even stole the matter of his odes, his applicatious, and his very expressions; in short, like the jay in the fable, they adorned themselves withhis plumage, and mingling in the choir of the birds, flew away with them as songsters of the grove. These gentry, it seems, thought to justify them selves by saying: why, Horace himself is only an imitator of the Greeks, to wit; for that he was the first lyric poet of the Romans, at least the first who could sustain a comparison with the versemen of Greece, was undeniable. Now, in order to point out to the Roman public, who were as easy to be gulled by words as any other public, the obvious difference between one sort of imitation and another, he contends that he is not more the imitator of Archilochus than even Alcæus and Sappho; that he had made the prosody of the Greek (numeros) and his spirit, his fire (animosque) his own, but not stolen from him the subject-matter and the words and given them as his own. - Horace's admirers might, perhaps, have had reason to wish that he had not condescended to make such an apology at all. Every real artist imitates, in one sense, his predecessor; Virgil, however, in spite pite of all he has borrowed or copied from Homer, is still a great, and even by the manner of mitation, an original poet. A bungler without a grain of talent may have spun an extremely pitiful work, both as to the invention and execution, of 50 cantos, out of his own addle pate, and have imitated no man, and yet would be nothing more than an original blockhead; on the other hand, a great poet may have taken not only the subject, but, if he thought fit, the whole plan of his performance from another, and by the manner of execution create a new and excellent work out of a bad one. That which constitutes the real master, is not the invention of a new and strange subject, unheard-of incidents, characters, situations, &c. but the spirit and animation which he breathes into his work, and the beauty and grace he diffuses over it. In this respect it is with poets as with painters and other artists. All the excellent painters have painted VirginMaries and holy families: the subject is the same, the characters are the

same, the colours on the pallet are so too. Although each has handled the same object in a manner peculiar to himself, and although such a number of excellent Madonnas are in being, yet inost assuredly no future great painter will be deterred thereby from adding his. It is, however, even for a Horace, so difficult to talk to the publick about his own works, and it is so common in such cases to say either too little or too much, that the best course a man can take against the Zoiluses, is not to say a word, but leave the work to speak for itself and its author. Is it good? it delivers a testimony which, if not by contemporaries, yet certainly by posterity, will be heard, understood, and confirmed.

Tritæ munere vestis] An unmerciful stroke at the poor fellows, who had the two-fold misfortune to make bad verses and to starve.

Non ego, nobilium scriptorum auditor & ultor, &c.] "If one of our eminent writers any where with great pomp reads his new work, I know nothing of it, and am not there either to clap, &c." This practice of reading the work in public, which is said to have been first introduced in Rome by Virgil's patron Asinius Pollio, was in the days of Horace beginning to be the fashion; and that fashion in the sequel, along with the fashion of being an author, got to such a height, that it became an ordinary duty of society to attend such readings; a duty which a man could not fail in without violating the laws of good manners, People, as we learn from a letter of Pliny, were regularly invited to them; the company met together in a spacious hall; the author mounted a sort of tribune, from which he recited his performance; and when done, he descended amidst the loud clappings of his polite audience, collected his eleemosynary dole of praise from bench to bench, thanked them, assured them of the reciprocum, and seated himself the next day at another meeting, in order to keep his word. How much the interests of literature were promoted by this uncommonly courteous custom, may easily be conjectured.

Grammaticas ambire tribus & pulpita dignor.] There were at that time indeed no literary journals and reviews, which in virtue of a tacit compassion

commission had arrogated to themselves in the name of the publick the right of holding a penal court of judicature upon all new writings and their authors; yet the grammarians and rhetoricians (that is, teachers of the fine arts, who particularly made it their business to explain and analyse the antient poets) amply supplied that defect, no less by their multitude, than by the influence they acquired from the circumstance that the literary education of the Roman youth was entirely in their hands. The authors à la douzaine had there fore every reason to court the favour, indulgence, and patronage of these consequential gentry, Horace thought he might dispense with that ceremony, and we, his present readers, think so too: but in his life-time it was another affair. It is the very genius and spirit of the republic of letters to he always labouring to preserve the due equality amongst its coetaneous members, and to contract or distend with violence where nature refuses to comply. The reading and judging publick, like the Roman people, imagine they can confer and resume the fasces, upon whom and whenever they please. The most excellent writer is often obliged to do penance for his excellence as a crime; and, like Aristides, is therefore ostracised, because he is just. Horace made the experiment in his time, and who will name to me only one of the celebrated dead who did not make it also?

Hinc illæ lacryma.] An allusion to a well-known passage in the Andria of Terence, which, it should seem was grown into a proverb.

Jovis auribus ista servas.] A proverbial phrase borrowed from the Greeks, and was used concerning people who affected to make a mystery of something. In this place it may fitly be applied to Augustus, who at that time, at least in the provinces (to whom the Romans allowed al-ready one degree of meanness more -than themselves) had altars erected to him, and on coins and monuments publicly suffered himself to be called our Lord God Augustus. W. T. Great Ormond-street.

*** A sad mistake in our last. For κακον (p. 395, 2d col line 12 from bottom) read καλον.

GENT. MAG. June, 1808.

B

Mr. URBAN, Epping, May 18. ROXBOURNE Church is situate about a mile and a half from Hoddesdon, between the great road and the river Lea; it contains three ailes, one of which was built by Sir William Say; it is appropriated to the peculiar use of the Bishop of London, who is the patron of it; but this parish is exempt from the jurisdiction of the Bishop and Archdeacon of the Diocese, and pays no procurations nor synodals.

The Church has a square tower with a short spire upon it, erected at the West end; and it has a good ring of five bells. The cemetery on the North side is bounded by the New River, which glides slowly along, seeming to leave with regret the source from which it flow,

The great attempt to join two streams in Middlesex and Hertfordshire for the supply of the Metropolis was first granted by an Act of Parliament in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who allowed ten years for the performance; but her death, happening shortly after, put an end to the intended attempt. However, in the time of James I. Sir Hugh Middleton, a rich citizen of London, undertook to bring the river from Chadwell and Amwell, near Ware, to the North side of London, near Islington, where a large reservoir was built to receive it, The work was begun February 20th, 1608, and completed in 1613; but Sir Hugh expended his whole fortune in the undertaking. The river in all its windings is 38 miles three quarters and 16 poles long, and is under the direction of a corporation, called The New River Company.

The parish to which this Church belongs was antiently called Brookesbourne, or Brochesborne, from the river, and is thus mentioned in Domesday Book:

In Hertford hundred. Adeliz, uxor Hugonis de Grentmaisnill, tenuit Brochesbourne, pro quinq' hidis et dimid' se defendebat. Terra est sex car. in dominio tres hid' et tres virgat' et ibi est una car"; ibi quatuor vil', cum presbytero, et uno socmano, et duobus bord habentibus quinq' car'; ibi duo servi et unus molin' de octo sol; pratum sex sol, et quatuor sol' de