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the most evident propofitions into understandings frighted by their novelty, or hardened against them by accidental prejudice; it can fcarcely be conceived, how frequently, in thefe extemporaneous controverfies, the dull will be fubtile, and the acute abfurd; how often ftupidity will elude the force of argument, by involving itself in its own gloom; and mistaken ingenuity will weave artful fallacies, which reafon can fcarcely find means to difentangle.

In thefe encounters the learning of the reclufe ufually fails him: nothing but long habit and frequent experiments can confer the power of changing a pofition into various forms, prefenting it in different points of view, connecting it with known and granted truths, fortifying it with intelligible arguments, and illuftrating it by apt fimilitudes; and he, therefore, that has collected his knowledge in folitude, must learn its application by mixing with mankind.

But while the various opportunities of converfation invite us to try every mode of argument, and every art of recommending our fentiments, we are frequently betrayed to the ufe of fuch as are not in themselves ftrictly defenfible: a man heated in talk, and eager of victory, takes advantage of the miftakes or ignorance of his adverfary, lays hold of conceffions to which he knows he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on his opponent, though he knows himfelf that they have no force: thus the feverity of reafon is relaxed, many topics are accumulated, but without just arrangement or diftinction; we learn to fatisfy ourselves with fuch ratiocina

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ratiocination as filences others; and feldom recal to a close examination, that discourse which has gratified our vanity with victory and applaufe.

Some caution, therefore, must be used, left copiousness and facility be made lefs valuable by inaccuracy and confusion. To fix the thoughts by writing, and fubject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own fophifins, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practifes on others in converfation we naturally diffuse our thoughts, and in writing we contract them; method is the excellence of writing, and unconstraint the grace of conversation.

To read, write, and converfe in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters. For all these there is not often equal opportunity; excellence, therefore, is not often attainable; and most men fail in one or other of the ends proposed, and are full without readinefs, or ready without exactness. Some deficiency must be forgiven all, because all are men; and more must be allowed to pafs uncenfured in the greater part of the world, because none can confer upon himself abilities, and few have the choice of fituations proper for the improvement of those which nature has bestowed: it is, however, reasonable, to have perfection in our eye; that we may always advance towards it, though, we know it never can be reached.

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NUMB. 92. SATURDAY, September 22, 1753.

Cum tabulis animum cenfaris fumet bonefti.

HOR.

Bold be the critick, zealous to his truft,
Like the firm judge inexorably juft.

1

SIR,

To the ADVENTURER.

N the papers of criticifim which you have given to the publick, I have remarked a spirit of candour and love of truth, equally remote from bigotry and captioufnefs; a juft diftribution of praise amongst the ancients and the moderns; a fober deference to reputation long established, without a blind adoration of antiquity; and a willingness to favour later performances, without a light or puerile fondness for novelty.

I fhall, therefore, venture to lay before you, fuch obfervations as have rifen to my mind in the confideration of Virgil's paftorals, without any inquiry how far my fentiments deviate from eftablished rules or common opinions.

If we furvey the ten paftorals in a general view, it will be found that Virgil can derive from them very little claim to the praife of an inventor. To fearch into the antiquity of this kind of poetry, is not my prefent purpofe; that it has long fubfifted in the caft, the Sacred Writings fufficiently inform

us;

us; and we may conjecture, with great probability, that it was fometimes the devotion, and fometimes the entertainment of the first generations of mankind. Theocritus united elegance with fimplicity; and taught his fhepherds to fing with fo much ease and harmony, that his countrymen defpairing to excel, forbore to imitate him, and the Greeks, however vain or ambitious, left him in quiet poffeffion of the garlands which the wood-nymphs had beftowed upon him.

Virgil, however, taking advantage of another language, ventured to copy or to rival the Sicilian bard: he has written with greater fplendor of diction, and elevation of fentiment: but as the magnificence of his performances was more, the fimplicity was lefs; and, perhaps, where he excells Theocritus, he fometimes obtains his fuperiority by deviating from the paftoral character, and performing what Theocritus never attempted.

Yet, though I would willingly pay to Theocritus the honour which is always due to an original author, I am far from intending to depreciate Virgil; of whom Horace juftly declares, that the rural mufes have appropriated to him their elegance and sweetnefs, and who, as he copied Theocritus in his defign, has resembled him likewife in his fuccefs; for, if we except Calphurnius, an obfcure author of the lower ages, I know not that a single pastoral was written after him by any poet, till the revival of li

terature.

But though his general merit has been univerfally acknowledged, I am far from thinking all the productions of his rural Thalia equally excellent: there

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is, indeed, in all his paftorals a strain of verfification which it is vain to feek in any other poet; but if we except the firft and the tenth, they seem liable either wholly or in part to confiderable objections.

The fecond, though we fhould forget the great charge against it, which I am afraid can never be refuted, might, I think, have perished, without any diminution of the praife of its author; for I know not that it contains one affecting fentiment or pleafing defcription, or one paffage that strikes the imagination or awakens the paffions.

The third contains a contest between two fhepherds, begun with a quarrel of which fome particulars might well be spared, carried on with fprightlinefs and elegance, and terminated at last in a reconciliation: but, furely, whether the invectives with which they attack each other be true or falfe, they are too much degraded from the dignity of paftoral innocence; and inftead of rejoicing that they are both victorious, I fhould not have grieved could they have been both defeated.

The poem to Pollio is, indeed, of another kind: it is filled with images at once fplendid and pleafing, and is elevated with grandeur of language worthy of the first of Roman poets; but I am not able to reconcile myself to the difproportion, between the performance and the occafion that produced it: that the golden age fhould return because Pollio had a fon, appears fo wild a fiction, that I am ready to fufpect the poet of having written, for fome other purpose, what he took this opportunity of producing to the publick.

The

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