respectively their worst consequences, in general vanity and sensuality.

There is similar danger in poetry and literature, where too much, as well as too little, fitness may be discovered. No error such as then takes place, is so excusable as one which proceeds from religion; and therefore we shall not think hardly of the involuntary encouragement given to prejudice by the learned and elegant Bishop Lowth; which, like that I hinted at a little way back, by another learned and ingenious divine, has had, I think, some consequences it is, that the end of poetry was, in his opinion, rather to instruct than to please. This remark may have been inspired by that sacred poetry, which at the time employed his critical skill; but other reverend critics, I have mentioned, are of a different opinion from him; and so is that very pleasing poet, and still better critic, Dr. Beattie. It will have been inferred from my observations on Burke's philosophy, which has demonstrated the perfect dissimilitude between beauty and fitness, that he would assign different tasks to history and poetry. Undoubtedly the poet ought, on every account, to strive, if his subject permit, to add new

incentives to virtue, as he ought in no instance to countenance vice; but there is a danger, of which we have had recent proofs, that his plan may be more attended to than its execution: he will never captivate, by an air and appearance worthy of him, if he is always leering at his moral. Unless he lose sight of it, either really or apparently, he will fix our attention more upon himself than his composition; and though it has been no bad speculation, in these times of philanthropy, to make poetry the medium through which we convey to the public, notions favourable either to our vanity or ambition, yet it is not the enthusiast, but the critic, who is to fix the bounds of poetical propriety. The principle which furnished it a pretext, forbade the idea of self from influencing our wishes; an absurdity and even inconsistency I have already spoken of on another occasion. It was, I think, founded on the ignorance of a distinction I have not seen fully marked, between a conduct proceed ing from a sense of duty preferably to a motive of interest, and from mere charity towards mankind preferably to it. The rule by which we are commanded to do to others as we would be done

by, supposes a man to have two objects, a selfish

and a social one, agreeably to Burke's analysis of our nature; and if he obey and acknowledge all the laws of duty, he may candidly confess that he values his private pleasure. It requires indeed the most obvious piety and disinterestedness, not to make this plausible contempt of ourselves appear, to some, hypocritical; and what indeed ought he to do, who obeys the Christian precept, and will only, for instance, defend his moral character, but not his character as one who, by means of fame or advantage, might add to his own enjoyments? Why he ought to confine himself to defending the moral character among others, of the poor, who ask alms of him. But this notion is not only wrong, because every man ought to have private advantages, from being one of that race which are the proper objects of religious benevolence; but the very assertion of his rights, of which nature has implanted in him a desire, may often do more good to others than to himself. He only ought to take care that this motive is invariably his principal, if not most cogent one; and then, if frivolous objection raise a clamour against him, he must be innocent in acting, from a persuasion of the utility of undissembled truth and ready justice.

But those will not deserve the benefit of clergy due to persons deriving from religion too superstitious a sense of fitness, whose methodistic cant is boldly and incessantly levelling blows at old establishments, and who call up those prophets recommended to our admiration in the elegant pages of Lowth, to denounce vengeance on the great and powerful in the most virtuous nation upon earth; a nation which, however, like others, deserving the visitation of Heaven for its misdeeds, is distinguished for virtue and energy of character, the union of which has never been witnessed so complete in any nation where wealth, luxury, and population, together with the advantages, have brought the evils attendant on them. These censurers of defect and deformity, may, with natural inconsistency, league themselves with the dramatic and other censurers of fitness already mentioned, while they play into each other's hands, in effecting their common schemes. But let us consider overstrained fitness, where taste is concerned alone, and not conjointly with morals. Mathematical benevolence, when it first appeared in France, was united with mathematical taste. At that time Voltaire, desirous of snatching the palm from Shakspeare, was ready

enough, with his admirers, to point out the defect and deformity of his writings, which he endeavoured to do, prejudicially to the cause of dramatic composition. Fortunately there was a lady who did not shrink from the task of defending her countryman; and encountering his defamer in the field of criticism, she gained a signal and acknowledged victory over him. Johnson has been too sparing of praise to her work, as we learn from Boswell, upon missing in it his favourite style of ratiocination. It, however, has that soundness of cautious criticism which he sometimes wants, and which it may, in part, owe to the modesty inherent in the female sex. We find that every quality of criticism was not attempted by all the ancient critics. Longinus is remarked by Hurd to be deficient in philosophy, though he allows his value; and this controversial work is, like his essay, simply characterized by uniform taste. It has appeared to me, that the ancient critics may have owed their lasting reputation to the soundness of their critical systems; the trains of their ideas rarely carrying those who followed them out of the right road. Longinus has sensibility, but he has likewise judgment (though hẹ does not display logic and science); and, according