4 
286 
when, in reality, the real Merit of its in- 
vention is contained in a fewv of its earlich 
chapters; while the remaining parts of 
thefe works have been formed with great 
facility, and without any extraordinary 
efforts of getius. 1 thallexemplify this 
obfervation by the two celebrated works 
of Fielding and Swift. The former, in 
his ‘* Life of Jonathan Wild the Great,” 
offers 2 very curious fpecimen of the 
force of irony. He calls villainy, ‘‘ great- 
nefs;”.a prig, or thief, ‘‘ahero;”” nar- 
-Fatives of {windlcrs, *‘ matters of the great 
‘kind ;” honeft ingenuous perfons, ‘‘ filly 
people; and when they truft to fharp- 
ers, he fays, ‘‘ they are dtle wretches, 
who deal with great men.’ Heartfree is 
itherefore full of ‘‘ low and bafe ideas. ;”” 
his faithful apprentice ‘‘ is a low and 
pitiful fool,?? &c. It is evident, that 
the only merit to which this invention of 
réverfing terms and ideas can pretend, 
‘confifts inthe fir? thoughts—having once 
exhibited them, all the reft is merely a 
repetition of the fame notions ; and al- 
“though the whole may appear, to a fuper; 
ficial reader, as originality, a critic of 
tafe will furely acknowledge, that it is 
not what it appears, and that it becomes, 
at length, if we may fo exprefs our- 
felves, invention without invention. 
Fielding having once difplayed the man- 
her, any common writer could have fol- 
lowed it without any exertion ; and what 
@ common writer can perform, is evidently 
mot 2 work of genius. 
~The fame obfervation will extend to 
“<< Gulliver's Travels’ When Swift 
had once refolved to defcribe a very di- 
minutive, and a very gigantic race; men 
as horfes, and horfes as men; the idea, 
whatever. be its value, after it has been 
fully difplayed, becomes, like the irony 
nt -Fielding, nothing but a continuation ; 
a kind of plagiarifm on the author him- 
felf.. The real merit of fuch inventions 
is foon terminated; yet an author, by pur- 
fuing ‘them, will feem, to moft of his 
readers, as abounding in the moft fertile 
imagination ; while he, in fact, is only 
repeating one idea, with, very frequently, 
neither novelty nor-variation. The Ya- 
hoos and Houyhnhmns have, in my opi- 
nion, no invention at all, unlefs torcall a 
horfe a man fhews any invention. 
This obfervation will not extend to the 
other merits of ‘thefe admired perform- 
ances ;, for others they have, of a .mych 
more durable kind than the. extrava- 
gance of their merely reverfing: our: wfual 
notions. b ipmcrnl  TASE, ARK 
Literary Feeundity. 
Lrrerary Fecunnity. 
E have had fome curious inftati- 
ces of literary fecundity. Lope 
de Vega, whofe entire days feem to have 
been devoted to competition, without 
many hours given to Yeading, or what is 
equally neceifary, to the corredion of his 
own productions, did not rival the inde- 
fatizable powers of father Macedo, a Por- 
tuguefe Jefuit, not without celebrity in 
his day. The Portuguefe biographer 
counts rog different works of this au- 
thor; and, indeed, one cannot refrain’ 
from a fmile at the good old man himfelf, 
who, in one of his later works, boafts of 
having delivered in public, 53 PANEGY- 
RICS; 60 LATIN ESSAYS, and 32 Fu- 
NERAL EUL@GIUMS: and that he had 
compofed 48 EPIC POEMS; 123 ELE- 
GIES 3; 11§ EPITAPHS; 212 DEDICA- 
TIONS ; 700 FAMILIAR LETTERS ; 
2600 HEROIC POEMS}; 110 ODES 3 
3000 EPIGRAMS; 4 LATIN PLAYS, 
and that he had (being gifted with the ta- 
lent of an improvifatore) delivered more 
than 150,000 VERSES extempore ! 
It is fufficiently obvious, that Father 
Macedo was the prince of impertinent 
writers ; and that he was one of thofe, 
whofe unhappy induftry produces a moft 
barrenfertility. What is, however, not 
lefs fingular m our Jefuit, was, that 
having written a treatife againft Cardinal 
Norris, on the fubje& of the monkery of 
St. Auftin, it was thought neceflary to 
decree filence to both partigs. Macedo, 
compelled to relinquifh the pen, refolved 
to fhew the world that he did not confider 
himfelf as vanquifhed, and fent his ad+ 
werfary @ challenge! He proceeded ac- 
cording to the meee of chivalry 5 
and appointed a place of rendezvous: in 
the wood of Boulogne. Another edict, 
to forbid the duel. Macedo .complained 
that it was hard, not to fuffer him, forthe 
fake of St. Auftin, for whom he had a2 
peculiar efteem, to fpill neither his 2k, 
nor his blood-! “4 
One may judge of his tafte by his 
“© Origin of the Inquifition.” That hu- 
mane and divine tribunal he difcovers ‘to 
have been in the terréftrial paradifey He 
pretends to prove, that God ‘was the firft 
who began the functions ‘of an INQUISI- 
Tor, and that he exercifed his power 
over Cain, and the workmen of Babel. 
Macedo obtzined a profeffor's chair at 
Padua, for having given, during eight 
days, at Venice, fome famous arguments _ 
againft. the Pope, which were publithed 
by, the-title of The Literary Roarings of 
the Lion at St. Mark: alluding to .the 
lion whoie mouth is now clofed. 
