admitting nothing, however well established in the general opinion, that was supernatural. And as here he did too much, so in another respect, it may be observed, he did too little. The romancers, before spoken of, had carried their notions of gallantry in ordinary life, as high, as they had done those of preternatural agency, in their marvellous fictions. Yet here this original genius, who was not to be held by the shackles of superstition, suffered himself to be entrapped in the silken net of love and honour. And so hath adopted, in hist draught of characters, that elevation of sentiment which a change of manners could not but dispose the reader to regard as fantastic in the Gothic romance, at the same time that he rejected what had the truest grace in the ancient epic, a sober intermixture of religion. The execution of his poem was answerable to the general method. His SENTIMENTS are frequently forced, and so tortured by an 'affectation of wit, that every stanza hath the air of an epigram. And the EXPRESSION, in which he cloaths them, is so quaint and figurative, as turns his description almost into a continued riddle. Such was the effect of a studious affectation of originality in a writer, who, but for this Flora quibus mater praespergens antè viaï Cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet. Venus, or the spirit of love, is represented by those poets as brooding o'er this delicious season; Rura foecundat voluptas: rura VENEREM sen tiunt. Ipsa gemmas purpurantem pingit annum flori bus: Ipsa surgentis papillas de Favonî spiritu Urguet in toros tepentes; ipsa roris lucidi, &c. and a great deal more to the same purpose, which every one recollects in the old classic and in the Provencial poets. But when we hear this language from the more Northern, and particularly our English bards, who perhaps are shivering with the blasts of the North-east, at the very time their imagination would warm itself with these notions, one is certain this cannot be the effect of observation, but of a sportful fancy; enchanted by the native loveliness of these exotic images, and charmed by the secret insensible power of imitation. And to shew the certainty of this conclusion, Shakespear, we may observe, who had none of and turn themselves to a stricter imitation of the best models. I say, a seasonable admonition; for the more polished a nation is, and the more generally these models are understood, the greater danger there is, as was now observed, of running into that worst of literary faults, affectation. But, to stimulate their endeavours to this practice, the judgment of the public should first be set right; and their readers prepared to place a just value upon it. In this respect, too, I would willingly contribute, in some small degree, to the service of letters. For the poet, whose object is fame, will always adapt himself to the humour of those, who confer it. And till the public taste be reduced, by sober criticism, to a just standard, strength of genius will only enable a writer to pervert it still further, by a too successful compliance with its vicious expectations. was not his own, that is, not suggested by his own observation of nature. The case you see, in these instances, is the same as if an English landskip-painter should choose to decorate his Scene with an Italian sky. The Connoisseur would say, he had copied this particular from Titian, and not from Nature. I presume then to give it for a certain note of Imitation, when the properties of one clime are given to another. II. You will draw the same conclusion whenever you find "The Genius of one people given to another." 1. Plautus gives us the following true picture of the Greek manners: -In hominum aetate multa eveniunt hujusmodi Irae interveniunt, redeunt rursum in gratiam. Verùm irae siquae fortè eveniunt hujusmodi, Inter eos rursum si reventum in gratiam est, Bis tanto amici sunt inter se, quàm prius. AMPHYT. A. HI. S. 2. You are better acquainted with the modern Italian writers than I am; but if ever you find |