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IN that appear

'N order to account for the anachronisms in this effay, it is necessary and respectful to inform the reader, that this volume was printed, as far as the 201ft page, above twenty years ago. The author begs leave to add, that he flatters himself, that no obfervations in this work can be fo perversely mifinterpreted and tortured, as to make him infinuate, contrary to his opinion and inclination, that PoPE was not a great poet: he only fays and thinks, he was not the greatest. He imagined his meaning would, have been perceived, and his motives for compofing this effay would have been clearly known, from the paffage of Quintilian, prefixed to the first volume of it; which passage implies, that as there were readers at Rome,

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who inverted the order of poetical excellence; and who preferred Lucilius to Virgil; fo there might be readers in England, so devoted to POPE, as to prefer him to Milton; and the author thought and knew there were actually many fuch readers and judges; who feemed not to recollect, that, in every language, he is the truest and most genuine poet, whose works most powerfully strike the imagination with what is Great, Beautiful, and New.

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or perhaps more inftructive, than those which relate to the rife and gradual increase of literature in any kingdom: And among the various fpecies of literature, the origin

progrefs of poetry, however fhallow reafoners may defpife it, is a fubject of no fmall utility. For the manners and cuf

Vol. II.

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toms, the different ways of thinking and, of living, the favorite paffions, perfuits, and' pleasures of men, appear in no writings fo ftrongly marked, as in the works of the poets in their refpective ages; so that in these compofitions, the hiftorian, the moralift, the politician, and the philofopher, may, each of them, meet with abundant matter for reflection and observation.

POETRY made it's firft appearance in Britain, as perhaps in most other countries, in the form of chronicles, intended to perpetuate the deeds both of civil and military heroes, but mostly the latter. Of this species is the chronicle of Robert of Glocefter; and of this fpecies alfo was the fong, or ode, which William the Conqueror, and his followers, fung at their landing in this kingdom from Normandy. The mention of which event, will naturally remind us of the check it gave to the native strains of the old British poetry, by an introduction of foreign manners, customs, images, and

language,

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