52 GENERAL POSTSCRIPT, 



was that of the regular Didactic Poem, of which the Georgic* 

 of Virgil afford fo perfect an example; the other that of ther 

 preceptive epiftolary eflay, the model of which Horace has 

 given in his Epiftles Ad Augujlum & ad Pifones. I balanced 

 fometime which of thefe I Ihould adopt, for both had their 

 peculiar merit. The former opened a more ample field for 

 picturefque defcription and poetical embellishment ; the latter 

 was more calculated to convey exact precept in concife phrafe*. 

 The one furniflied better means of illuftrating my fubject y 

 and the other of defining it > the former admitted thofe orna- 

 ments only which refulted from lively imagery and figurative 

 diction, the latter feemed rather to require the feafoning of 

 wit and fatire ; this, therefore, appeared bed calculated to 

 expofe falfe tafte, and that to elucidate the true. But falfe 

 tafte, on this fubject, had been fo inimitably ridiculed by 

 Mr. Pope, in his Epiftle to Lord Burlington, that it feemed 

 to preclude all other authors (at leaft it precluded me) from 

 touching it after him ; and therefore, as he had left much 



unfaid 



* See Mr. Pope's account of his Jpfign in writing the EfTay on Man, in \vhich the 

 peculiar merit of that way, in which he fo greatly excelled, is moft happily explained. 

 He chofe, as he fays, " Verfe, and even Rhyme, for two reafons : Verfe, becaufe 

 precepts, fo written, ftrike more ftrongly, and are retained more eafily : Rhyme, be- 

 caufe it expreffcs arguments or inflruftions more concifely than even Profe it(el" 



