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to find any thing equal. The laft poetical work of Pope was 

 publiflied in 1744, and the Traveller appeared in 1765. Within 

 that period Akenfide, Lyttleton, Dyer, Collins, Shenflone, Mafon 

 and Churchill flourifhed, and within that period the Odes of 

 Gray and the Seafons of Thomfon were publifhed. Whether 

 Johnfon's encomium be not hyperbolical this catalogue may 

 perhaps fhew, but certainly it fufEciently expofes the unreafon- 

 ab'.e queruloufnefs which Goldfmith fhews when fpeaking of 

 the literature of his age, of the doubts which he expreffes in 

 the preface to the Traveller as to the reception his poem 

 might meet with, and of the picture which at the conclufion 

 of the Deferted Village he has drawn of the neglect and con- 

 fequent departure of poetry from his country. This is the 

 tranfmitted peeviflinefs of poets ; a conceited language which 

 Goldfmith took up from Pope, and which found fupport in 

 the frigid indifference with which his friend difmifled his dic- 

 tionary. Johnfon's good fenfe faw the weaknefs in another, 

 and in his life of Pope reprobates and expofes it, and Gold- 

 fmith lived long enough probably to regret it. At leaft in 

 his later editions of the Traveller he has expunged that paf- 

 fage in the preface which affcAed to fay that " the ftrongeft 

 " and happieft efforts of poetry could in his age expedl to 

 " pleafe but in a narrow circle." Goldfmith's might not have 

 been the age of the higheft clafs of writers, but it certainly 

 exceeded all which went before it in the number of judicious 

 and well inflruded readers. 



Of 



