A celebrated writer has obferved, that " the value of feveral circum. 

 " fiances in (lory, leffens very much by diftance of time, though some 

 " minute circumftances are very valuable." The obfervation is jull ; 

 and as applied to the vi-ork of another author I am going to name, 

 will be found to have its due weight. Ariftotle in his Poetics hath left 

 us the origin, progrefs, and perfeftion of tragedy. The value of an- 

 cient tragedy, in the prefent improved flate of the drama, has certainly 

 " leffened much by diftance of time ;" yet " fome minute circumftances 

 that affeft it, are very valuable." As the Greek drama was but the 

 fkeleton of that which latter times have filled up, giving mufcle, and 

 finews, and flefli, and heart, and pulfe, and motion to the lifelefs re- 

 prefentation of man ; fo there are fome circumftances attending ancient 

 tragedy, flill more valuable than the thing itfelf. The philofopher's pen, 

 dipped in the fountain of an immortal language, preferves to us a 

 treafure, rendered lefs venerable by time, than valuable for the incidents 

 connefted with it. Embalmed in its own excellence, the work has out- 

 lived the " perfeftion," and the wreck too, of its fnbjeft. But although 

 the prefent queftion fhould lead to enquiries not lefs interefting to the 

 caufe of letters, neither the perifhable language the author writes in, 

 nor his fkill in the management of his unfruitful materials, aftbrd him 

 the leafl hope of amufmg the prefent age, or informing pofterity. Yet 

 the learning and the judgment of the philofopher had been loft in the 

 maze of the propofed enquiry, where antiquity fhrinks back into her 

 cell, and refufes to be dragged out by the ftrong hand. The origin of 

 rhime, however, far more ancient than that of tragedy in Greece, 

 though fometimes perhaps attempted, remains yet to be explored : its 

 approach is tangled with errors, where obftacles rife with perfeverance, 

 and labour is rewarded with encreafmg difficulties. Hid in the recefTes 

 of age, it eludes enquiry ; and like the great river of ^gypt, not to 

 be traced upward, is to be found more by good fortune than painful 

 jndagation. 



It has long been my opinion, and the more I have lately confidered 

 die fubjeft, the lefs I have found reafon to change it, that rhime hath 



its 



