quiefce, difingenuously impofing on itself, and maintaining it's ground with deceitful arguments. This will account for that seeming contradiction in many critical characters, who fo acutely can see the faults of others, but at the fame time are blind to the follies of their own espoused fentiments and opinions. There is moreover in every perfon a particular bent and turn of mind, which, whenever forced a different way than what nature intended, grows auwkard. Thus Bentley, the greatest scholar of the age, took a ftrange kind of refolution to follow the mufes: but whatever skill and fagacity he might discover in other authors, yet his Horace and Milton will testify to the world as much his want of elegance and a poetic taft, as his epiftle to Dr. Mills and his differtations on Phalaris will witnefs for his being, in other refpects, the best critic that ever appeared in the learned world. 1 Ariftarchus feem'd very much to resemble Bentley. Cicero tells us in his epiftles, that whatever difpleafed him he would by no means 2 Cicer. epift. ad famil. III, 2. Sed fi, ut fcribis, eae literae non fuerunt difertae, fcito meas non fuiffe. Ut enim Ariftarchus Homeri verfum negat quem non probat; fic tu (libet enim mihi jocari) .quod difertum non erit, ne putetis meum. I believe believe was Homer's: and I don't doubt but he found editors, whose backs were broad enough to bear whatever loads of reproaches he was pleased to lay on them. The old rhapsodists, the Spartan lawgiver, or Athenian tyrant, might have ferved his turn much better than fuch a ghoft of an editor, the very coinage of his brain, as was lately raised up by the Dr. when he fo miferably mangled Milton. However this unbridled spirit of criticism fhould by all means be restrained. For thefe trifles, as they appear, will lead to things of a more serious confequence. By these means even the credit of all books muft fink in proportion to the number of critical, as well as uncritical hands, thro' which they pass. There is one thing, I think, fhould always be remember'd in fettling and adjusting the context of authors; and that is, if they are worthy of criticism, they are worthy of fo much regard as to be presumed to be in the right, 'till there are very good grounds to fuppose them wrong. A critic fhould come with abilities to defend, not with arrogance at once to start up a corrector. Is this lefs finished? Is it not fo intended to fet off what is principal, and requires 3 Aelian. Var. Hift, XIII, 14. a higher finishing? Is this lefs numerous? Perhaps the poet fo defigned it, to raise the imagination still higher, when we and more fonorous fubjects. come to fublimer Does not even variety, which goes fo far to conftitute what is beautiful, carry with it a fuppofal of inferiority and fubordination? Nay, where no other confideration can be prefumed, fome allowances furely are to be given to the infirmity of human nature. 'Tis the artift of a lower clafs who finishes all alike. If you examine the defigns of a mafterly hand, you'll perceive how rough these colours are laid on, how slightly that is touched, in order to carry on your view to what is principal, and deferves the chief attention: for by this correfpondence and relation, and by thus, making each part fubfervient to the other, a whole is formed. And were it not a degree of prophanation, I might here mention the great Designer, who has flung fome things into fuch strong fhades, that 'tis no wonder so much gloominefs and melancholy is raifed in rude and undisciplined minds. the fublime Maker, who has fet this universe before us as a book; yet what fuperficial readers 4 4 Milton VIII, 67. are are we in this volume of nature? Here I am certain we must become good men, before we become good critics, and the firft ftep to wisdom is humility. In a word, the most judicious critics, as well as the moft approved authors are fallible; the former therefore should have fome modefty, the latter fome allowances. But modesty is of the highest importance, when a critical inquirer is examining writings which are truly originals; fuch as Homer among the ancients, Milton and Shakespeare among the moderns. Here we are to proceed with caution, with doubt and hesitation. Such authors are really Makers, as the original word Poet imports. In their extensive minds "The 5 Sir Philip Sydney in his defence of poefie, "Greekes named him ПOIнTHN, which name hath, as the "moft excellent, gone through other languages: it com"meth of this word ПOIEIN, which is to make: wherein "I know not whether by lucke or wisdome wee Englishmen "have met with the Greekes in calling him a Maker.” Johnson in his Discoveries, " A poet is that which by the "Greeks is called xar' iox, O NOIнTHE, a maker, or "a feigner, &c." And in Every Man out of his Humour. A& III. Sc. VI." Cor. I would fain hear one of these "autumne judgments define once, Quid fit Comoedia? If he "cannot, let him content himself with Cicero's definition, ('till he have ftrength to propose to himself a better) "who would have a comedy to be Imitatio vita, fpeculum K 4 « confuetudinis, minds the forms and fpecies of things lie in embryo, 'till call'd forth into being by expreffions answering their great idea. "confuetudinis, imago veritatis; a thing throughout plea"fant, and ridiculous, and accommodated to the correction "of manners: if the Maker have failed in any particle "of this, they may worthily tax him." So in his translation of Hor. art. poet. Do&tum imitatorem: "the learned "Maker." So Spencer uses the verb, to make, in his Fairy Queen, B. 3. c. 2. ft. 3. "But ah! my rhimes too rude and rugged are, By Tityrus, he means Chaucer. So too B. Johnfon in his Epigrammes. XCVI. To John Donne. "Who fhall doubt, Donne, where I a poet be "When I dare send my epigrammes to thee? "That fo alone canft judge, fo' alone doft make. Пov, verfus facere. Julian in his Caesars, “Noñeg "Oμnpo ὀρθῶς ΠΟΙΩΝ ἔφη. Xenophon. in Sympof. Ἴσε γὰρ δήπε ὅτι ὁ ὍμηρΘ ὁ σοφώτατο ΠΕΠΟΙΗΚΕ σχεδόν περὶ πάντων τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων. Plato in Ione, ̓Αλλὰ θείᾳ μοίρᾳ τῦτο μόνον οἷός τε ἕνας Θ ΠΟΙΕΙΝ καλῶς, ἐφ ̓ ὃ ἡ μέσα αὐτὸν ὥρμησαν. • " The |