with the Doctor for giving him more pleasure, or more inftruction, than he expected.

The

This fecond volume (for the other was published 20 years ago) pursues the object of the firft, viz. to examine what rank amongst the English poets is due to Pope. It is divided into fections like the firft, and the author takes up the poet where he had left him. where he had left him. The firft fection is appropriated to an examination of the Temple of Fame; after which the other works follow in their order. manner too is the fame as that of the former volume; that is, after an introductory hiftory of the particular fpecies of poetry which the piece the author is going to examine belongs to, he proceeds to remark on particular paffages, which he does as they occur, not cenfuring or commending any without a reason affigned, a method which he very fenfibly tells us he has adopted, becaufe general and unexemplified criticism is always ufelefs and abfurd. There is an Appendix, containing fome entertaining information about Prior *, and a fummary of the arguments of each scene and act (with a fpecimen of the performance) in L'Adamo of G. B. Andreini, which Milton certainly had read, and from which he took fome ideas of his Paradife Loft. This is inferted as a literary curiofity, being extremely scarce, and to vindicate our copious, comprehenfive, and creative poet, against the charge infinuated by Voltaire, of his being a mere borrower.

After a fhort hiftory of poetry, fome very ingenious remarks on the character and peculiar merits of Chaucer, and a conjecture that Pope might in part be indebted to Addison's celebrated paper in the Tatler, called the Temple of Fame, for his poem on that fubject, Dr. Warton goes on to his propofed examination of the poem itself. Tho' there is not an idle word in what he fays, nor a judgment he makes which the lover of poetry

* An effential part of this information is, that the Duchefs of Port land has in manufcript, written by Prior, Heads for a Treatife on Learning, an Effay on Opinion, and Dialogues between Charles V. and Clenard the Grammarian; Locke and Montaigne; the Vicar of Bray and Sir Thomas More; Oliver Cromwell and his Porter. There are likewife curious Memoirs of his Life by Mr, Montague.

A 2

will

will not do well to confider often, ftill as there are some of greater importance than others, thefe it becomes us to felect. We shall therefore pass lightly over the commendation of the picturesque Winter Piece, So Zembla's frofts, the ingenious criticisms on Horace's inviati membra Gliconis, believed to be a proverbial allufion to the Farnefian Hercules (the workman being used for the work, as the virtuofi in fpeaking of a picture fay their Raphael and their Bernini). Dr. Warton regrets that the descriptions of magic and enchantment are banished from poetry, and his wishes that Pope had enlarged more on the rites and ceremonies of the Egyptian priefts, a fubject finely fuited to defcriptive poetry. Thefe I fay, as well as the two appofite and beautiful quotations from Milton and Thomson, which the latter ferve to introduce, we must only mention and haften to,

There fat Zamolxis with erected eyes, And Odin here in mimic trances dyes; There on rude iron columns fear'd with blood, The horrid forms of Scythian heroes flood. Druids, and bards their once-lov'd harps unftrung, And youths that dy'd to be by poets fung. "In thefe beautiful verfes, fays Dr. Warton, we must admire the poftures of Zamolxis and Odin, which exactly point out the characters of those famous legiflators and inftructors of the northern nations.

As expreffive and as much in character are the figures of the old heroes, druids, and bards, which are reprefented as standing on iron pillars of barbarous workmanship...... I have frequently wondered that our modern writers have made fo little ufe of the Druidical terms and the traditions of the old Bards, which afford fubjects fruitful of the most genuine poetry with refpect both to imagery and fentiment. The ancients conftantly availed themselves of the mention of particular mountains, rivers, and other objects of nature, and indeed almost confine themfelves to the tales and traditions of their refpective countries; whereas our Mufes have feldom been

Playing on the fteep

Where our old Bards the famous Druids lie,

Nor

Nor on the fhaggy top of Mona high,

Nor yet where Deva fpreads her winding fircam. Mr. Gray however has made amends by his last noble ode on the expulfion of the Bards from Wales,

Cold is Cadwallo's tongue, &c."

On this occafion I cannot help obferving, that without depreciating from the merit of his refpectable friend Dr. Johnfon, whom in one part of his book he has called the English Juvenal, our author has taken occafion to enter his proteft against several very harsh cenfures paffed by the Doctor against feveral very great English poets. Thus we are told in this place, that Mr. Gray has made amends by his laft noble ode on the expulfion of the Bards; and in another, that Pope has written nothing in a ftrain fo fublime as the Bard of Gray. And fo again the Solomon of Prior (whom it is thought neceffary to vindicate, because it is growing fashionable to deny his great merits) is faid to have many very noble and fpirited paffages; and his Henry and Emma, many ftrokes of true tendernefs and pathos.— Whether this proteft indeed is quite fufficient, or whether a legiflator in criticifm, like Dr. Warton, ought to have allowed a work, in which we are told that no man would have read Lycidas with pleasure, had he not known the author, and that only two of Milton's fonnets are not bad, to be a legitimate fpecies even of entertainment, is not for me to determine. Perhaps he might think that the interests of talte might fometimes be fuffered to give way to the claims of friendship. Be that as it may, I hope that those who are difpofed to form their judgments upon authority, will remember that authority has interpofed, tho' not perhaps with fo ftrong an arm as might have been wished.

This article concludes with two ftanzas of a Latin tranflation of an old Runic Ode, containing the dying words of Ludbrog, and breathing the true fpirit of a barbarous old warrior #. I do not know whether it be worth

XXV.

*Pugnavimus enfibus.
Hoc ridere me facit femper,

Quod

worth obferving that the ridens moriar, which ends one of them, and which the Doctor with juftice admires, is Pierre's fentiment in Venice Preserved. There is a pretty piece of poetry of the fame kind, and, if I recollect right, on much the fame fubject, in Dodfley:

The dart of Izdabel prevails, &c.

On the verses in which Pope mentions the perfons who have pillars in the Temple of Honour, Dr. Warton obferves, that he has omitted Sophocles and Euripides; and from thence he makes a very fenfible digreffion to the caufes of thefe great poets not having yet obtained their rank amongst the claffic writers, which he thinks may in fome measure be owing to real scholars thinking it fufficient to be acquainted and touched with the beauties of Homer, Hefiod, and Callimachus, without proceeding to enquire

What the lofty grave Tragedians taught,

In Chorus or lambic, teachers best

Of moral prudence, with delight receiv'd
In brief fententious precepts.

From a word or two at the end of this article, I should almost suspect Doctor Warton of preferring these writers to Shakspeare, or, what is indeed more likely, thinking them his equals in merit properly dramatical; but, as this is a doctrine which the times would hardly bear, he has expreffed it in very correct and guarded terms.

Not fo his admiration of the venerable and ftriking picture of Homer- High on the first the mighty Homer Jhone, &c; nor the obfervations on the variety of fubjects for history, which the words of the immortal bard afford, fo forcibly conveyed in that fingle quotation from Bouchardon, the great French ftatuary-Depuis que j'ai lu ce livre les hommes ont quinze pieds, & la nature se'ft accrue pour moi; nor his fine critique on Pindar, not more distinguished as well as his common place friend Gray (forgive the imbelle telum of a Cambridge man, Dr. Johnfon) for impetuofity and fublimity of manner, than for ftrokes of domestic tenderness; nor his new and ingenious remarks on the dramatic turn Horace has given his odes hitherto as he says unobferved by critics, but beautifully exemplified by himself in remarks on feveral of the odes, particularly the Canidia (which we do indeed regret not being able to introduce here); nor the commendations of an ingenious paper called the Tables of modern Fame, supposed to be written by Akenfide; nor the cenfure on mixing the ludicrious and the ferious, a Heemfkirk and a Pouffin in grave compofition; nor the encomium on the fentiment of honor and virtue, with which the piece concludes:

Unblemish'd let me live, or die unknown,

Oh grant an honeft fame, or grant me none.

All these topics are treated with fo much fulness, fo much precifion, and fo much animation, as to leave us nothing to defire.

The obfervations on the ftory of January and May, and that of the Wife of Bath, which come next, are prefaced with a hiftory of tales, in which there is a great

* High on the first the mighty Homer shone;
Eternal adamant compos'd his throne;

Father of verfe in holy fillets dreft,

His filver beard wav'd gently o'er his breast;
Though blind, a boldness in his looks appears:

In years

he feems, but not impair'd by years.

+ Since I have read that book, the limits of nature are extended, and men appear fifteen feet high. How would fuch a man as Bouchardon have rejoiced in the other immortal Bard's Caliban, and in all the wonders of his fairy creation!

deal