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to our taste, and more evident to our understandino; than the 

 simpler beauties of prose — the young are prone to imitate 

 what most they admire — and our infant genius, like the ge- 

 nius of infant society, effuses itself in poetry. It is an art 

 to which we are under much higher obligations than is com-, 

 nionly supposed ; and a little reflection will convince us, that 

 we owe to some ambitious poet of remote antiquity, the in- 

 vention of alphabetical writing. Facts, opinions, and laws, 

 he might have promulged, by means of hieroglyphics ; but 

 he could not record his verses, till he had discovered the 

 power of registering the harmonious and evanescent arrange- 

 ment of sounds. 



Whether it is politic to encourage a poetical taste, is how- 

 ever to be questioned. It seduces the unfortunate possessor 

 from his proper business — the employment, from whose pro- 

 fits he is to derive his sustenance.- — It diverts his industry 

 into a channel that enriches his mind, but where worldly 

 wealth seldom flows. It inspires him with that contempt for 

 gold, which perhaps may console him under the privation, 

 of which it is eminently the cause. It promotes a cultiva- 

 tion of the understanding, a melioration of the disposition, 

 a poignancy of feeling, an ardour of virtuous sentiment, and 

 a romantic nobleness of heart — in vulgar times it accom- 

 plishes him for the days of chivalry^ — and it will not be dif- 

 ficult for common understandings to decide, how far that 

 taste is to be coveted, which unfits a man for the present 

 state of things, even though it may qualify him for a better. 



