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you in a manner that I think cannot fail to excite your compassion. With you it remains to mediate between me and the public-and by explaining my case to them, to confer on me a lasting favour and benefit, and lay a strong claim to the gratitude of, Sir, your sincere admirer,

and most humble petitioner, NOBODY.

'P. S. One thing, Sir, I forgot to mention, while I was upon the subject of the mischiefs laid to my charge, which is, that even my most violent accusers have always the justice to own, that if Nobody does perform all these exploits, they fully expect Nobody to make them reparation.'

No 35. MONDAY, JULY 9, 1787.

Sed turpem putat in scriptis, metuique lituram.

The last and greatest art, the art to blot.

-I but forgot,

THERE are few instances of imperfection more mortifying to human pride, than those incidental ones which occur in the most illustrious and distinguished characters. The traces of occasional oversight are frequently discovered in those figures, whose outlines have been dashed with a gigantic sublimity; of the masterpieces of the most celebrated painters few will remain which we can declare faultless; after those are excepted, in which some trivial oversight has been discovered, and published with all the efforts of industrious petulance. The errors of Hannibal and Charles the XII. are such, as an inferior genius would have been preserved from, by the mere frigidity of cautious consideration; however superior

the noble daring of a great mind may be to that cold and faultless mediocrity which is approved without admiration. Though the puns of Paradise Lost, the incidental noddings of the Iliad, and the parties quarrées in Somerset place, vanish before the collected splendour of the whole design; they must be regarded as infinitely more mortifying, than a series of continued dulness, or a collection of united deformity.

In such a train of reflections I was interrupted, by an unexpected summons from my editor; who informed me, that a stranger, of a very extraordinary appearance, had of late made very frequent inquiries for me; and was now at his house, waiting my arrival with considerable impatience. As I am not by nature either incurious or discourteous, I followed my editor; who, after a walk of about a quarter of an hour, introduced me to a little parlour, and a little elderly man, with a very serious countenance, and exceeding foul linen. After smoothing his approaches to my acquaintance by some introductory compliments, he informed me, as indeed I might have gussed that he was by profession an author; that he had been for many years a literary projector; that, owing to a kind of fatality, which had hitherto attended his attempts, and a firm resolution on his own side never to indulge the trivial taste of an illjudging age, in which it was his misfortune to be born, but he would not trouble me with a detail of the open hostilities committed on his works by avowed criticism, or the more secret and dangerous attempts of tacit malevolence, and pretended contempt,-that he had lately hit upon a project, which by its nature must secure to itself the attention of the public, and which, if he had not formed a very wrong estimate of its merit, would draw his former efforts from the dust of unmerited oblivion, into general notice, and universal approbation.

'It could not have escaped an exact observer, and such a one he might, without hazarding the imputation of flattery, pronounce Mr. Griffin (whereupon Mr. Griffin bowed), that the reputation of our great tragic poet was sinking apace; and that, not so much from any radical or intrinsic defect in his writings, as from some venial errors, and incidental omissions. Our more refined neighbours had never been able to relish the low humour which pervades every scene, or the frequent violation of those unities, which they observe with so religious a regard. Mr. Voltaire, with that philosophic candour which so strongly characterized his life and writings, had abandoned his defence; and, though in some instances he had designed to borrow from him, had condemned him as a poet of a barbarous age, and the favourite of an unenlightened people. Even among a national audience, the most admired of his dramas were received at least without that enthusiastic applause they had formerly excited; and we must expect, that, in another century, the partiality for our favourite poet will vanish, together with our national antipathies against popery and wooden shoes, and frogs and slavery; and that a taste for French criticism will immediately follow a relish for their cookery.

'Something must be done, Mr. Griffin, and that shortly. The commentators have done little or nothing. Indeed what could be expected from such a plan; could any thing be more ridiculous? they have absolutely confined themselves to what Shakspeare might possibly have written! I am fully sensible that the task of reducing to poetic rules, and critical exactness, what was written in ignorance or contempt of both, requires a genius and ability little inferior to that of the original composer; yet this is my project; which, however arduous in the undertaking, however difficult in execution, I am persuaded

to attempt; and to whom can I with greater propriety- -Mr. Griffin, who himselfage- -in so extraordinary a manner

-so early an -&c. &c.'

My friend continued, by remarking, that the people of Athens allowed to the judicious critic, who should adapt a tragedy of Eschylus to the stage, an equal proportion of credit and copymoney, with the author of an original drama. Yet he desired me to observe, that the author of Grecian tragedy was far more strictly observant of poetic discipline, than the father of the English stage. In all his tragedies, there is only one in which he has ventured to break the unity of place; an essential point, and, as my friend declared, highly necessary; though it is very natural for the spectator to mistake the stage for a palace, actresses, for virgin princesses, &c. yet it is impossible for him to imagine that he is in Bohemia, when, but the act before, he was fully convinced that he was in Sicily.'

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He at length concluded by drawing out of a tinbox some proposals for publication,' which he desired might be communicated to the public through the medium of my paper; at the same time presenting me with a very copious specimen of the work he had undertaken. He reflected on the honour of such a' distinction, but he was naturally partial to rising merit; and Gregory Griffin might see a period when he himself should exist only in his writings.'

In the course of conversation my new acquaintance became extremely communicative; desired my opinion of a preface and dedication, and whether he should prefix it to an improved edition of Sleidan de quatuor imperiis, or Girton's Complete Pigeon Fancier; but upon recollection, resolved upon an Ode which he had lately composed On the Use of Acorns in Consumptive Cases.

Having occasion in the course of conversation to remark the number of classical scholars produced in our public seminaries, and the comparative paucity of those who have directed their attention to the cultivation of their native language, my friend regarded the cause as extremely evident; there were several assistances which the classical composer enjoyed, which—but all these difficulties I should see obviated in his New Dictionary of Rhymes; it was a work, which had cost him considerable labour and study. Those of his predecessors, -Bysshe, Gent, and others, were mere farragos, in which sound only was consulted, without any nicety of taste or accuracy of selection. This chaos, this rude and undigested mass, he had reduced to order, by selecting the rhymes proper for every possible subject; and reducing them to systematical arrangement. However, as this scheme must be unavoidably retarded by the prosecution of his former project, he should be peculiarly happy to see his system familiarly explained and illustrated in some of my future lucubrations.' This request, from an earnest desire I entertained of assisting young practitioners in the pleasing art of poetry, I immediately complied with; however, as I did not fully comprehend his system, I took the liberty of transcribing the following passages from my author's manuscript.

For the eclogue or pastoral dialogue, let the student conclude his lines with the rhymes underwritten; always taking care to finish his sense with the second rhyme, and at no time to suffer his verse to exceed the just measure of ten syllables. The rhymes for this purpose be these:

shady brake

Licidas awake.
careless rove
leafy grove.

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