ftate, a narrative in which beings irrational, and fometimes inanimate, arbores loquuntur, non tantum feræ, are, for the purpose of moral inftruction, feigned to act and speak with human interests and paffions. To this defcription the compofitions of Gay do not always conform. For a Fable he gives now and then a Tale or an Allegory; and from fome, by whatever name they may be called, it will be difficult to extract any moral principle. They are, however, told with liveliness; the verfification is smooth, and the diction, though now-and-then a little constrained by the measure or the rhyme, is generally happy.

To Trivia may be allowed all that it claims it is fpritely, various, and plea

fant.

fant. The fubject is of that kind which Gay was by nature qualified to adorn; yet fome of his decorations may be justly wifhed away. An honeft blackfmith might have done for Patty what is performed by Vulcan. The appearance of Cloacina is naufeous and fuperfluous; a fhoeboy could have been produced. by the cafual cohabitation of mere mortals. Horace's rule is broken in both. cafes; there is no dignus vindice nodus, no difficulty that required any fuperna-tural interpofition. A patten may be made by the hammer of a mortal, and a baftard may be dropped by a human ftrumpet. On great occafions, and on fmall, the mind is repelled by ufelefs and apparent falfehood.

Of

Of his little Poems the publick judgement seems to be right; they are neither much esteemed, nor totally defpifed. Those that please leaft are the pieces to which Gulliver gave occafion; for who can much delight in the echo of an unnatural fiction?

Dione is a counterpart to Amynta, and Paftor Fido, and other trifles of the fame kind, eafily imitated, and unworthy of imitation. What the Italians call comedies from a happy conclufion, Gay calls a tragedy from a mournful event, but the ftile of the Italians and of Gay is equally tragical. There is fomething in the poetical Arcadia fo remote from known reality and fpeculative poffibility, that we can never fup

port

port its representation through a long work. A Paftoral of an hundred lines may be endured; but who will hear of fheep and goats, and myrtle bowers and purling rivulets, through five acts? Such fcenes pleafe Barbarians in the dawn of literature, and children in the dawn of life; but will be for the most part thrown away, as men grow wife, and nations grow learned.