedies, have we lately feen? So much better is our judgment than our execution. How to account for the fact here mentioned, adequately and justly, would be attended with all thofe difficulties that await difcuffions relative to the productions of the human mind; and to the delicate and fecret caufes that influence them. Whether or no, the natural powers be not confined

and

and debilitated by that timidity and caution which is occafioned by a rigid regard to the dictates of art; or whether that philofophical, that geometrical, and systematical spirit so much in vogue, which has spread itself from the sciences even into polite literature, by confulting only REASON, has not diminished and deftroyed SENTIMENT; and made our poets write from and to the HEAD rather than the HEART: Or whether, laftly, when just models, from which the rules have neceffarily been drawn, have once appeared, fucceeding writers, by vainly and ambitiously striving to surpass those just models, and to shine and surprise, do not become ftiff, and forced, and affected in their thoughts and diction.