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spot, yet others may possess land as fruitful, upon equal cultivation.

ON the whole, let us reflect, that the nature of the soil, and the extent of its fertility, must remain undiscovered, if the gentleman's desponding principle should meet with approbation.

MR. POPE'S chief excellence lies in what I would term consolidating or condensing sentences, yet preserving ease and perspicuity. In smoothness of verse, perhaps, he has been equalled: In regard to invention, Lexcelled.

ADD to this, if the writers of antiquity may be esteemed our truest models, Mr. Pope is much more witty, and less simple, than his own Horace appears in any of his writings. More witty, and less simple, than the modern Mons. Boileau, who claimed the merit of uniting the style of Juvenal and Persius with that of Horace.

SATIRE gratifies self-love. This was one source of his popularity; and he seems even so very

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conscious of it as to stigmatize many inoffensive characters.

THE circumstance of what is called alliteration and the nice adjustment of the pause, have conspired to charm the present age, but have at the same time given his verses a very cloying peculiarity.

BUT, perhaps, we must not expect to trace the flow of Waller, the landscape of Thomson, the fire of Dryden, the imagery of Shakespeare, the simplicity of Spenser, the courtliness of Prior, the humour of Swift, the wit of Cowley, the delicacy of Addison, the tenderness of Otway, and the invention, the spirit and sublimity of Milton, joined in any single writer. The lovers of poetry, therefore, should allow some praise to those who shine in any branch of it, and only range them into classes according to that species in which they shine.

Quare agite, O juvenes !

Banish the self-debasing principle, and scorn the disingenuity of readers. Humility has depressed many a genius into a hermit; but never yet raised one into a poet of eminence.

THE

THE IMPROMPTU.

HE critics, however, unable to fix the time which it is most proper to allow for the action of an epic poem, have universally agreed that some certain space is not to be exceeded. Concerning this, Aristotle, their great Lycurgus, is entirely silent. Succeeding critics have done little more than cavil concerning the time really taken up by the greatest epic writers: that, if they could not frame a law, they might at least establish a precedent of unexceptionable authority. Homer, say they, confined the action of his Iliad, or rather his action may be reduced, to the space of two months. His Odyssey, according to Bossu and Dacier, is extended to eight years. Virgil's Æneid has raised very different opinions in his commentators. Tasso's poem includes a summer-But leaving such knotty points to persons that appear born for the discussion of them, let us endeavour to establish laws that are more likely to be obeyed, than controverted.

An

An epic writer, though limited in regard to the time of his action, is under no sort of restraint with regard to the time he takes to finish his poem. Far different is the case with a writer of Impromptus. He indeed is allowed all the liberties that he can possibly take in his composition, but is rigidly circumscribed with regard to the space in which it is completed. And no wonder; for whatever degree of poignancy may be required in this composition, its peculiar merit must ever be relative to the expedition with which it is produced.

IT appears indeed to me to have the nature of that kind of salad, which certain eminent adepts in chemistry have contrived to raise, while a joint of mutton is roasting. We do not allow ourselves to blame its unusual flatness and insipidity, but extol the little flavour it has, considering the time of its vegetation.

AN extemporaneous poet, therefore, is to be judged as we judge a race-horse; not by the gracefulness of his motion, but the time he takes to finish his course. The best critic upon earth may err in determining

mining his precise degree of merit, if he have neither a stop-watch in his hand, nor a clock within his hearing.

To be a little more serious. An extemporaneous piece ought to be examined by a compound ratio, or a medium compounded of its real worth, and the shortness of the time that is employed in its production. By this rule, even Virgil's poem may be in some sort deemed extemporaneous, as the time he took to perfect so extraordinary a composition, considered with its real worth, appears shorter than the time employed to write the distichs of Cosconius.

On the other hand, I cannot allow this title to the flashes of my friend S in the magazine, which have no sort of claim to be called verses, besides their instantaneity.

HAVING ever made it my ambition to see my writings distinguished for something poignant, unexpected, or, in some respects, peculiar; I have acquired a degree of fame by a firm adherence to the

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