1798.] 
Lo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, ; 
EMARKS on the &«€ 
Literature’ would a few months 
fince have been acceptable to moft of 
your readers. The novelty of the poem 
is now over: the curiofity which it ex-. 
cited is confiderably abated. Yet, if I 
may judge by my own feelings, there are 
fome even now to whom thefe remarks 
will not be wholly uninterefting, ‘Thofe 
who have read the poem with the care, 
and confidered it with the attention it de- 
ferves, will find the fubjects too impor- 
tant, and too intimately connected with 
every thing they hold dear both here and 
hereafter, to be foon forgotten. Its {cenes 
are not pourtrayed by the light and tran- 
fient touch of Fancy, but by the fombre 
and melancholy pencil of Truth. ‘They 
are not the vifions of Poetry which amute 
for a moment, and are pat, but the deep 
reflections of Wifdom, which will obtrude 
themfelves upon the mind when it retires 
into itfelf from the hurry and the bufinefs 
et the world. 
What I fay in commendation of the 
«© Purfuits of Literature,’ cannot look 
like the hired eulogium of meannefs and 
flattery. It comes from an unknown in- 
dividual to an author who is unknown, 
and who wifhes to remain fo. It can be 
of no fervice to him; it will therefore be 
tree, I hope, from every fufpicion of this 
kind. I pay it as a debt .of gratitude 
which I owe him for the pleafure and in- 
ftrugtion [ have received frour his work, 
but {till more for his patriotic exertions 
to fave this country from the ruin which 
feems threatening to overwhelm it. For 
I confeis I agree with him in thinking 
that the fcenes which are now acting on 
the theatre of the world, are as alarming 
as were ever exhibited on the ftage of 
human exiftence ;—that they are the ful- 
_filment, perhaps, of fome great and im- 
portant decree which is known only to 
that Being who direfts the events, and 
influences the actors. With him I look 
up in trembling awe and anxiety to the 
ftorm which now darkens our horizon, 
With him I fee every thing around full 
ef danger and terror :—the veffel carried 
away by the violence of the current, and 
the deep threatening every moment to 
{wallow it up. Like him, too, I detef 
and would expofe the modern philofophy ; 
the modern cor.tempt of religion and or- 
der; and the modern cuftom of fubftitut- 
MONTHLY Maa. No. xxxvill. 
Remarks on the Purfuits of Literature. 
Purfuits of 
325) 
ing indecency and blafphemy for learning 
and wit. 
Yet I do not agree with him in all his 
‘opinions: upon fome authors I think he 
has been too indifcriminately fevere, and 
upon fome fubjeéts hurried by his zeal be- 
yond the bounds of juftice and difcretion.. 
Yet Mr. Burke could expect to derive 
comfort from this very reflection in the 
hour of melancholy and affliction, on the: 
bed of ficknefs and of death *: and the 
author of the ‘* Purfuits of Literature’” 
may, perhaps, be inclined in this too to 
follow his favourite model of excellence 
and virtue. ‘To me, however, it appears 
that violence of any kind does an injury 
to the caufe which it ‘undertakes to de-. 
fend. ‘The votaries of Wifdom we ex- 
pect to be wife; the votaries only of 
Folly, to be raf and impetuous. he 
fober mind, that would have concurred, 
in a calm and difpaflionate reprehenfion 
of real error, would turn away in difgult 
from the portrait. of a writer, if, without 
regard to the original, it were overloaded - 
with all the thades of fazcied deformity. 
Nay, fo pleafing 1s it to defend the in- 
jured, that it would, perhaps, become the 
advocate of the very caufe which it would 
before have exerted itfelf to bring inte 
direpute. 
The author of the * Purfuzts of Lite- 
rature,’ after having, with fome juftice,. 
but great feverity, criticifed on the poetry 
of Dr. DaRWIN, allows him to be a man 
of Fancy. Fancy is certainly the charac- 
teriftic, but by no means the only merit, of 
that poet. He hasa facility and elegance 
of expreffion, a flow of verfification, a bold— 
nefs in his outline, anda richnefs and 
brilliancy of colouriag, fuperigr perhaps 
to any other contemporary writer. 
In. his ,inveétive, too, againft Peter 
Pindar, he feems to have forgotten the 
original humour, the inimitable raillery, 
the happy allufions, and the powerful yet 
good-natured ridicule, which would make 
even the object of his fatire fupprefs his 
rifing indignation, and ftop a moment te 
laugh at his own caricature. 
And whoever has heard, durifig an 
evening’s converfation, the torrents of 
eloquence which flow from the-** ore 
rotuzde’ of Dr. Parr, would form a 
much more juft and favourable idea of his 
abilities, than the anthor of the ‘© Pur- 
fuits of Literature’ feers willing sto al- 
low. They would think that there was 
no fubjeét, however various or elaborate, 
See his ‘§ Speech to the Aleéiors of Briftol,” 
An that 
