ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS; SELECTED TO ENFORCE THE PRACTICE OF VIRTUE; And with a View to comprife in The Beauties of English Poetry. PRINTED FOR J. WALLIS, AT YORICK'S HEAD," LUDGATE-STREETS Fellenberg R 314 TO THE PUBLIC. POETRY may be faid to claim our firft attention, as it was originally intended to express our gratitude to the Deity, and teach mankind the most important precepts of religion and virtue; by which the human foul is not only exalted and refined, but the heart is fortified against all the various affaults of human calamities, and by which we are taught to confider happiness as entirely depending on the reflections of our own minds. We fhail be fufficiently convinced of thefe truths, if t only confider the particular end and defign of the feveralpecies of poetry. The EPIC POEM was intended to convey inftructions difguifed under the allegory of an important and heroic action. The ODE, to celebrate the exploits of great men, in order to excite a general imitation in others. TRAGEDY to infpire us with a deteftation of guilt, by painting the fatal confequences that follow it; and with a veneration for virtue, by reprefenting the rewards and juft praifes that attend it. COMEDY and SATIRE, to correct whilft they divert us, and wage implacable war with vice and folly. ELEGY, to weep over the tombs of fuch as |