tracted, by too severe and unqualified an application of what can be only a partial rule.

Genius is the produce of every foil, and the growth of every age and country. In its application to poetry, it takes things, characters, and manners as they rise; and, by a just and lively imitation, produces the effect upon the minds of those who were witneffes of the scenes, and which are best qualified to recognize and to refpond to the poetical imitation. If these things, characters, and manners, which form the genuine refources of the Muse, are known to change with the change of times and places; if, from the temperature of climates, the influence of polities, the prevalence of civil and religious persuafions, and the dominion of fashion; if, from fome caufes which we know, and more which we do not know, the fcene of human life and manners is fhifted with every age and country; the poetical model formed by Ariftotle from the works of Sophocles and Homer, however perfect as far as it extends, is constructed upon too narrow and confined a scale to form an univerfal law of poetical compofition

compofition. However adapted to the manners and fentiments of ancient Greece, however admirable in itself, as holding out a picture of the dignity and fimplicity of the claffic ages, and however incomparable as a fpecimen of the most refined and polished taste, the Poetics of Ariftotle, or the Art of Poetry of Horace, should be confidered only as a general and imperfect guide, to be applied with much caution and reserve, and with a particular attention to the changes made in the circumstances of time and place.

Poetical imitations are always the most perfect, the most proper, and the most effective, when they are made directly from things that are; when the poet's feelings are themfelves excited, his genius enlivened, and his imagination warmed, by prefent objects whatever they may be and not when they are imitations of things that were, as prefented to the feelings, and reprefented by the imagination, of Sophocles and Homer, and copied from their works. This is an imitation of an imitation; and can at best be only as an excellent copy of a Titian or a Vandike. However

U 3

However perfect the model, there is a coldness and languor infeparable from this secondary Imitation, which must repress all the native fire of the poet, and fink him into a difgraceful inferiority.

True poetic genius in these later ages never glowed with fuch force and brilliancy, as in the works of Spencer and Shakespear, Dante and Ariofto, who were unacquainted with the ancient rules, or as in that of Milton, whose immortal poem did not admit of their application. And did another Aristotle rife up to analyze the works of thefe more modern bards, we should receive a new code of poetical laws, fuperior in some respects, however inferior in others.

Instead of improving the judgment and correcting the tafte, too implicit a devotion for the critique of Ariftotle, and too partial a reverence for the fpecimens of Antiquity, have tended to cramp the poet's genius, to pervert the judgment of the critic, and to abridge the privilege of the art.

From the fame narrow prejudice and fuperftitious veneration of antiquity, Archi

tecture has run the fame or fimilar fortune. The Grecian Orders are most inimitable in their proportions, unequalled in their ornaments, and unparalleled in the richness and beauty of their sculpture; and the models of the ancient Temples are among the most fplendid monuments of human genius. But thefe Orders, however excellent, are not adapted to all countries, to all climates, or to all materials; nor are these models accommodated to many of the uses and purposes of modern life: and, whilft we reverence these remains of claffical antiquity, we should not fuffer ourselves to be blinded by that reverence fo far as to neglect and difregard that other species of Architecture, of which we have many admirable specimens; which, however inferior in its materials and in its ornaments, is more various and extenfive in its expreffion, more adapted to the climate, and better calculated for many of the uses of the country, in which we live,"

One lofs, out of many more which have been fuftained by the death of Mr. Thomas Warton, is that of his intended Hiflory of Gothic Architecture, which is much to be regretted, as it is a great defideratum.

U 4

THUS

THUS the field of Imagination, fertile and luxuriant in all its parts, requires the cultivation of REASON to improve its different foils and to manage them to the best advantage, that the fruits or effects, which they feverally produce, may neither be so exuberant in their growth as never to ripen to perfection, nor fo hafty in their progress as to ripen before their time: but that, duly and regularly matured by the nature, ftrength and vigor of the foil, and by a due proportion of fun and rain judiciously applied, they may become nutritious to the moral conftitution, as well as delicious to the taste,

SECT. III.

Of Poetical TRUTH,

F we compare the TRUTH that refults from

IF

poetical Imitation with the several kinds, which have been the subject of the preceding pages, as they distinguish the other provinces

of