your pardon sir," but, give me leave sir, if I am not mistaken," and so on; all which are universally preludes to a direct contradiction, or a flat negative. In short his malady, betrays itself in every part of his behaviour and conduct, rendering. him as disagreeable to himself, as he is to others.

In compliance with the wish of my correspondent, I will propose those remedies which occur to me as probably competent to remove, or at least to diminish, the virulence of his disorder. I am surprized that it has never fallen under the consideration of the faculty, and that among the numberless panaceas, by which certain charitable and well-disposed members of the community, kindly, and almost gratis offer to heal every complaint which can afflict their fellow creatures, none has been advertised for the cure of this mental distemper. We have powders to exterminate the humours which infest the human body; we have the infallible rat powder which promises in a very short time to purify Great Britain of every species of vermin; so that Ireland will no longer boast the sole enjoyment of her envied privilege. Why therefore, should there not be a powder for the extinction of all the humours, the agitation, and torments, which those possessed with the rage for con

tradiction and argument unquestionably suffer? The ingredients might consist of some drams of good temper, a scruple or two of common sense, together with a grain of modesty. The mixture to be taken whenever the disorder is troublesome. If however this remedy should be impracticable or ineffectual, I can only advise Anthony Absolute as his last resource, to enlist himself a member of the Pythagorean School, and to deny himself for a period of five years, the use and abuse of his tongue.

N.

THE

MINIATURE,

NUMB. VIII.

MONDAY, June 11, 1804.

Having received the following Composition from an unknown Correspondent, I have ventured to present it to the Public, without any alteration or comment upon its merits.

Nil intentatum nostri liquere Poeta.

HOR. A. P. 285.

No path to Fame our poets left untried.

IT is a trite but true observation, that the frivolous whims and fanciful dictates of fashion have more effect upon the mind, and enforce their commands with more irresistible sway, than all the precepts and admonitions of prudence or wisdom. might however seem probable, that fashion would have contented herself with arranging the tasty fabric of a lady's head dress, or the cut of a beau's

It

coat; with deciding the exact hour when it should be genteel for the gay world to feel hungry; with regulating the length of a shoe-string, or any other important article of a similar nature. But the goddess, wishing to exert her prerogatives and power to the utmost, has extended her influence over the regions of literature and taste; she has invaded the sacred retreats of Helicon themselves, and by a touch of her wand, the Muses appear as readily inclined to follow her commands, as any other young ladies within the realms of St. James's, while Apollo himself submits his lyre to be new strung at her option. In short, poetry is and has long been as entirely subject to the laws of fashion as a birth-day suit, or a ball-dress, and promises, under its present rules and restrictions, soon to become equally valuable. From the epic to the elegy, the pindarick ode to the sonnet, her power is felt, her supremacy acknowledged. It is not however of late years only that fashion has been thus omnipotent; were we to take a chronological inspection of poetry in general to the most remote ages, we should, I believe, perceive her equally domineering. The wild Norwegian ballads and romantic strains of the Erse and Norse legends are all marked with the same character.

Simplicity was the universal aim of the ancient English minstrels, a taste which has been ill supplanted by the whims of a later date. At one period the merit of poetry consisted not in the novelty of ideas, or elegancy of expression, but in the form or model which it displayed. I recollect having seen a copy of verses, "To a hair of my Mistresses's eye-lash," whose only merit consisted in the lines being so arranged, or rather disarranged, that the whole poem might be written in the form of a heart. A pair of wings was the favorite shape for a sonnet to appear in; and a triangle the established form of a sacred hymn. At another moment the whim of men led them to exclude particular letters from their poems, and one soaring beyond the rest; actually wrote, or intended to write an Epic Poem in five books, on purpose to exclude every vowel by turns. The sublime ode was another resource of fashion to vary the prevailing follies of the day. High and low, rich and poor were then universally excited. to give vent to their extravagant fancies, in the wildest measures and loosest numbers; sense or beauty were equally sacrificed to irregularity, and all believed that the use of Pindar's Metre would inspire them with Pindar's sublimity and conception.