emotions of our own hearts. Can the heart fairly say, that it has never conceived a prejudice against any person, either from the principles it has been educated in, from some misrepresentation of any action or speech, or some personal pique? Has it never, from any of these motives, felt itself inclined to gratify this malice, though conscious of the virtues against which it is exerted? These, it is true, are principles, mean, base, and contracted, which it is our duty to root out: but such is the frailty of nature, that they always have maintained, and I am afraid always will maintain, an undue influence. I do not mean to vindicate such treatment on these grounds, but merely to account for the causes of it.

The great, by the superiority of their abilities, depress and restrain the advancement of others who are hastening to the same goal; and who are equally desirous, though not equally capable, of attaining the same heights. These either consider them as obstacles to their own promotion, whom they must remove; or, in the fury of blasted ambition, endeavour to revenge themselves on the supposed author of their disappointments. In a democratical state, the multitude are the general instruments of their hatred by a dexterous application to their fears and passions; to their fears, in suggesting, that the influence which the glory and splendid actions of an individual has conferred on him is dangerous to the whole, and that his great authority has inspired him with designs destructive of the common weal; to their passions, by reviving the memory and magnifying the heinousness of every petty incident, or unguided speech; and by a malicious perversion of every little action, they inflame the giddy populace to the persecution of those, whom they ought to revere as their guardians and protectors. Men of the first abilities, as conscious of their powers, frequently have not that condescension of manners so neces

sary in a popular state. Those trivial events, which it is beneath the dignity of history to preserve, have, I doubt not, often contributed to decide the fate of the patriot or general. We who have never experienced the haughty demeanour of Coriolanus, the rough reproof of Cato, and whose rise the abilities of a Cicero have never impeded, or his vanity never offended, pay the due tribute of admiration to these illustrious men; we acknowledge their merits, and admire the wisdom of their conduct, but have never felt the inconveniences of their defects.

The human mind in general is not sensible of the benefits it enjoys, till it has felt the opposite inconveniences; as the body knows not the invaluable blessings of health, till it has experienced the miseries of disease. Thus in a state, the short-sighted multitude have not a proper esteem for the value of an able statesman, till fatal experience has convinced them of his worth; it is in times of real danger that real merit gains its due authority: hence the deep policy of Augustus, who affected a wish to retire from the fatigues of state, that by the subsequent confusion, the Romans might have a deeper sense of the blessings of his regular administration.

Thus far on the rewards of public merit.—Let us now consider the fate of the literary and philosophical world. That the boldnes sand novelty of opinions in natural or moral philosophy, should often draw down persecution on the heads of those who first ventured to maintain them; that Socrates should have been charged with atheism, or that the bigoted superstition of the Catholics should have imprisoned Galileo, is not so surprising; but I cannot assign an adequate cause for the neglect or oppression of literary merit: though it is a melancholy fact, that in all ages, literature, and poetry in particular, has been exposed to poverty, and all its attendant miseries. That the same envy which

banished the statesman, might in a smaller circle influence the breasts of the rivals for poetic or learned fame; or that the snarling critic should wish to expose every little blemish, or decry every beauty, to gratify his own impotent malice, is naturally to be expected; but that the powerful and rich should suffer such abilities to pine in obscurity, is to me an inexplicable mystery.

The poet impedes not their ambition, hinders not their advancement to the highest honours; on the contrary, he is the most proper, and I think gratitude would make him the most willing, to celebrate the laudable ambition, and the well-earned honours, of his protector and his patron. Not that the fulsome language of dedication can crown the unworthy head with real glory. The ear is disgusted with the venal flattery of Boileau to Louis; but the manly address of Pope to Bolingbroke, reflects mutual honour on both parties: to such an address, flattery and venality would be imputed by ignorance alone; it is the abuse of dedication only, which has brought it into disrepute, since, in its original intention, nothing could be more equitable, than that the works of genius should be inscribed to him, to whose fostering care they probably owed their rise.

There is however one species of poetry, which either stands less in need of protection, or from its subject ensures itself more immediate success. The man who has no relish for the sublime of the epic, or the terrible of tragedy, will enter into the spirit of a pointed satire! fear also often extorts that protection to the satirist, which liberality refused. The famous Aretine boasted, that he not only kept all the European sovereigns, but even the sultan himself, in dread of his pen.

It may be worth remarking, that painting has escaped the general fate of her sister art. The greatest painters have been universally honoured

when living, and admired when dead. From what singular circumstance can this peculiarity originate? Is it, that this art, so immediately addressing itself to the senses, we are less liable to be misled and prejudiced by the opinion of others? It is not in every body's power to determine, whether a poet has borrowed a thought from another, either from his not having seen the works of the poet from whom the thought is said to have been borrowed, or his ignorance of the language in which he wrote; we must therefore in some measure rely on the sagacity and fidelity of the critic for the charge of plagiarism. Every body cannot judge whether the plan of the poem is original or well conducted, or whether the historian relates his facts with accuracy and impartiality; as every body has not leisure to inform himself of the rules for the conduct of poetry, or to examine the authorities whence the historian derives his information. In these points therefore, and others which depend on the intellectual faculties, we must again trust to the critic; and the interest he may have in decrying the works of an author, from envy, personal, pique, or other motives, may in some measure account for the temporary neglect of those works: but in those articles which address themselves to the senses, we are our own judges; we are all qualified to decide on what pleases our taste, though that taste perhaps may be false. We need not depend on critic judgment to determine, whether a couplet is harmonious or not; and we need not wait for the decision of the connoisseur, to inform us whether a figure is bold and animated, or the colouring just and natural. It is true, that the critic is an abler judge of the refinements of poetry, the machinery, and other parts, which depend upon skill and judgment; and the connoisseur of the due proportion, the effects of light and shade, the perspective, and nicer subtleties of

painting; but still the less skilful and casual observer, is competent to form his opinion on the grand outline of the whole.

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It is to be supposed, that there are the same temptations to depress a rising painter, as an eminent poet; but fortunately for the former, he is not exposed to the same disadvantages as the latter. He cannot be accused of obtruding upon the public the works of others as his own; nor is he liable to a spurious copy of his works, by which he may be deprived of the just reward of his labours. Many who have not leisure to peruse a poem, can spare hour to examine a picture; and to determine the merit of one, requires a less exertion of the mind than of the other. Though the price of paintings is comparatively so enormous to that of books, yet as most large collections are open to the public at no expense, numbers have examined, and are good judges of, merit in this art, who do not possess a single piece of their own; an advantage which writers are deprived of. Even that scarcity which enhances the value of every thing, contributes to this; as it is beyond a doubt, that good books are more numerous than good paintings, we may esteem them the more, as more difficult to be procured. By the value of paintings, an artist may often acquire such a sum by a single picture, as an author cannot by the sale of a whole work; by this means being raised above want, he is not under the fatal necessity of harassing his abilities to procure a daily subsistence. Since portrait painting has been so much in vogue, this art, by flattering our vanity, tempts us to encourage it; and surely that vanity will not permit us to deny the abilities of an artist, when those abilities have been exerted to gratify it. A Reynolds may give grace and dignity to fifty insipid faces in the course of a year; though a poet would find it difficult in his dedications, to furnish