moft high and perfect form in which genius appears; as a chemist would not, I imagine, display the specific gravity of gold from that which is beat out to an inconceivable thinnefs and exility for gilding, but from a folid mass of that metal. If we examine therefore the conduct of fuch men as all the world allows to have been endued with fuperlative genius, we fhall perceiye that, fo far from being univerfally curft with inattention to œconomy, we shall perhaps not find one example of want of that virtue among them. Of Homer we know nothing certain; and to build arguments upon fable is to write on fand. Pindar, tho extravagance itfelf in his writings, yet was prudent enough to acquire great wealth by the fale of them; and, what is more, to keep that wealth and ufe it with discretion. A French writer has wittily put it as the strongest proof of Pindar's genius, that he fold his writings well to those who could not understand a line of them. Pindare etoit homme d'efprit, " Anacreon's luxury, the ancients agree, lay more in his writings than in his life. In short, of all the Greek poets I remember none who is branded with extravagance; much less any of their hiftoriaus or philofophers. AMONG the Romans, with whom it may be queftioned if literary or fcientific genius ever existed, as I remember few writers in the Latin tongue who are original, or who, in other words, had a fuperlative genius; yet we fhall find that their ingenious men, if you will, laboured under no ftain of diffipation. To mention their first-rate writers, Tacitus and others, as men who paid the ftrictest attention. to propriety, were fuperfluous. Catullus, one of their most licentious poets, was yet no debauchee in his life, if we may judge from his own depofition; Nam Nam caftum effe decet, pium poetam, A fentence that furely would not have dropt from his pen, did his own manners contradict it; as we may always obferve that writers adapt their words to their actions, not their actions to their words, If we come now to our own country, we shall find that genius has always been attended with economy. Chaucer acquired wealth by his genius, and left it perfect to his heirs: fo did Shakfpere. Bacon, it must be confeffed, may be urged on the other fide of the queftion; but the diffipation of his wealth was owing to no habit of extravagance on his part; but to his indulgence to his fervants, and to abfence of mind. Milton, out of his shattered fortune, found means from ftrict economy to leave a comfortable fubfiftence to his wife and family. Newton's decency of life is well known. To conclude with Pope, who indeed can only rank with ingenious men, he amaffed a confiderable. fortune; which he used with the strictest oconomy, and propriety. A conduct which however does not atone for his always mentioning, in 2 in his poems, poverty as matter of reproach to others, and thus eternally blafpheming the Providence that had made him rich. THIS leads me to obferve, by the bye, the falfity of another popular opinion, which is, that poetry and poverty are as nearly related in fact, as in found. As poor as a poet' is almost a proverb, and took its rife from the itinerant minstrels, who, in former times, were poets by real profeffion or by trade. But few feem to know that no bard of claffic days has reached us whom we do not know to have been moderately rich, except Homer; who, for aught certain, may have been a petty king just as likely as a beggar: and that modern times afford no real poets who were poor, except Spenfer and Taffo. Even with regard to the first of thefe, we have no proof; and the poverty of the latter was that of a man of high birth, not of a 'mendicant. LETTER 1 I LETTER XV. DO Do not wonder that. your fearch after Bishop Hall's Satires has failed of fuccefs; for perhaps there are few books in the language which are more uncommon. mon. After reading that Pope, upon their being fhewn him, when he was far advanced in life, expreffed great applaufe of them; and much regret that he had not chanced to fee them fooner; I do not wonder at your eagernefs on this head: which in fome measure to gratify, I fend you extracts of his moft fhining paffages. THE work opens with a kind of poetical preface, called A Defiance to Envy: the three first lines of which are much in the spirit of our author's great cotemporary, Shakfpere. Nay let the prouder pines of Ida feare This |