i. e. a foft flowing verfification, and an exquifitely finished expreffion: the two precife, characteristic merits of Virgil's rural poetry.

This change, in the fenfe of words, is common in all languages, and creeps in fo gradually and imperceptibly as to elude the notice, fometimes, of the beft critics, even in their own language. The tranfition of ideas, in the prefent inftance, may be traced thus. As what was wittily faid, was moft ftudied, artificial, and exquifite; hence in procefs of time facetum loft its primary fenfe, and came to fignify merely, quitty.

We have a like example in our own language. A good wit meant formerly a man of good natural fenfe and understanding; but because what we now call wit was observed to be the flower and quinteffence, as it were, of good fenfe, hence a man of wit is now the exclufive attribute of one who exerts his good fenfe in that peculiar manner.

247. DILECTI TIBI VIRGILIUS, &c.] It does honour to the memory of Auguftus, that he bore the affection, here fpoken of, to this amiable poet; who was not more diftinguished from his contemporary writers by the force of an original, inventive genius, than the fingular benevolence and humanity of his character. Yet

there

there have been critics of fo perverse a turn, as to discover an inclination, at least, of disputing both.

1. Some have taken offence at his supposed unfriendly neglect of Horace, who, on every occafion, fhewed himself so ready to lavish all his praises on him. But the folly of this flander is of a piece with its malignity, as proceeding on the abfurd fancy, that Virgil's friends might as eafily have flid into fuch works, as the Georgics and Eneïs, as those of Horace into the various occafional poems, which employed his pen.

Juft fuch another fenfeless fufpicion hath been raised of his jealoufy of Homer's fuperior glory (a vice, from which the nature of the great poet was fingularly abhorrent), only because he did not think fit to give him the first place among the poets in Elyfium, feveral hundred years before he had fo much as made his appearance upon earth.

But these petty calumnies of his moral character hardly deferve a confutation. What fome greater authorities have objected to his poetical, may be thought more serious. For,

2. It has been given out by fome of better note among the moderns, and from thence, according to the customary influence of authority, hath become the prevailing fentiment of the

generality

generality of the learned, that the great poet was more indebted for his fame to the exactness of his judgment; to his industry, and a certain trick of imitation, than to the energy of natural genius; which he is thought to have poffeffed in a very flender degree.

This charge is founded on the fimilitude, which all acknowledge, betwixt his great work, the Aeneïs, and the poems of Homer. But,

how far fuch fimilitude infers imitation; or, "how far imitation itself infers an inferiority "of natural genius in the imitator," this hath never been confidered. In fhort, the affair of imitation in poetry, though one of the most curious and interefting in all criticism, hath been, hitherto, very little understood as may appear from hence, that there is not, as far as I can learn, one fingle treatise, now extant, written purposely to explain it; the difcourfe, which the learned Menage intended, and which, doubtlefs, would have given light to this matter, having never, as I know of, been made public. To fupply, in fome measure, this lofs, I have thought it not amifs to put together, and methodize a few reflexions of my own on this subject, which (because the matter is large, and cannot easily be drawn into a compass that fuits with the nature of thefe occafional remarks)

the

the reader will find in a distinct and separate differtation upon it [t].

CONCLUSION.

AND, now, having explained, in the best manner I could, the two famous Epiftles of Horace to Auguftus and the Pifos, it may be expected, in conclufion, that I should say something of the reft of our poet's critical writings. For his Sermones (under which general term I include his Epiftles) are of two forts, MORAL and CRITICAL; and, though both are exquifite, the latter are, perhaps, in their kind, the more perfect of the two; his moral principles being fometimes, I believe, liable to exception; his critical, never.

The two pieces, illuftrated in these volumes, are ftrictly critical: the first, being a profeffed criticifin of the Roman drama; and the laft, in order to their vindication, of the Roman poets. The reft of his works, which turn upon this fubject of criticism, may be rather termed Apologetical. They are the 1yth and xth of the FIRST, and 1 of the SECOND book of Satires;

[t] Diff. III. in the third Volume.

and

and the XIXth of the FIRST, and, in part, the II of the SECOND book of Epiftles.

In thefe, the poet has THREE great objects; one or other of which he never loses sight of, and generally he profecutes them all together, in the fame piece. Thefe objects are, 1. to vindicate the way of writing in fatire. 2. To juftify his opinion of a favourite writer of this clafs, the celebrated Lucilius. And, 3. to expose the careless and incorrect compofition of the Roman writers.

He was himself deeply concerned in these three articles; fo that he makes his own apology. at the fame time that he criticizes or cenfures others. The addrefs of the poet's manner will be feen by bearing in mind this general purpose of his critical poetry. How he came to be engaged in this controverfy, will beft appear from a few obfervations on the ftate of the Roman learning, when he undertook to contribute his pains to the improvement of it.

I have, in the introduction to the first of these volumes, given a flight fketch of the rife and progrefs of the Roman fatire. This poem was purely of Roman invention: first of all ftruck out of the old fefcennine farce, and rudely cultivated, by Ennius: Next, more happily treated, and enriched with the best part of

the