1 8 i 6.] Original Letters between Dr 



tiality : could not, therefore, some, power- 

 ful and deserving friend be substituted, 

 as knowing I have tlie honour of corres- 

 ponding with his valued Dr. Young, to put 

 Die upon requesting you to touch upon 

 tliese two suiyectsr And will not the re- 

 quester be of more proper importance to 

 engage such a pen ? 1 conceive that the 

 alteration may be easily made ; suppose 

 like this — " Your worthy patron, our com- 

 mon friend, by putting you on tlie request 

 you make rae, both flatters and distresses 

 me. How can I comply ! Is it not late- 

 He thinks the press overcharged, &c. as 

 above. 



Page 3. — Would yon choose, good sir, 

 to illustrate the merits of authors by an al- 

 lusion to so sadly solemn a truth, as the 

 fall of our first parent? Especially as it 

 hath too often been sported with by those 

 whose intentions were totally dttferent 

 from yours? 



Was not Icarus the person who fell by 

 soaring too high? 



Page 4. — Suppose, sir, the Scripture al- 

 lusion [King of Salem] omitted ? And the 

 passage to run thus : — " Excellence 

 ■which seem to common readers as diop- 

 ped," &c. 



As I presume that Lucretius need not be 

 set up for an example, however ori-jinal, 

 would it not be enough to quote his words 

 without his name? Thus — a sequcslered 

 path : 



Nullius ante 



Trita pede or here, if yon please, 



to insert LAicr. ? 

 Will yon, sir, be pleased to reconsider 

 the passage hooked in relating to the 

 weakly hrats? Or, if it be continued, sup- 

 pose the while paragraph be made to 

 run thus — " As for translations and imita- 

 tions, those echos of another's voice ; sha- 

 dows of another's worth ; those weakly 

 brats dropt by the fame of ancient authors 

 at almost every door, and by childless 

 moderns fathered as their own ;" the great 

 originals, in whose right we pretend to in- 

 herit, are still themselves in actual posses- 

 iion, and, by the art of printing, secured 

 in it frouj Goths and flames, and the moul- 

 dering hand of Time ; and, like Saturn, 

 " who was said to have devoured his own 

 children, swallow up the fame of their pro- 

 geny in the blaze of their own superior 

 ^•lory." 



Page 5.— O/ strength ••o/ exertion, that 

 makes imitation, •.'wc. 



And " extinguish our own," instead of 

 " putting ax extiiiguisker on our own," sup- 

 pose? 



Page f>. — " Might be reversed." What, 

 sir, and the dwarf sink under the weight of 

 the giant? Is not that rather the case 

 "hen modern giants stunt their own 

 fjroivih by holding up the mi:;hly ancient 

 to view, on the xhouldcifi of a feeble traa- 

 tlaliun or imiUtiou ? 



. Yovng and 3 Jr. Richardson. 333 



Page 7. — " Of those heathen authors," 

 historical loriteis excepted, " who had 

 shone," .ic. 



" Attentively read," the lovers of im- 

 provement ''will have a school to go to,* 

 tvhose principal form stands as high as that 

 on u'ltick Homer is enthroned. 



Would you choose, sir, to join Adam 

 and Pallas together? Has not Milton loo 

 often mingled tlie Christian and Pagan 

 theologies ? 



" Infantine genius hath its infancy." 

 Suppose thus, "The foimer, like ctlier 

 iii/uiils, must he nurtured," 6ic. omitting 

 the yvords, " has its infancy." 



Page 8. — " Tele-i-lele," suppose thk 

 were put " huud in hand." 



Page 9. — Suppose, <lear sir, I should 

 ofl'er the following lung passage to your 

 consideration, after the words, "And, ia 

 this sense, sonie are born wise.'' But here, 

 my friend, let me digress into a caution 

 against the antomathers, the self-taught 

 philosophers, of the age. who set up ge- 

 nius above, not human learning, but di- 

 vine truth. I have called genius wisdom, 

 but let it be remembered, that in the nio^t 

 refined ages of healheu genius, when the 

 world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased 

 God, by the fo(disltness of preacldn^', 

 to sace those that believed. In the fairy 

 land of fancy, genius wanders wild ; it hath 

 there almost a creative power, and may 

 reign over its empire of chimeras. The 

 wide field of nature is also before it, and 

 there, as far as visible nature extends, it 

 may freely extend its discoveries. But 

 can the noblest original painter give us 

 the portrait of a seraph? No : he can give, 

 but what he sees, though what he sees he 

 can infinitely compound and embellish. 

 IJiit can genius, human genius, strikeout 

 divine truih tmrevealed? Be the statuary 

 ever so excellent, he can never produce a 

 diamond statue out of a marble block. 



This digression is long. I was frighten- 

 ed, I was shocked, at the thought, that 

 some unballasted mind, warm in the confi- 

 dence of youth, might possibly be misled 

 by this unguarded pen into the most fa- 

 tal of all errors. Return we now to warn 

 them against such suppressions of genius, 

 as debase it to the level of dullness. 



Some, I have said (and in what sense 1 

 have said it will not. now be mistakeu) 

 "are born wise ; but as they," &cc. 



Page 10.—" Has its share in the charge." 

 Page 12. — "Joy. The joyous." Suppose 

 the word jo!/ changed to the word deliuliti 

 " As ethics, a real immortality." Sup- 

 po.<^e it be said, " as ethics christianized, a 

 real iuunortality ?" In condcscensiou t« 

 well-meaning slight objccJors ? 



"Let Homer," &c. Would yon not 

 chouse, sir, to cite the author who tells this 

 of Homer? 



" Not damp oiu' spirits, like a knoll, 

 iwr incline u« only to boirow,''6*;c. 



