t 305 ] 



young perfons, and as fuitablc to their difpofitions 

 and capacities, as any they generally read ? Indeed 

 I have always been apt to fufpedl, that putting the 

 works of Homer, Horace, Virgil, Ovid, or in fadl 

 any other poet^ into the hands of boys, before their 

 minds are properly furnilhed, and their tafte and 

 judgnrient fufficiently advanced to enter into the 

 fpirit of thofe excellent writers, has been only ren- 

 dering learning irkfome to them, and proved the 

 means of their bidding a final adieu not only to 

 thofe authors, but to all claflical literature, when 

 they have left their grammar- fchools ; not to men- 

 tion that frofe writers feem, in themfelves, beft 

 calculated to teach any language by, as well as to 

 convey the mod ufeful information to the minds 

 of youth. 



Poetry [and painting are fifter arts ; they alike 

 receive advantages from rural fcenes : witnefs the 

 fix paftorals of Mr. Smith, than whom, as a land- 

 fcape painter, and as a poet, this age hath not, per- 

 haps, produced a greater. 



The following is one inftance, among many 

 others, to prove how favourable an intimate ac- 

 quaintance with rural images is to poetical de- 

 fcription : 



«Thc 



