she desires, and will much oblige me by her future correspondence. I am very loath to refuse any thing to so fair a petitioner, as I take it for granted MATRONA is, and grieve that it is not in my power to accept her invitation at present, and oblige her by the interview which she solicits. In any thing else she may command me.

No. 9. MONDAY, JANUARY 29, 1787.

Sit quodvis simplex duntaxat et unum.

Be what you will so you be still the same.

HOR. Rosc.

THERE are few precepts, dictated like the above by judgment and experience, which, though originally confined to a particular application (as this to the formation of dramatic character) may not be adopted with success in the several branches of the same science, and even transferred into another. The direction which the poet gives us here, to preserve a regard for simplicity and uniformity, may be applied to the general design and main structure of a poem ; and if we allow them a still greater latitude of interpretation, may be found to convey a very useful rule with respect to the inferior component parts which constitute a work.

A venerable pile of Gothic architecture, viewed at a distance, or after the sober hand of time has stripped it of the false glare of meretricious ornament, communicates a sensation which the same object, under a close inspection, in its highest degree of perfection, was incapable of producing; when the attention, solicited by a thousand minutia with which the hand of caprice and superstition had crowded its object, was unavoidably diverted from the contemplation of the main design.

In all points which admit of hesitation, the sister sciences are found to throw a corresponding lustre on

each other. The impropriety of ill-judged ornament, though connected as in the above instance with all that is awful and venerable, must be evident to the most superficial observer, and this circumstance should lead us to conjecture that the same principle existed in a similar though superior science. Originality of sentiment, vivacity of thought, and loftiness of language may conduct the reader to the end of a work," though awkwardly designed and injudiciously constructed; while the nicest adherence to poetic rule would be found insufficient to compensate for meanness of thought, or vulgarity of expression. That these two faults should infallibly destroy all title which any writer might otherwise have to the name of poet, should seem self-evident, and yet a fault which appears to be a composition of them both, has, in some instances, passed without reprehension, I mean allusion to local circumstance. I shall therefore make this paper the vehicle of a few observations on this practice.

Nothing can be more directly adverse to the spirit of poetry, considered under one of its definitions, as an universal language, than whatever confines it to the comprehension of a single people, or a particular period of time.

Blackmore, a man now grown to a bye word in criticism, in the original structure of his poem, was little, if at all, inferior to the great prototypes of antiquity; but that simplicity and uniformity so visible in the first design, was, in every other respect, conformably to the taste of his time, violated and neglected. It is said, that the most desolate deserts of Africa are distinguished by little insulated spots clothed with perpetual verdure; and it sometimes

happens that beautiful passages present themselves in the Prince Arthur, as in the first book,

The heavens serenely smil'd, and every sail

Fill'd its broad bosom with the indulgent gale.

But when lines like these occur, we must consider it, to borrow an expression from a contemporary poet, a gift no less

Than that of manna in the wilderness.

Scriptural allusions like the foregoing, were much in fashion among the poets of that period; and in this particular, so earnest a follower of it was not to be left behind; he has accordingly introduced his enchanter, Merlin, building seven altars, offering upon each a bullock and a ram, and attempting to curse the army of the hero, in imitation of Balaam, and with the same success.

Dryden himself is strongly tinctured with the taste of the times; and those Dalilahs of the Town, to use his own expression, are plentifully scattered throughout his works, esteemed in the present age for those passages only in which he ventured to oppose his own taste to that of his readers, and which have already past the ordeal of unmerited censure.

Nor is that narrowness of conception which confines a work to the comprehension of a particular portion of individuals, less reprehensible or less repugnant to the essential principles of poetry; and of this defect innumerable instances occur in both the authors above cited, with this difference, that in one instance we contemplate with regret the situation of an eminent genius constrained by his exigences to postpone the powers of his own taste, and submit his judgment to the arbitrary dominion of a prevailing

mode; while, in the other, we view with indifference an author spoilt indeed by the taste of the times in which he lived, but who, had he not adopted theirs, had most probably succeeded as ill by following his own. Nothing is so common as, in both these writers, to meet with expressions and allusions drawn from the meanest mechanical employments; at present infinitely disgusting to the general scholar, and (a proof of the necessity of observing the rule we have endeavoured to illustrate) to a foreigner, acquainted only with the learned part of our language, entirely unintelligible.*

In the earlier stages of civilization, while the bonds of society hang yet loose upon the individual, before the benefits of mutual assistance and dependence are felt or understood, the savage, elate with the idea of absolute independence, and unacquainted with all the advantages which accompany the arts of society, looks down with supreme contempt on a state, whose every individual is entirely dependent upon and connected with the community. The wretched Esquimaux give themselves the exclusive title of men, and the Indian of North America bestows on the Europeans, as compared with himself, the epithet of the accursed

race.

In a state of absolute barbarism the arts of life are few, and, agreeably to that all-sufficiency which the savage so much affects, practised and understood by each individual. The Indian, unacquainted with the arts of polished life, is to himself what society is to the members which compose it; he raises himself the

* I would not here be understood to hint at any similarity in the original genius of these authors; were I to draw the line of affinity, I should call Blackmore the caricatura of Dryden.

↑ Robertson's History of America, Book IV.

roof of his humble hut, and ventures upon the ocean in the canoe which his own hands have hollowed; his weapons for war or for the chace are such as his own industry, or sometimes a casual intercourse with politer nations, have furnished for him.* The component members of barbarous societies are seldom numerous, owing to the extreme difficulty which attends the education of infancy among the hazards and hardships of savage life, and joined to it produces that extreme tenderness which all uncivilized communities entertain for the life of an individual. Where the numbers are comparatively few, the principle of patriotism is concentrated; the loss or misconduct of a North American Indian would be more sensibly felt by his tribe, than that of a thousand Englishmen by the parent country.

It remains, after a consideration of the causes, to trace their effects in the artless essays of the more remote periods. Ossian's poems, if allowed to be authentic, are the only specimen of this species generally known; Homer being, according to the testimony of Aristotle, posterior to a long line of poets, his predecessors and perhaps his patterns; the decided preference given through every poem to the nation, the family, and person of the poet, strongly mark the national character as well as that of the times. Allusions to the inferior arts are so unusual and so simple as must speak them in their first period of progression; or evince a taste and judgment in the author far beyond the times in which he is supposed to have flourished. He is himself, agreeably to that idea of self-importance the invariable attendant on savage life, the hero of his own tale. * Robertson's History of America, Book IV.