note, as well as of boldness, withdrawing a printed work, previous to the day of publication, is not without precedent in the annals of literature; yet the boldness of Dr. J-hn-n is so COLOSSAL, and his just confidence in the propriety of his own tafte, and the foundnefs of his critical creed, fo completely INEBRANLABLE, that one may be juftified in doubting, whether it could be poffible for him to bring himself to cancel, from prudence, that which he had once printed off for publication. So ftands the argument on one fide: but παλι λόγῳ ἰσος λογος axeila; "for every Rebutter, there is a SurRebutter;" as the fhrewd Sextus has told us.

But whatever may be the Editor's opinion. with respect to the authenticity of the Tract now offered to the Public, he finds himself at full liberty to acknowledge, that he has more than once repented of the refolution he had formed to reprint it. He foon found that the fheets were in fome places so faint and blotted, and in others fo erafed and torn, that it was impoffible to present it for publication, unless in a manuscript copy, taken with much pains, and in which it would be neceffary to call in the aid of conjecture towards completing the fenfe by fupplement and interpolation. Difficult as this appeared in prospect, he found it still more difficult in execution: but, though he was often tempted to abandon his enterprize,

Perfeve

Perfeverance at laft bore him through the labour he had undertaken. How he has acquitted himself in it, it belongs not to him to fay. He may have committed mistakes; but he has committed none that he poffeffed the means of avoiding. In one or two proper names, he is not fure but he may have supplied the defaced characters incorrectly.

From what has been now ftated, this Tract muft neceffarily be fuppofed to meet the Public eye, in a ftate fomewhat different from that in which it came from the pen of its fuppofed Author. The characteristic peculiarities of the Writer, and that poignancy which diftinguishes all his productions, muft naturally be found in it, in a difguifed and flattened ftate; and the Strictures must have loft, of course, " part of what Tem

ple would call their Race; a word which, "applied to wines, in its primitive fense, means "the flavour of the foil,"

It was once intended to print the Criticism in a manner resembling the editions of Feftus, which diftinguish, by a difference of character, the unimpaired paffages in the original, from the fupplements and interpolations. But technical reasons were adduced against this mode; to which the Editor was obliged to yield, as he was not able to refute them. In place of this contrivance he had fubftituted another, which would have equally gratified the curiofity of

the

the Lovers of the IMITATIVE ARTS, for whose entertainment this Publication was meant. In imitation of Mr. Brooke Boothby, he meant to have depofited the Original in the British Mufeum, for the infpection of the curious. But, alas! the late dreadful conflagration, which extended itself in part to his chambers, deprived him of the power of executing what he had planned. The zeal and activity of friends, which faved all his valuable property, overlooked these dirty fheets. The Editor foon after faw their remains. They had died a gentle death. The flame feemed juft to have reached them at the time its violence was fpent; for they lay undiffipated in a drawer half open, and which was little more than finged. The characters were in part legible, being marked in a pale white, fpreading over a dark ground; furnishing at once a proof of identity, and claiming a joint appropriation of the character which the Poet had applied exclusively to man:

“EVEN IN OUR ASHES LIVE THEIR WONTED FIRES.”

Lincoln's Inn,

15th Jan. 1783.

editions of fome late publications (an irregu larity into which the high prices of town-made books, and the low ftate of his own finances, have fometimes betrayed him, to the detriment of COPY-HOLD rights, and "against the "form of the Statute in that cafe provided;") he found the parcel, on its arrival in his chambers, to be double-fortified with fwathes of printed fheets; refembling, in their general appearance, what is known among the Trade, by the name of Imperfections. This, being quite

86

felon les Regles," excited neither curiofity nor attention; but approaching, foon after, the parcel to his teeth, for the purpose of undoing the twine, the wrappers were again forced upon bis eye; when he perceived, by certain cabaliftical marks upon the margins and field, and which his printer would laugh at him fhould he attempt to depict, that what he had taken at first for imperfections, were no other than proof-fheets, of a work apparently critical, and which he felicitated himself on his chance of feafting on, perhaps before the Public. He fet

...

her ample gashes, and bellowing for her HABEAS CORPUS. There lay the redoubted JUNIUS, his body dif membered by the axe, and his quarters at the King's dif pofal,----and there the ftately G-E-NS, laniatum corpore toto, with the vehicle of his keen elocution bored through with red-hot iron, &c. &c.

Non, mihi fi linguæ centum fint, oraque centum,
Omnia pœnarum percurrere nomina poffim.

5

himself

himself accordingly to examine the fheets with attention; and found them, not without fome surprise, to contain a methodical criticism upon Gray's Elegy written in a Country Churchyard;" executed in a manner fomewhat outre, and containing Obfervations on certain other Poems of Gray, together with allufions to certain Analyfes of them, which were referred to as preceding this particular Criticism, but which were not to be found in these fheets. A fudden thought now entered his head, and one which fome will perhaps think he too hastily adopted. Having been lately reading Dr. J-hn-n's Criticism on Gray (a work which afforded him infinite amusement), and the Doctor's manner being then ftrongly impreffed on his mind, he fancied he perceived a resemblance betwixt the style and mode of Criticifm difplayed in the Doctor's Strictures on Gray's other Poems, and that adopted in the Criti-cifm now before him. The leges judicandi were the fame; and the Editor was led to fancy it poffible, that the Obfervations on the Elegy written in a Country Church-yard, were compofed by Dr. J-hn-n, printed off for publica-. tion, along with the other parts of the Criticifm on Gray, but afterwards withdrawn; from the fufpicion that a cenfure fo free, of one of the most popular productions in the English language, might be ill-received by the Public.