Horace, about the precife time necessary to attain this due applaufe, and take away one and another year; but, when we have given this fanctity to old authors, might we not contend on the fame ground with Heron for his oppofition? This is not the only inftance where his principles and conduct oppofe each other; perhaps he wifhed only to attract attention, and in this he will be gratified. We would recommend to him for his next motto, if he can stoop from his darling Greek in capitals, to thofe pitiful curs,' thofe apes in Grecian clothes,' the Latin authors,we would recommend

Explebo numerum reddarque tenebris,'

Shall we tranflate it? I will buz a while and be forgotten.' We will take a short review of his different letters, neither awed by his frowns, or feduced by his confidence. If we offend him, it is but to share with Virgil and Terence in his favour.

The firft Letter is on Barbaric Poetry; and, after fome common reflections, in an uncommon ftyle, we meet with the effence of the whole in a few energetic lines.

'Violent actions, and fudden calamities of all kinds, are the certain concomitants of uncivilized life: to thefe we owe a poetry warm, rapid, and impetuous, that, like a large river fwelling from a bleak mountain, carries the reader along in the barge of fancy, now by vales fragrant with wild flowers, now through woods refounding with untaught melody, but most generally through deferts replete with romantic and with dreadful profpects.'

There is no great merit in the two fpecimens of barbaric poetry fubjoined.

The fecond is on the Difference between true and falfe Fame, on fashionable Writers, and literary Swindlers. The fubject of fame, a critical one for an author in purfuit of it, is better managed in a fubfequent letter. The literary fwindler, or - rather the puffer, is too well known; but it is a tender fubject, in this article, and we would not be betrayed into personalities.

The third, on the Works of Vavaffor, is very trifling.The fourth contains the corrections made in different parts of Akenfide's poem of 'the Pleafures of Imagination,' by its author. Few, we find, have been adopted, though Mr. Heron, with his ufual dogmatifm, afferts, that most of them are much for the better.' The author, it feems, thought otherwife.

The fifth Letter is on Lyric Poetry, which he diftinguishes into the fublime and beautiful, or the Odes of Pindar and Anacreon. There is great force in our author's language on this occafion; and, as ufual, ftrange aukwardness."

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In the second divifion of lyric poetry the effentials are less eafily fixed. Harmony of cadence, and beauty and warmth of. fentiment, paflion, and expreffion, feem the principal. Above: all, uncommon elegance in turns of language, and in tranGtion, are fo vital to this kind of lyric poetry in particular, that I will venture to say they conftitute its very foul; a parti-, cular that none of our lyric writers, before Gray, at all attende ed to. His mode of expreffion is truly lyrical; and has a claffic brevity and terfenefs, formerly unknown in English, fave to Milton alone. Of which to produce a few inftances from his very firft ode: purple year, for flowers of Spring: infect 'youth, for young infects: honied fpring, for honey of fpring: liquid noon, for liquid air of noon, with many others, are all modes of expreffion of the genuine and uncommon lyric hue.'

The Remarks on Dr. Beattie's Ode on Lord Hay's Birthday,' are very trifling.

The fixth Letter, on the Character of Cato, is written with great force, and from the heart. The author feems to adore the steady and inflexible virtue of that patriot. In this enthusiasm, Mr. Heron appears to misunderstand the force of the Auguftan authors; perhaps they were beneath attention, as they wrote in Latin. Virgil certainly gives Cato no praife: the atrocem animum Catonis,' is rather a fneer; for atrox is commonly used in a bad sense; and Lucan wrote in the reign of Nero. It was then not dangerous to praife Cato; and Lucan's encomiums do not prove that his virtue was fufficiently fplendid, to break through the clouds of Octavian despotism.

The next fubje&t is Comedy, where Congreve is highly exalted, and the fimple unaffected humour of Goldsmith depreffed, in choice holiday terms. The School for Scandal, which humour and stage-trick has rendered popular, and highly entertaining, in spite of the groffeft abfurdities, is the fucceffor of Congreve, and praised with fome limitations. The author, occafionally attempts to be witty; but these attempts are the reverse of the usual character of wit. They are obvious, but not natural. He, in this Letter, often uses the phrase of blunders on', where no blunder existed; and, in a fubfequent one, now the joke is,' frequently occurs, where we cannot find the semblance of a jett.-Mr. Heron seems as much under the dominion of phrases, as Crambe was of words; and of course they are often mifapplied.

The eighth Letter is on the Beauties of Petrarch, and a Comparison between him and Dante. The latter is comprehenfive and just.

The real poetical beauties of Dante might likewife fall into very small compafs; confifting chiefly of the celebrated

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tale

tale of Ugolino; and of that in the clofe of the fifth canto of the Inferno; which is as exquifite for tenderness, as the other is remarkable for terror. Now, that beauties of writers are fashionable reading, a small duodecimo extracted from thefe two poets would, if performed with tafte, be an acceptable prefent to the public; for no works I have read afford fo fair a field for felection as thofe of the fathers of Italian poetry; as they contain diamonds of the finest water loft in a mass of common foil. Yet were they both men of real genius; for fuperlative genius must be difcovered from the amazing height it fometimes rises to; though at other times it difplays no extraor dinary vigour. The genius of Petrarch is, however, more equal and correct than that of Dante; yet he by no means wanted ftrength when he chofe to exert it. Nor was Dante, whofe excellence is native force, deficient in defcribing the tender paffions, as may be feen in the canto above referred to. Petrarch's learning almoft deftroyed his genius. Dante's genius fhot freely, having no bound of erudition to confine its vigour: he is a bold original writer, whofe beauties are peculiarly his own, while his faults are thofe of the times.'

The next Letter enquires into the Quality in which the perpetual and univerfal Elegance of Writing confifts. Good fenfe, he tells us, is the fubftance, ftyle the ornaments. The former the health, the latter the bloom, the grace, and the elegance. This is perfectly just ; and a few of these Letters are worth a whole volume: half is certainly, in this cafe, more valuable than the whole ;-Mr. Heron will undoubtedly agree with us, for it is a Greek fentiment.

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The Letter on the Barbarism of Modern Customs, is very trifling in every refpect. That on Language, nearly as infignifcant. Hume preferred Parnel to Pope; and our author triumphs in difcovering, that Parnel's writings were corrected by Pope; but this proves only that, with Pope's affiftance, Parnel could furpafs his master, Mr. Heron prefers the Caftle of Indolence to the Seafons. The latter poem is, we own, incorrect; but it fhows the little effect of this boasted exactnefs. The exquifitely tender fentiments, and a faithful copy of nature, in her most beautiful and picturesque attitudes, eharm the heart, and leave the pedantry of the fchools far behind. To adopt the words of an ingenious author, we could no more think of grammar, when reading the Seafons, than of the method of making fiddle-ftings at a concert. We allow, however, the full merit of the Caftle of Indolence; and fee in it the first draught of Mr. Gray's image of the mufing melancholy perfónage whofe Epitaph clofes the Elegy in a Country Church Yard.

The

The two next Letters would not deferve notice, were it not for the following fentence; but it is a grain of wheat in a bufhel of chaff,

How contemptible do the brightest purfuits of fame appear when opposed to the modeft merit of doing good to mankind! How much fweeter are the foft whifpers of gratitude than the loudest plaudits of popular praise !'

The fourteenth Letter is defigned to prove that genius is not inconsistent with œconomy. We are very glad of it. Allons.

The fifteenth is on Bishop Hall's Satires. They are cer tainly forcible and fevere; but Mr. Heron's encomium is too extravagant.

The next Letter contains trite remarks on Virgil's imita tions: they are intrinsically the fame as have been often repeated; but they are new dreffed, and at first appear new. We know that he borrowed from Theocritus, and that we can trace him in the footsteps of Lucretius; but Mr. Heron has forgot that the bloom, the grace, and the elegance' of a work, confift in the ftyle, and that Virgil's is unexceptionable. This, he will rejoin, does not affect his character as a poet, which confifts chiefly in invention; but the fickly appetite which is always craving for novelty, ought not to decide on the flavour, or the wholesomeness of food. Our author will recollect, that to copy well from nature, scarcely deferves the title of invention; and yet this is the chief merit of Thomfon. But, as our readers may wish for a fpecimen of the addrefs, calculated to take their favourite from their hands, we shall subjoin the obfervations on what we think very beautiful parts of this poem, the epifodes.

Why dwell on particular abfurdities of a production, which, in its very effence, is abfurdity itfelf? yet we must not pass the Epifodes and ornaments of the Georgics, which have been hitherto allowed the very brighteft proofs Virgil has given of genius or invention, Let us weigh thefe proofs, if poffible, in the very scales which critical juftice holds,

The invocation to Cæfar's fpirit, the spirit of a tyrant, who trampled on the liberties of his country, could never have been written by a poet of real genius; for invincible honefty of mind has always been its attendant. Fulfome flattery and adulation, unworthy of the foul of a flave, conftitute the merits of Virgil, in this admired addrefs. May execration purfue his memory, who has placed a crown on the brows of a tyrant, that were much too bright for the best of kings! The figns preceding the death of Julius, enumerated in the end of the book, are in the fame ftyle with the addrefs; fuperftitious offerings on the altar of flavery. They who find invention in

either of thefe ornaments, are welcome to feed on it, mixed up with a little whipt cream.

I allow it were prejudice alone that could induce a reader to deny the beauty of the panegyric on a country life, which clofes the fecond book; but at the fame time it may be fafely faid, that there are no marks in it of a fuperlative poet. Of invention there are furely none, nor of originality; for the theme has been in all ages of poetry, a trite one. Virgil in this paffage, therefore, as in others, only difplays great skill in the mechanical part of poetry, but leaves the praise of a great poet to happier rivals.

The defcription of the plague, in the end of the third book, is evidently in imitation of Lucretius, only more full and rich. But facile f inventis addere; and this Episode may give Virgil the fame of a happy imitator, but never that of a true poet.'

The feventeenth Letter is on the Caufe of the gradual Admiration which diftinguishes works of genius. Let us rescue a diamond from the heap.

The truth is, there are works of fuperlative merit, of which the most learned cotemporary can form no true estimate ; for works of uncommon excellence require to be viewed at a certain distance, and in a certain light, to have their due effect. Set a picture of Raphael's against the blaze of the noonday fun, and its beauties will be as little difcerned as at midnight. Let me add, that an eminent writer is feldom the writer of his own times: his mature mind precedes the advancement of his art and language very often by a full century: fo that one hundred years, and fometimes more, muft elapfe, ere the public has acquired intelligence enough to judge of him.'

There is fome acuteness in the eighteenth Letter, which criticises the critics on Shakspeare; but on this fubject we cannot enlarge.

The nineteenth and twentieth Letters are on fome modern Lyric Poets. The Spanish he leaves to those who have a foul lofty enough to understand bombast, and grovelling enough to understand nonfenfe.' The Italian odes, particularly thofe of Fulvio Tefti, are remarkably beautiful; and we ought, on this occafion, to acknowlege our obligations to Mr. Heron, or the difguifed author, for preferving fome elegant poems, which probably would not otherwife have reached us. Of the English Lyrics, Gray is a great favourite, and Akenside is fpoken of with a refpect denied to Horace, Waller's language was the amber' which preferved, in our author's opinion, his weeds from rotting."

The twenty-first is on the Divifion of a Dramatic Poem. We were furprised to find fo little foundation for five acts; and, if the evidence be accurately stated, (though we fufpect a

little