Who their ill-tasted home-brew'd prayer
To the state's mellow forms prefer,
Who doctrines as infectious fear

Which are not steep'd in vinegar, &c.

Reformers.

Reforming schemes are none of mine: To mend the world's a vast design, Like their's who tug their little boat To pull them to the ship afloat,

While to defeat their labour'd end

At once both wind and stream contend. Success herein is seldom seen,

And zeal when baffled turns to spleen.

Poets..

Or see some poet pensive sit,
Fondly mistaking spleen for wit;
Who, tho' short-winded, still would aim

To fill the epic trump of fame;

Who still on Phoebus' smiles will doat

Nor learn conviction from their coat.

Critics.

On poem, by their dictatés writ,

Critics as sworn appraisers sit,

And, mere upholsterers, in a trice
On gems and painting set a price.
These tayl'ring artists for our lays
Invent cramp rules, and with straight stays
Striving free nature's shape to hit,

Emaciate sense before they fit.

The Spleen: an epistle to Mr. C-J-, by Mr.
Matthew Green, of the Custom-House.
Dodsley's Coll. of Poems, v. i. p. 122.

Dr. Samuel Johnson,

The great author of the Rambler, both in his moral and critical works, exhibits his principal excellencies, ratiocination and common sense. Though many readers object to his language as tumid, and to an ostentations display of eloquence in his moral essays, yet the latter fault, if it be one, may be defended by what he says of Swift's style of unvaried simplicity.* This easy and safe conveyance of meaning it was Swift's desire to obtain, and having attained, he deserves praise. For purposes merely didactic, when something is to be told that was not known before, it is the best mode; but against that inattention by which known truths are suffered to lie neglected, it makes no provision.

*Life of Swift, in his Lives of the Poets.

This Johnson supplied in his revival of old truths, by a very splendid and variegated diction.

Advantages of Theatrical Exhibitions.

The instruction in our knowledge of the world, and the influence of the passions, by stage representations, if properly conducted, is beyond calculation. In the world, men and women conceal their passions and designs from each other, as much as they can; but in a well-written tragedy or comedy, the passions, &c. are discovered by the declaration of the agents themselves; and the author's design is to pluck the mask from the faces of vice and folly, and hold up the conduct of their characters as a warning to the audience. It was said of the famous Mr. Garrick, that he was only an actor off the stage; intimating his excellency in the performance of his theatrical characters, and blaming the affectation with which he enveloped his personal one in the society of his friends

On the stage he was natural, simple, affecting ;
'Twas only that when he was off he was acting.
Retaliation, by Dr. Goldsmith.

Translation and Imitation of Authors.

In poems, whose merit depends solely on the figures, metaphors, &c., a translator is obliged to

exhibit the author in his original dress. In works of humour, and satire, and wit, the application of an ancient writer's expressions and satire to modern manners and customs shews ability in the imitator, to which a mere translator could not pretend. Pope's imitations of Horace have more merit with an English reader than any literal translation could claim. To his translation of Homer it may be objected that he has not so much rendered the author, as he has rivalled or excelled him.

Visiting an Old School.

The expression of a natural feeling is always interesting, especially when it proceeds from a man of talents. Sir Henry Wootton describes the pleasure of visiting Winchester school, long after he had left it:-"Seeing the place where I sat when I was a boy, occasioned me to remember my youthful thoughts; sweet thoughts, indeed! that promised my growing years numerous pleasures without mixture of cares, and those to be enjoyed when time (which I thought slow paced) changed my youth to manhood; and now there is a succession of boys using the same recreations, and, questionless, possessed with the same thoughts.

Thus one generation succeeds another, both in their lives, recreations, hopes, fears, and deaths." -Lloyd's State Worthies: Observations on the Life of Sir Henry Wootton.

Wits indiscreet.

It has been ever a complaint against wits, that they want discretion as well as memory. Dr. South, though a witty and learned orator, did not always consider that propriety of speech so essential to serious discourses, and the places in which they are delivered. In a sermon preached at Court, the orator descanted on the superior enjoyment of intellectual pleasure over sensual gratifications, and how vastly disproportionate are the pleasures of the eating and thinking man; indeed, as different as the silence of an Archimedes in the study of a problem, and the stillness of a sow at her wash. So true is the observation of our great moral poet, who knew, so early and so well, how to combine the two faculties of wit and judgment:

Some to whom Heaven in wit has been profuse,
Want as much more to turn it to its use;
For wit and judgment often are at strife,

Tho' meant each other's aid-like man and wife,

Essay on Criticism, line 80,