it is in such a state that it would be sent away in disgust from
any table, he offers it to the judges. The object of the
poetical candidate, in like manner, is to produce, not a good
poem, but a poem of that exact degree of frigidity or bombast
which may appear to his censors to be correct or sublime.
Compositions thus constructed will always be worthless. The few
excellences which they may contain will have an exotic aspect and
flavour. In general, prize sheep are good for nothing but to
make tallow candles, and prize poems are good for nothing but to
light them.

The first subject proposed by the Society to the poets of England
was Dartmoor. I thought that they intended a covert sarcasm at
their own projects. Their institution was a literary Dartmoor
scheme;--a plan for forcing into cultivation the waste lands of
intellect,--for raising poetical produce, by means of bounties,
from soil too meagre to have yielded any returns in the natural
course of things. The plan for the cultivation of Dartmoor has,
I hear, been abandoned. I hope that this may be an omen of the
fate of the Society.

In truth, this seems by no means improbable. They have been
offering for several years the rewards which the king placed at
their disposal, and have not, as far as I can learn, been able to
find in their box one composition which they have deemed worthy
of publication. At least no publication has taken place. The
associates may perhaps be astonished at this. But I will attempt
to explain it, after the manner of ancient times, by means of an
apologue.