gestures. After the banquet was finished, all retired but the lady, who, leading back the knight to the fofa, addreffed him in these words:

ΟΝ

ON THE

HEROIC POÈM

OF

GONDIBERT.

A PERSON engaged in the purfuit of literary fame must be feverely mortified on obferving the very speedy neglect into which writers of high merit so frequently fall. The revolution of centuries, the extinction of languages, the vaft convulfions which agitate a whole people,

people, are caufes which may well be fubmitted to in overwhelming an author with oblivion; but that in the fame country, with little variation of language or manners, the delights of one age should become utter ftrangers in the next, is furely an immaturity of fate which conveys reproach upon the inconftancy of national tafte. That noble band, the English poets, have ample reafon for complaining to what unjust guardians they have entrusted their renown. While we crown the ftatue of

Shakespeare as the prince of dramatic poets, fhall we forget the works, and almost the names of his contemporaries who poffeffed fo much of a kindred fpirit? Shall the Italian Paftor Fido and Amyntas ftand high in our eftimation, and the Faithful Shepherdess, the most beautiful pastoral that a poet's fancy ever formed, be fcarcely known amongst us?

Shall

Shall we feel the fire of heroic poetry in tranflations from Greece and Rome, and never fearch for it in the native productions of our own country ?

THE capital work of Sir William D'Avenant, which I now defire to call forth from its obfcurity, may well be confidered as in a state of oblivion, fince we no where meet with allufions to it, or quotations from it, in our modern writers; and few, I imagine, even of the profeffed ftudents in English claffics, would think their tafte difcredited by confeffing that they had never read GONDIBERT. A very learned and ingenious critic, in his wellknown difcourfe upon poetical imitation, has, indeed, taken notice of this poem; but, though he beftows all due praise upon its author, yet the purpose for which it is mentioned being to instance an effential error, we cannot fuppose that

his

his authority has ferved to gain it more readers. Having very judiciously laid it down as a general obfervation, that writers, by ftudiously avoiding the fancied difgrace of imitation, are apt to fall into improper method, forced conceits, and affected expreffion; he proceeds to introduce the work in queftion after the following manner: "And, that "the reader may not fufpect me of afferting this without experience, let

me exemplify what has been here said " in the cafe of a very eminent perfon, "who, with all the advantages of art " and nature that could be required "to adorn the true poet, was ruined " by this fingle error. The perfon I Сс mean was SIR WILLIAM D'AVENANT, "whofe Gondibert will remain a per"petual monument of the mischiefs "which muft ever arife from this af"fectation of originality in lettered and "polite poets." A CON