ity or vulgarity from what is merely simple, so according to the nature of his mind who possesses it, beauty or simplicity will be the result of the operation: If his taste inclines him to what is fair and elegant in nature, he will produce beauty; if to what is lofty, bold, and tremendous, he will strike out sublimity.

Agreeably to this, we may observe in all literary and enlightened nations, their earliest authors and artists are the most simple: First, adventurers represent what they see or conceive with simplicity, because their impulse is unbiassed by emulation, having nothing in their sight either to imitate, avoid, or excel: on the other hand their successors are sensible that one man's description of nature must be like another's, and in their zeal to keep clear of imitation, and to outstrip a predecessor, they begin to compound, refine, and even to distort. I will refer to the Venus de Medicis and the Laöcoon for an illustration of this: I do not concern myself about the dates or sculptors of these figures: but in the former we see beautiful simplicity, the fairest form in nature, selected by the fine taste, and imitated without affectation or distortion, and as it should seem without even an effort of art: In the Laöcoon we have a complicated plot; we unravel a maze of ingenious contrivance, where the artist has compounded and distorted nature in the ambition of surpassing her.

Virgil possessed a fine taste according to Mr. Addison's definition, which I before observed applies only to an acquired taste: He had the faculty of discerning the beauties of an author with pleasure, and the imperfections with dislike: He had also the faculty of imitating what he discerned; so that I cannot verify what I have advanced by any stronger instance than his. I should think there

does not exist a poet, who has gone such lengths in imagination as Virgil; for to pass over his pastoral and bucolic poems, which are evidently drawn from Theocritus and Hesiod, with the assistance of Aratus in every thing that relates to the scientific part of the signs and seasons, it is supposed that his whole narrative of the destruction of Troy, with the incident of the wooden horse and the episode of Sinon, are an almost literal translation of Pisander the epic poet, who in his turn perhaps might copy his account from the Ilias Minor; (but this last is mere suggestion). As for the Æneid, it does little else but reverse the order of Homer's epic, making Æneas's voyage precede his wars in Italy, whereas the voyage of Ulysses is subsequent to the operations of the Iliad. As Apollo is made hostile to the Greeks, and the cause of his offence is introduced by Homer in the opening of the Iliad, so Juno in the Æneid stands in his place with every circumstance of imitation. It would be an endless task to trace the various instances throughout the Æneid, where scarce a single incident can be found which is not copied from Homer: Neither is there greater originality in the executive parts of the poem, than in the constructive; with this difference only that he has copied passages from various authors, Roman as well as Greek, though from Homer the most. Amongst the Greeks, the dramatic poets Eschylus, Sophocles, and principally Euripides, have had the greatest share of his attention; Aristophanes, Menander, and other comic authors, Callimachus and some of the lyric writers, also may be traced in his imitations. A vast collection of passages from Ennius chiefly, from Lucretius, Furius, Lucilius, Pacuvius, Suevius, Nævius, Varius, Catullus, Accius, and others of his own nation, has been made by

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Macrobius in his Saturnalia, where Virgil has done little else but put their sentiments into more elegant verse; so that, in strictness of speaking, we may say of the Æneid, that it is a miscellaneous compilation of poetical passages, composing all together an epic poem, formed upon the model of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey: abounding in beautiful versification, and justly to be admired for the fine acquired taste of its author, but devoid of originality either of construction or execution.' Besides its general inferiority, as being a copy from Homer, it particularly falls off from its original in the conception and preservation of character: it does not reach the sublimity and majesty of its model, but it has in a great degree adopted the simplicity, and entirely avoided the rusticity of Homer.

Lucan and Claudian, in later ages, were perhaps as good versifiers as Virgil, but far inferior to him in that fine acquired taste, in which he excelled: They are ingenious, but not simple; and execute better than they contrive. A passage from Claudian, which I shall beg the reader's leave to compare with one from Virgil, (where he personifies the evil passions and plagues of mankind, and posts them at the en trance of hell, to which Æneas is descending) will exemplify what I have said; for, at the same time that it will bear a dispute, whether Claudian's description is not even superior to Virgil's in poetical merit, yet the judicious manner of introducing it in one case, and the evident want of judgment in the other, will help to shew that the reason why we prefer Virgil to Claudian, is more on account of his superiority of taste than of talents.

Claudian's description stands in the very front of his poem on Ruffinus; Virgil's is woven into his fable, and will be found in the sixth book of his Eneid, as follows:

Vestibulum ante ipsum, primisque in faucibus Orci,
Luctus, et ultrices posuere cubilia Curæ ;
Pallentesque habitant Morbi, tristisque Senectus,
Et Metus, et malesuada Fames, et turpis Egestas,
Terribiles visu forma; Lethumque, Laborque;
Tum consanguineus Lethi Sopor, et mala mentis
Gaudia, mortiferumque adverso in limine Bellum,
Ferreique Eumenidum thalami, et Discordia demens
Vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis.

VIRGIL.

Just in the gates and in the jaws of Hell
Revengeful Cares and sullen Sorrows dwell,
And pale Diseases, and repining Age;

Want, Fear, and Famine's unresisted rage;

Here Toils, and Death, and Death's half-brother, Sleep,
Forms terrible to view, their centry keep:
With anxious Pleasures of a guilty mind,
Deep Frauds before, and open Force behind':
The Furies iron beds, and Strife that shakes
Her hissing tresses, and unfolds her snakes.

DRYDEN.

Protinus infernas ad limina tetra sorores
Concilium deforme vocat; glomerantur in unum.
Innumera pestes Erebi, quascunque sinistro
Nox genuit fætu: Nutrix Discordia belli;
Imperiosa Fames; leto vicina Senectus;
Impatiensque sui Morbus; Livorque secundis
Anxius, est scisso Marens velamine Luctus,
Et Timor, et cæco præceps Audacia vultu ;
Et luxus populator opum; cui semper adhærens
Infelix humili gressu comitatur Egestas;
Fadaque Avaritiæ complexa pecora matris
Insomnes longo veniunt examine Curæ.

CLAUDIAN..

The infernal council, at Alecto's call
Conven'd, assemble in the Stygian hall;
Myriads of ghastly plagues, that shun the light,
Daughters of Erebus and gloomy Night:
Strife war-compelling; Famine's wasting rage;.
Aud Death just hovering o'er decrepit Age ;
Envy, Prosperity's repining foe,

Restless Disease, and self-dishevell❜d Woe,
Rashness, and Fear, and Poverty, that steals
Close as his shadow at the Spendthrift's heels;
And Cares, that clinging to the Miser's breast,
Forbid his sordid soul to taste of rest.

The productions of the human genius will borrow their complexion from the times in which they originate. Ben Jonson says, that the players often mentioned it as an honour to Shakspeare, that in his writing (whatsoever he penned) he never blotted out a line. My answer hath been (adds he) Would he had blotted out a thousand! which they thought a malevolent speech. I had not told posterity this but for their ignorance, who chose that circumstance to commend their friend by, wherein he most faulted; and to justify mine own candour, for I loved the man, and do honour his memory on this side idolatry as much as any: He was indeed honest, and of an open free nature; had an excellent phantasie, brave notions and gentle expressions, wherein he flowed with that facility, that sometime it was necessary he should be stopped; Sufflaminandus erat, as Augustus said of Haterius: His wit was in his own power; would the rule of it had been so too!'

I think there can be no doubt but this kind of indignant negligence with which Shakspeare wrote, was greatly owing to the slight consideration he had for his audience. Jonson treated them with the dictatorial haughtiness of a pedant; Shakspeare with the carelessness of a gentleman who wrote at his ease, and gave them the first flowings of his fancy without any dread of their correction. These were times in which the poet indulged his genius without restraint; he stood alone and super-eminent, and wanted no artificial scaffold to raise him above the heads of his contemporaries; he was natural, lofty, careless, and daringly incorrect. Place the same man in other times, amongst a people polished almost into general equality, and he shall begin to hesitate and retract his sallies: for in this respect poetical are like military excursions, and it