many) any one has, if known it from fome fmattering, cared a farthing whether Pope's chain was right or wrong, or any other part of his system; ftill lefs defired to examine where the point lay in any argumentative question fet forth, or defired the least in the world to draw lines between instinct and · reason, or any thing else. How far fee into any hint or touch of genius, out of the question indeed, if any fuch perchance be; how far any difcrimination, analization, fo as to mark particular paffages with their fhades and degrees of excellence or defect, even line by line, for this alone is criticism; all, all, much out of the question indeed! While defects of rhyme, of measure, of word repeated, or some such trifle, (nay, possibly when by the defect fome out-weighing advantage is procured) real or imaginary, not a cat makes a quicker and more eager fpring at his moufe. All this may feem too much; indeed I had through life thought fo; but try, yourself, as I have fo often faid, the copiers; print; yes, and try writers, many of which there are in London, and by no means perhaps despicable from their own pens. not, all are fo; I fuppofe many not, but that many are I well know.

I fay

They

may.

Has one not a right to ask of Dr. Johnson his definition of sense, when he gives of Pope the general ac- count, as of one who was fupereminently gifted with, and characterised by it?

I repeat it, appreciate, ye fuperior! this, and all this. Appreciate Warburton too along with it all, whose illustration of this very paffage may be seen in his edition of Pope.

*When a man quits the common line for nonfenfe, what is he? when he quits it from intuition of unknown truth, what? Once in my life I was a-hawking, and it afforded me a stroke of the mind I never experienced before. The hawk was un-capped and let loose after his bird; he immediately struck into the air, not in the line of the bird; no, all aflant, another way: Emblem of genius, faid I! to the hawk I certainly gave credit. The fact, I understood afterwards, was, that his best means to reach his prey was, through a different route, and then to get the wind of him. This he did, and effected his purpofe. And fay, ye wife-men, and ye fcoffers, does it never arrive among you with your own fpecies, to begin by de. riding, and end by ftaring, and perhaps lofing your caufe? Exactly this I remember reading of about Columbus at the court of Caftille, among the courtiers there, to whom he and his project were a continual laughter, before he fet out; what, after he came back, with his world in his hand, my book does not fay.

may write on the common fubjects they have to treat of, by no means defpicably I fay; and the subjects, in difquifition here, never once come into their interruption.

But after having happened to fall on all this, I think too rather repeatedly and unneceffarily, (excufe, reader, my rambling ftill; I am, you see, "without a fecond, and without a judge,") fince very much the fame is in what I call my small Effay on Criticifm; and which, by the way, must fare ill if I fay wrong here. Let me not omit, however, in addition to it all, that I have had one critic of a very different ftamp, and be it is who has been my encourager to proceed on to the lengths I have, from my first canto. That perfon will, I fuppofe, read all this, and if he does, let him accept of my acknowledgments, ftill more than for what he knows he faid to my pócm, for hist complying with my application for his opinion; which I know, and knew at the time, was not within the rules of propriety to ask of him; but I confefs that my strong desire to know from a real judge whether or no my poetical powers were fuch as could warrant my publication, (then thinking of going no farther than the first canto) made me, I fay, refolve to ftretch a point, ánd even exceed, I fear, the rules of propriety and politeness. My own great advantage in this, tempted me; and that my first reply was not fatisfactory, need not, or did furprise me. But I will tell him and any other readers this anecdote upon it; that had I not afterwards had a fecond and a third letter, with contents he knows, this work would never have seen the light; for after the first reply, I burnt twenty or thirty verses of MS. not fent to him, and was fully determined to burn the whole, if another letter, and of fuch fort of approbation as I wanted, had not come to me as it did. He will see the deftruction of the paffage he difapproved, which indeed was then intended. Thus then, if as Boniface fays of his ale, you will fancy this work, any how, equivalent to the Sybil's books of old, here is fomething like their history revived; but still he, nor any other real judge, has seen the more abftrufe difquifitions that follow in the fucceeding Cantos, so that I may have still puzzled many of thefe nicer things, and known nothing of the matter. If I have, ye fuperior, correct me and instruct me.

Nor

Nor can I forbear afking the fame of the great statesmen.-If I happen to have made one hit of utility, from the mere love and exercise of truth, I am happy; if I have too, I hope not too prefumptuously, hazarded the name of my King or Prince, I will hope it will be imputed to what my conscious heart tells me to be its true motive, I mean, my love and refpect for them and my country. Wherever be ftationed my perfon, my hearty good wishes will (during its allotted period of existence) attend them all; I ever shall be proud of the title of Englishman, and be happy to fee or hear of England's glory. Among the nations it already has a very great deal,-may it still have more!

'May it, in legislation, in arts and sciences, in manners, and in every thing, (truth its universal foundation) foar on high, and look down on ' them all! With this prayer let me conclude my own individual infignificancy, who can only contribute his good wifhes towards it, himself being ' allowed to revert to his master's and his own philofophy, with which he will beg leave to conclude, and release his reader,' viz.