100 On the Machinery of the 



excepted from the decision of modern taste^ 

 and^ I hiigtit add, of a taste more chaste, cor- 

 rect atid elevated. The Poetics and other 

 critical works of Aristotle, founded u|>6n the 

 models of an old and almost barbarous anti- 

 quity, have^ indeed, bound genius in chains, 

 and to that tiilent of man, which of all others 

 delights itt. freedom and ^li expansive range, 

 and in h^i- favoured fiel3 'of poetry, has pre- 

 scribed a liackneyed paA, where nature inh^r 

 riche.<t^ and 'most luxuriant dress is not to be 

 found. Hence the prejudice, that the poets of 

 Greece and'Rome, but particularly of Greece, 

 are stiperio'r iil ievery ext:elknce to those of later 

 (lays. I liesitate not to -'deny the fa<it, but if 

 itw^f^'^s by the gene'ral voice is supposed, the 

 very prepoSsfessioli is isufficient to produce the 

 etfect. They aVe, forsooth, the only standards 

 of tfiie ta'std a^d elegance; excellencies have 

 be^n disc/oveted in them, which in all probabi- 

 lity, riie^r authors, \\^ith all the vanity of an 

 author, had no idea of, ahd which the modern 

 litetati neither see nor feel, but only -suppose 

 that they see and feel ; and all praise for origi- 

 tiality of thought, and fertility of invention, 

 has bieeri' lavished on them'klone/ 



This partiality, w^hether Just or not, is 

 without any difficulty traced to its origin. 

 The writhigs of these poets: are almost our 



