of _Homer_ strike his pericraniks, than up he gets, and declares he must
see that poem immediately: where was it to be had? An epic poem of 800
[? 8,000] lines, and _he_ not hear of it! There must be some things good
in it, and it was necessary he should see it, for he had touched pretty
deeply upon that subject in his criticisms on the Epic. George has
touched pretty deeply upon the Lyric, I find; he has also prepared a
dissertation on the Drama and the comparison of the English and German
theatres. As I rather doubted his competency to do the latter, knowing
that his peculiar _turn_ lies in the lyric species of composition, I
questioned George what English plays he had read. I found that he _had_
read Shakspere (whom he calls an original, but irregular, genius), but
it was a good while ago; and he has dipt into Rowe and Otway, I suppose
having found their names in Johnson's Lives at full length; and upon
this slender ground he has undertaken the task. He never seem'd even to
have heard of Fletcher, Ford, Marlow, Massinger, and the Worthies of
Dodsley's Collection; but he is to read all these, to prepare him for
bringing out his "Parallel" in the winter. I find he is also determined
to vindicate Poetry from the shackles which Aristotle & some others have
imposed upon it, which is very good-natured of him, and very necessary
just now! Now I am _touching_ so deeply upon poetry, can I forget that I
have just received from Cottle a magnificent copy of his Guinea Epic.
Four-and-twenty Books to read in the dog-days! I got as far as the Mad
Monk the first day, & fainted. Mr. Cottle's genius strongly points him
to the _Pastoral_, but his inclinations divert him perpetually from his
calling. He imitates Southey, as Rowe did Shakspeare, with his "Good
morrow to ye; good master Lieut't." Instead of _a_ man, _a_ woman, _a_
daughter, he constantly writes one a man, one a woman, one his daughter.
Instead of _the_ king, _the_ hero, he constantly writes, he the king, he
the hero--two flowers of rhetoric palpably from the "Joan." But Mr.
Cottle soars a higher pitch: and when he _is_ original, it is in a most