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conHderable degree of preclfion, fettled by liis commentators. 

 The original definition of /i-w/Zoa in tlie Englifli dictionary Ihews 

 that the work was compofed before the author had received 

 that honourable mark of royal munificence ; and the mention of 

 fome cries peculiar to London, with fome other charaderiftic 

 circumftances, fiiews that when Swift wrote his City Morning he 

 was not refident in Dublin. 



The favourite opinions of an author will, in fome way or 

 other, force themfelves into his works. It is hard to fay into 

 what fpecics of writing a deiftical writer will not be able to 

 inftil the poifon of his prejudices; and it is unfortunate for the 

 caufe of religion that its fupporters have not fliewn equal addrefs in 

 infinuating and propagating the truth. Political opinions take fo 

 ftrong an hold on the minds of Englifii authors that they almofl; 

 always bring themfelves into notice. Gray has, in his Elegy, fhewn 

 us that Hampden, Milton, and Cromwell were, in his mind, the 

 greateft perfonages in Englifli hiftory, and Mr. Home Tooke 

 makes, in his "E7nx -r-repisvTcc, frequent recurrence to tliofe poli- 

 tical fituations of his life to which we are indebted for this ad- 

 mirable grammatical treatifc. The rank in fociety which an 

 author holds is ufually difcoverable in his writings. Otway uiu- 

 ally makes poverty one of the ingredients of the diurefs of his 

 drama. Fielding defcribes with great fidelity the manners of 

 the lower clafs, but fails whenever his ftories make it neceiTary 

 for him to bring his readers into thofe fcenes in which he had 

 never walked himfelf ; and perhaps to the want of authors of a 



higher 



