[ Sg ] 



is to be imputed. When he makes the Emperor of Barbary ac- 

 quainted with Roman fables and allufrons ; when he introduces 

 Cleomenes fpeaking of the Copernican fyftem, two thoufand 

 years before its invention, thefe aie evidently the faults of negli- 

 gence. Dryden's neceffitous life is therefore fufficiently efta- 

 blifhed. 



The country and time of an author ufually leave very fig- 

 nificant marks in his writings. Mr. Wood has, with much 

 ingenuity, afcertained from the diredion in which certain winds 

 in Homer's poems are faid to blow, and from the Ionian views 

 he gives of the relative fituations of the Grecian iflands, that he 

 was of a country eaftward of Greece : and works, which falfely 

 pretend to be of great antiquity, feldom fail to betray thcmfelves 

 by anachronifms. Thus Bentley urges againft the Epiflles of 

 Phalaris, that they fpeak of tragedies, before tragedy had ex- 

 iftence, or the name its modern acceptation ; and Mr. Warton 

 looks on it as decifive againft the poems publifhed by Chatterton, 

 that they fpeak of Stone-henge as a driiidical temple, a difco- 

 very made by the laborious difcuffon of modern antiquaries, 

 againft the affertions of antient chroniclers ; and that they recom- 

 mend, inftead of the abfurdity and impropriety of religious 

 dramas, fome great Jiory of human manners^ an idea which muft 

 appear to be the refult of tafte and difcrimination belonging only 

 to advanced periods of fociety. The time and place when a 

 particular work \^'as compofed may fometimes be difcovered. 

 From internal evidence the dates of Horace's Odes are, to a 

 Vol. V. ( M ) confiderable 



