and masterly: and 'London' is one of those few imitations that have all the ease and all the spirit of the original. The same man's* Verses at the Opening of Garrick's Theatre are far from bad. Mr. Dyer has more of poetry in his imagination, than almost any of our number; but rough and injudicious. I should range Mr. Bramston only a step or two above Dr. King, who is as low in my estimation as in yours. Dr. Evans is a furious madman; and 'Pre-existence' is nonsense in all her altitudes. Mr. Lyttleton is a gentle elegiac person.† Mr. Nugent sure did not write his own Ode. I like Mr. Whitehead's little poems, (I mean The Ode on a Tent, The Verses to Garrick, and particularly those to Charles Townshend,) better than any thing I had ever seen before of him. I gladly pass over H. Brown and the rest, to come at you. You know I was of the publishing side, and thought your reasons against it none: for though, as Mr. Chute said extremely well, 'the still small voice' of Poetry was not made to be heard in a His writings in prose abound with sound reflection, and knowledge of human nature; and are written in a neat and unaffected manner, displaying great benevolence of mind and gentleness of disposition. Mr. Graves (the author of the Spiritual Quixote) wrote a pamphlet, called Recollections of some Particulars in the Life of William Shenstone, Esq. &c.' to vindicate his friend from the censure of Dr. Johnson, Gray, and Mason. † Dr. Samuel Johnson. See W. S. Landor's Satire on Satirists, p. 14. See Walpole's Noble Authors, vol. i. p. 549, and Warton's Pope, vol. iv. 309. crowd, yet Satire will be heard, for all the audience are by nature her friends...... What shall I say to Mr. Lowth, Mr. Ridley, Mr. Rolle, the Rev. Mr. Brown, Seward, &c. ... If I say, 'Messieurs! this is not the thing: write prose, write sermons, write nothing at all,' they will disdain me and my advice. Mr. S. Jenyns now and then can write a good line or two, such as these: Snatch us from all our little sorrows here, I like Mr. Aston Hervey's Fable; and an Ode the last of all, by Mr. Mason; a new acquaintance of mine, whose Musaus too seems to carry with it the promise at least of something good to come. I was glad to see you distinguished who poor West was before his charming Ode, and called it any thing rather than a Pindaric. The Town is an owl, if it don't like Lady Mary; and I am surprised at it. We here are owls enough to think her Eclogues very bad: but that, I did not wonder at. Our present taste is Sir Thomas Fitzosborne's Letters," &c. * In 1756 Gray left Peter-house, where he had resided above twenty years, on account of some incivilities he met with, which are slightly mentioned in his correspondence. He removed to Pembroke-hall, where his most intimate friends resided; and this he describes, " as an æra in a life so barren of events as his." * See Walpole's Works, vol. v. p. 393. In July 1757, he took his Odes to London, to be published. "I found Gray (says H. Walpole) in Town, last week. He brought his two Odes* to be printed. I snatched them out of Dodsley's hands, and they are to be the first-fruits of my press." Although the genius of Gray was now "in its firm and mature age," and though his poetical reputation was deservedly celebrated; it is plain that these Odes were not favourably received. "His friends (he says) write to him, that they do not succeed," and several amusing criticisms on them are mentioned in the Letters. there were not wanting some better judges who admired them. They had received the judicious and valuable approbation of Mason and of Hurd; † and if Gray felt any pleasure in the poem which Garrick wrote in their praise, he must have been yet more gratified, when Warburton, while he bestowed on them his honest applause, shewed his indignation at those who condemned, without being able to understand them.‡ Yet * Of these Odes, a thousand copies were printed at Strawberry-Hill. It is, I believe, to Gray that Hurd alludes in the Essay on the Marks of Imitation, as to the "common friend of Mason and himself," who had suggested an imitation of Spenser, by Milton: see vol. iii. p. 48. Gray's Odes were reviewed in the Monthly Review for 1757, p. 239. They were also reviewed in the Critical Review, vol. iv. p. 167; in which the critic mistook the Aioλnia μohn (the Eolian lyre), for the Eolian harp, the instru About ten years before this time, the Odes of Collins* were published, and received with the most unmerited neglect. The public had been so long delighted with the wit and satire of Pope, had formed their taste so much on his manner of versification, and had been so accustomed to dwell upon the neat and pointed style of that finished writer; that they were but ill prepared to admire the beauties of the lofty and magnificent language, in which Collins arrayed his sublime conceptions; and which was tasteless to those, who, but a few years before, had received the last book of the Dunciad, from the dying hands of their favourite poet; and who could not pass from wit, and epigram, and satire, to the bold conceptions, the animated descriptions, and the wild grandeur of lyric poetry. The very works which have now raised ment invented by Kircher about 1649; and, after being forgotten for a century, discovered by Mr. Oswald. A passage in this Review, suggested to Dr. Johnson an objection of which he made use, in his criticism on Gray; viz. "Is there not, (says the Critical Review) a trifling impropriety in this line, Weave the warp, and weave the woof;' - Is not the warp laid, and the woof afterwards woven? Suppose he had written Stretch the warp, and weave the woof."" Compare Johnson's Life of Gray, vol. xi. p. 377, ed. Murphy. *The Odes of Collins were published in 1746. The open manner in which Goldsmith in his Threnod. Aug. borrowed whole lines and stanzas from Collins, is a strong proof how little Collins' Poems were then known. See T. Warton's Preface to Milton's Minor Poems, p. 1. 10, for a support of this opinion, and Mason's Life of Whitehead, p. 12. Gray and Collins to the rank of our two greatest lyric poets, were either neglected, or ridiculed by their contemporaries; while to appreciate the justness of their thoughts, the harmony of their numbers, and the splendid creations of their genius, was left for the more correct decisions of time. Those who are really competent judges of the merit of poetry, in any age, are necessarily but few; the great and general mass of poetical readers are constantly varying among the favourites of the time; raising with their breath the bubble of that reputation to-day, which they take the same pains to destroy to-morrow. Quod dedisti Viventi decus, atque sentienti Rari post cineres habent Poetæ.* But a poet who receives the praise of an enlightened age, may with confidence expect its continuance; if he write, not for the fluctuation of taste, nor the caprice of fashion; but on his own extended views of nature, on his own confirmed knowledge and experience, and on the solid principles of the art. He who acquires the admiration of the present time, by addressing himself to their taste, by following their judgment, and by soliciting their applause, may be sure that his productions will be superseded by the favourite rivals of the age to come. Πῶς ἂν ὁ μέτ' ἐμὲ πᾶς ἀκούσειεν αἰων, * See Martial. Eleg. Lib. i. 2, 4, and Bentivoglio's Letters, p. 144, and Johnson's Life of Cowley, p. 62. |