RECOMMENDATORY TESTIMONIES.
[According to the old and laudable usage of Editors, we shall now present our Readers with the judgments of the learned concerning our Poets.—These Testimonies, if they proceed from critical pens, cannot fail to have due influence on all impartial observers. They pass an author from one end of the kingdom to the other, as rapidly as the pauper Certificates of Magistracy.—Indeed, it were much to be wished, that as we have no State Licenser of Poetry, it might at least be made penal, to put forth rhymes without previously producing a certain number of sureties for their goodness and utility; which precaution, if assisted with a few other regulations, such as requiring all Practitioners in Verse to take out a License, in the manner of many other Dealers in Spirits, &c. could not fail to introduce good order among this class of authors, and also to bring in a handsome sum towards the aid of the public revenue.—Happy indeed will be those Bards, who are supplied with as reputable vouchers as those which are here subjoined.]
Testimonies of Sir JOSEPH MAWBEY’s good Parts for Poetry.