CHARIACT ERS. 
History of English Poetry, from the 
Clese of the 11th to the Com- 
mencement of the 18th Century, 
&e.” In 1778, appeared the se- 
cond volume, and the third in 1781, 
to which he prefixed an additional 
*¢ Dissertation on the Gesta Ro- 
manorum ;” the work was origi- 
nally designed to have been com- 
prised in three volumes, but an in- 
accurate estimation ofthe materials, 
compelled him to end the third vo- 
lume, with a ‘‘ General View and 
Charaéter of the Poetry of Queen 
flizabeth’s Age,” to which nothing 
has been since added, or even writ- 
ten, except cleven sheets, which 
were printed, but not published, and 
are, perhaps, not generally known 
to exist. A transcription of the first 
paragraph, which opens the scheme 
of that volume, may not be unac- 
ceptable. — ‘“* More poetry was 
written in the single reign of fliza- 
beth, than in the two preceding cen- 
turies, The same causes, among 
others already enumerated and ex- 
plained, which called forth genius 
and imagination, such as the new 
sources of fiction opened by a study 
of the classics, a familiarity with 
the French, Italian, and Spanish 
writers, the growing elegancies of 
the English Janguage, the diffusion 
of polished manners, the felicities of 
long peace and public prosperity, 
and a certain freedom and activity of 
771 
mind, which immediately followed 
the national emancipation from su« 
perstition, contributed also to pro- 
duce innumerable compositions in 
poetry. In prosecuting my farther 
examination of the poetical annals of 
this reign, it therefore becomes ne- 
cessary to reduce such a latitude of 
materials to some sort of methodical 
arrangement. On which account, L 
shall class and consider the pocts of 
this reign under the general headss 
or divisions of satire, sonnet, pasto- 
ral, and miscellaneous poetry. Spen- 
ser will stand alone, without a class, 
and without a rival.” 
Agreeably to the order of this di- 
vision, the volume proceeds with an 
analysis of Bishop Hall’s Virgi- 
demiarum, and of Marston’s Scourge 
of Vilanie, and other satires, and a 
comparison between the two au- 
thors, and breaks off abruptly in the 
midst of an account of the other sa- 
tirists of the age. The copy right 
was, it seems, sold for 350]. and 
the impression consisted of 1250 
copies. The idea of a work of this 
kind appears to have originated 
with Pope, who intended to ‘* pen 
a discourse on the rise and pro- 
gress of English poetry, as it came 
from the Provencal poets,”’ and had 
classed the English poets, according 
to their several schools and succes- 
sions, as appears from the list un- 
derneath, 
a 
Agra I. 
Rymer, 2d part, page 65, 66, 67, 77. 
Petrarch 78. Catal. of Provengals, (Poets.) 
Gower. 
School “ Provence, { 
Chancer’s Visions, Romaunt of the Rose, 
Pierce Plowman, ‘Tales from Boccace, 
3D2 School 
