I 791- ANECDOTES OF THE LATS BR. SMITH. 5 



Livy contains an Immeiife number of the moft obvious 

 and grofs falfehoods. 



He was no fanguine admirer of Shakefpeare. " V:;l- 

 " talre, you know," fays he, " calls Hamlet the 

 " dream of a di"Unken favage." — " He has good fcenes, 

 " but not one good play." The Doclor, however, 

 would not have permitted any body elfe to pafs this 

 verdict with impunity : For when 1 once afterwaids, 

 in order to found him, hinted a dilre'fpecl for Hamlet, 

 he gave a fmile, as if he thought I would detert him 

 in a contradidiou, and replied, " Yes I but Hill Ham- 

 *' let is full of fme palTages." 



He had an invincible contempt and averfinn for blank 

 verfe, Milton's always excepted. " They do well, laid 

 " he, to call it bla?ik, for blaak it is ; I myfclf, even I, 

 " who never coala iind a iingle rhime in my life, could 

 *' make blank vfrfe as tall as i could fpeak ; nothing but 

 *' lazinels hinders our tragic poets irom writing, like the 

 5' French, in rhime. Dryden, had he poirelTed but a tenth 

 " part of Shakefpcare's dramatic genius, would have 

 " brought rhyming tragedies into falhion here as well as 

 " they are in France, and then the mob would have ad- 

 " mired them juil as much as they now pretend to de- 

 " fpife them." 



Beatie's tnintlrel he would not allow to be called a 

 poem ; for it had, lie laid, no plan, no beginning, mid- 

 dle, or end. He tliought it only a furies of vcrfcs, but 

 a few of them very liiippy. As tor the tranflation of 

 the Iliad, " They do well," he faid " to call it Pope''s 

 Homer ; for it is not Homer's Homer. It has no re- 

 femblance to the majeily and iimpllcity of the Greek." 

 He read over to me 1' Allegro, and II' Penferofo, and 

 explained the refpetlive bcanties of each, but added, 

 that all the reft of Milton's lliort poems were tralh. 

 He could not imagine what had made Johnfoii praife 

 the poem on the death of Mrs. Killig'"cw, and compare 

 it with Alexander's Fcaft. The criticifni had induced 

 tjtin to read it over, and witli attenlLon, tv.'ice, and he 



