[1]: Of the Poets, who were cotemporary with Lord Shaftsbury, Dryden, Cowley, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Gay, Addison, &c. in the Period which this Age styles Augustan, his Lordship speaks with sovereign scorn. In his Characteristics he, without making any exception, labors to prove, that the compositions of Dryden are uniformly contemptible. See his advice to an Author in the second Volume of the Characteristics, and also his miscellaneous reflections in the third Volume; “If,” says he to the authors, “your Poets are still to be Mr. Bayses, and your prose writers Sir Rogers, without offering at a better manner, must it follow that the manner is good, and the wit genuine?”
Thus it is that the jealousy People of literary fame often feel of each other, produces the foolish, and impolitic desire of decrying the general pretensions of the Age to Genius. Their narrow selfishness leads them to betray the common cause, which it is their true interest to support. They persuade the credulous Many, with whom envy of superior talents increases their willingness to despise, that Imagination is become enervated; designing, however, to have it understood, that in their individual instance exists the sole exception,
“For they wou'd each bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus.”
SONNET XXII.
SUBJECT CONTINUED.
You, whose dull spirits feel not the fine glow
Enthusiasm breathes, no more of light
Perceive ye in rapt Poesy, tho' bright
In Fancy's richest colouring, than can flow
From jewel'd treasures in the central night
Of their deep caves.—You have no Sun to show
Their inborn radiance pure.—Go, Snarlers, go;
Nor your defects of feeling, and of sight,
To charge upon the Poet thus presume,
Ye lightless minds, whate'er of title proud,
Scholar, or Sage, or Critic, ye assume,
Arraigning his high claims with censure loud,
Or sickly scorn; yours, yours is all the cloud,
Gems cannot sparkle in the midnight Gloom.
SONNET XXIII.
TO
MISS E. S.
Do I not tell thee surly Winter's flown,
That the brook's verge is green;—and bid thee hear,
In yon irriguous vale, the Blackbird clear,
At measur'd intervals, with mellow tone,
Choiring [1]the hours of prime? and call thine ear
To the gay viol dinning in the dale,
With tabor loud, and bag-pipe's rustic drone
To merry Shearer's dance;—or jest retail
From festal board, from choral roofs the song;
And speak of Masque, or Pageant, to beguile
The caustic memory of a cruel wrong?—
Thy lips acknowledge this a generous wile,
And bid me still the effort kind prolong;
But ah! they wear a cold and joyless smile.
[1]: “While Day arises, that sweet hour of prime.” Milton's Par. Lost.