glory. Those who cultivated the muses were regarded with particular
favour: this art was the road to fortune and dignified stations. But
in these days this ardour seems to be considerably abated. We do not
appear to be extremely sensible to poetical merit, &c."

[Footnote A: Defense de la Poesie; par M. l'Abbé _Messieu. Memoíres de
Literature, Tome_ 2de.]




THE TASTE OF THE PRESENT AGE.


Amongst many other distinguishing marks of a stupid age, a bad crop of
men, I have been told that the taste in writing was never so false
as at present. If it is really so, it may perhaps be owing to a
prodigious swarm of insipid trashy writers: amongst whom there are
some who pretend to dictate to the public as critics, though they
hardly ever fail to be mistaken. But their dogmatic impudence, and
something like a scientific air of talking the most palpable
nonsense, imposes upon great numbers of people, who really possess a
considerable share of natural Taste; of which at the same time they
are so little conscious as to suffer themselves passively to be misled
by those blundering guides.

A Taste worth cultivating is to be improved and preserved by reading
_only_ the best writers. But whoever, after perusing a satire of
Horace, even in the dullest English translation, can relish the
stupid abuse of a blackguard rhymster, may as well indulge the natural