W Advertisement. THENEVER a quotation is made in the French language, throughout the following remarks, the author defires to be understood, that he is far from thinking the use of that language any particular decoration to his ftyle; he only uses French words, when the force and meaning of the paffages fo quoted depend on the peculiar turn and idiom of the original. AN ESSAY ON THE GENIUS and WRITINGS O F POP E. SECT. I. Of the PASTORALS, and the MESSIAH an Eclogue. RINCES and Authors are feldom fpoken of, during their lives, with juftice and impartiality. Admiration and envy, their conftant attendants, like two unskilful artifts, are apt to overcharge their pieces with too great a quantity of light or of fhade; and are difqualified happily to hit upon that middle colour, that mixture of · B error error and excellence, which alone fenders every representation of man just and natural. This perhaps may be one reason, among others, why we have never yet seen a fair and candid criticism on the character and merits of our laft great poet, Mr. POPE. I have therefore thought, that it would be no unpleafing amusement, or uninstructive employment to examine at large, without blind panegyric, or petulant invective, the writings of this English Claffic, in the order in which they are arranged in the elegant edition of Dr. Warburton. As I fhall nei ther cenfure nor commend, without alleging the reafon on which my opinion is founded, I fhall be entirely unmoved at the imputation of malignity, or the clamours of popular prejudice. Ir is fomewhat ftrange, that in the paftorals of a young poet there fhould not be found à single rural image that is new! but this, I am afraid, is the cafe in the PASTORALS before us. The ideas of Theocritus, Vir gil, and Spenfer, are indeed here exhibited in language equally mellifluous and pure; but the descriptions and fentiments are trite and common. THAT the defign of pastoral poefy is, to represent the undisturbed felicity of the golden age, is an empty notion, which, though supported by a Rapin and a Fontenelle, I think, all rational critics have agreed to extirpate and explode. But I do not remember, that even these, or any critics have remarked the circumftance that gave origin to the opinion, that any golden age was intended. Theocritus, the father and the model of this enchanting species of compofition, lived and wrote in Sicily. The climate of Sicily was delicious, and the face of the country vari ous, and beautiful: it's vallies and it's precipices, it's grottos and cafcades were SWEETLY INTERCHANGED, and it's flowers and fruits were lavish and luscious. The poet defcribed what he faw and felt: and had no need to have recourfe to those artificial affemblages B 2 |