ET L' AUTRE, LABORIEUX, SEVERE, PRECIS, PUR, HARMONIEUX, IL DEVINT, ENFIN, LE POETE DE LA RAISON."

OUR English poets may, I think, be be difpofed in four different classes and degrees. In the first class, I would place, first, our only three fublime and pathetic poets; SPENSER, SHAKESPEARE, MILTON; and then, at proper intervals, OTWAY and LEE. In the second class should be placed, fuch as possessed the true poetical genius, in a more moderate degree, but had noble talents for moral and ethical poefy. At the head of thefe are DRYDEN, DONNE, DENHAM, COWLEY, CONGREVE. In the third class may be placed, men of wit, of elegant tafte, and fome fancy in defcribing familiar

life. Here may be numbered, PRIOR,

WALLER,

WALLER, PARNELL, SWIFT, FENTON. In the fourth class, the mere versifiers, however sinooth and mellifluous some of them may be thought, should be ranked. Such as PITT, SANDYS, FAIRFAX, BROOME, BUCKINGHAM, LANSDOWN. In which of these classes POPE deferves to be placed, the following work is intended to determine.

I am, DEAR SIR,

Your affectionate

And faithful fervant.

P

an Eclogue.

RINCES and Authors are feldom spoken of, during their lives, with juftice and impartiality. Admiration and envy, their conftant attendants, like two unskilful artists, are apt to overcharge their pieces with too great a quantity of light or of shade; and are disqualified happily to hit upon that middle colour, that mixture of

B

error and excellence, which alone renders every representation of man just and natural. This perhaps may be one reason, among others, why we have never yet seen a fair and candid criticism on the character and merits of our last great poet, Mr. POPE. I have therefore thought, that it would be no unpleasing amusement, or uninstructive employment to examine at large, without blind panegyric, or petulant invective, the writings of this English Claffic, in the order in which they are arranged in the elegant edition of Mr. Warburton. As I shall neither cenfure nor commend, without alleging the reafon on which my opinion is founded, I shall be entirely unmoved at the imputation of malignity, or the clamours of popular prejudice.

Ir is something strange, that in the paftorals of a young poet there should not be found a fingle rural image that is new: but this I am afraid is the cafe in the PASTORALS

before us. The ideas of Theocritus, Virgil, gil, and Spenser, are indeed here exhibited in language equally mellifluous and pure; but the descriptions and sentiments are trite and common.

That the design of pastoral poesy is, to represent the undisturbed felicity of the golden age, is an empty notion, which, though supported by a Rapin and a Fontenelle, I think, all rational critics have agreed to exftirpate and explode. But I do not remember, that even these last-mentioned critics have remarked the circumstance that gave origin to the opinion that any golden age was intended. Theocritus, the father and the model of this enchanting species of composition, lived and wrote in Sicily. The climate of Sicily was delicious, and the face of the country various, and beautiful : it's vallies and it's precipices, it's grottos and cascades were SWEETLY INTERCHANGED, and it's fruits and flowers were lavish and luscious. The poet described what he faw and felt: and had no need to have recourse to those artificial assemblages of pleasing objects, which are not to be found