in a literary point of view, not less curious.

"And here I wish to say a few words on the present state of English
poetry. That this is the age of the decline of English poetry will
be doubted by few who have calmly considered the subject. That
there are men of genius among the present poets makes little
against the fact, because it has been well said, that 'next to him
who forms the taste of his country, the greatest genius is he who
corrupts it.' No one has ever denied genius to Marino, who
corrupted not merely the taste of Italy, but that of all Europe for
nearly a century. The great cause of the present deplorable state
of English poetry is to be attributed to that absurd and systematic
depreciation of Pope, in which, for the last few years, there has
been a kind of epidemical concurrence. Men of the most opposite
opinions have united upon this topic. Warton and Churchill began
it, having borrowed the hint probably from the heroes of the
Dunciad, and their own internal conviction that their proper
reputation can be as nothing till the most perfect and harmonious
of poets--he who, having no fault, has had REASON made his
reproach--was reduced to what they conceived to be his level; but
even they dared not degrade him below Dryden. Goldsmith, and
Rogers, and Campbell, his most successful disciples; and Hayley,
who, however feeble, has left one poem 'that will not be willingly
let die' (the Triumphs of Temper), kept up the reputation of that
pure and perfect style; and Crabbe, the first of living poets, has
almost equalled the master. Then came Darwin, who was put down by a
single poem in the Antijacobin; and the Cruscans, from Merry to
Jerningham, who were annihilated (if _Nothing_ can be said to be
annihilated) by Gifford, the last of the wholesome English
satirists. * * *