Additional Notes.. 479 



a century hence, they will give scarcely any just information 

 concerning the characters of which they treat. 



The number of self -biographers was much greater in the 

 eighteenth century than in any former period. 



NOTES ON CHAPTER XX. 



Pope awrf Dryden. p. 181. 



A FRIEND of learning and taste, on reading what is said 

 of the comparative merits of these two great English poets* 

 made the following remark: " Dryden, in my opinion, did 

 more to improve English versification than Pope. The in- 

 terval is wider between Dryden and the best of his predeces* 

 sors than between Dryden and Pope." 



Epic Poetry. 



Glove p. wrote a second epic poem, entitled, The A the-* 

 niad, which has been praised; but is generally considered as 

 inferior to his Leonidas. 



The Epigoniad, by the Rev. Dr. William Wilkie, of 

 North-Britain, is an epic poem of some merit, but far from 

 being entitled to a place in the first class. This writer has 

 been called the " Homer of Scotland," His work was first 

 published in 1757, and reached a second edition in 1759. — ■ 

 He died at St. Andrews in 1772. 



In the composition of the Joan of Arc, Southey was as- 

 sisted by his friend Coleridge, a poet of great genius and 

 tasre. 



Cowper's Translation of Homer deserves an honourable 

 place here. Considered as a translation, it is certainly su- 

 perior to Pope's. Gilbert Wakefield observes, that 

 whoever wishes to see Homer in English dress must read 

 Cow PER. 



Oberon, though the best, is not the only epic poem pro- 

 duced by Wieland. His Idris, his Ncuen Amadis, and 

 his Liebe nm Liebe, were prior in time, but inferior in merit. 



