Lucan, who, after all, has no great merit himself. But a modern critic has gone a great deal beyond this; asserting, that though the whole reputation of Virgil stands upon three specimens of imitation, though he has no invention, no originality,

no creation, yet he deserves all his fame:—and how does he make this out? Why, truly, by attributing this fame to his style, which he calls the
'pickle that has preserved his mummy from corruption.'

Were I to advert to the long catalogue of opposite opinions which will very easily occur to any man of reading, who has a faithful and retentive memory, it would be an intrusion on the patience of every intelligent reader. I have instanced abundantly enough to prove that cavillers find it difficult to convince; that Envy beholds pigmy imperfections, and neglects giant beauties; and that fools, in search of defects and contradictions, deprive themselves of that pleasure and improvement with which heaven permits men of superior talents to adorn the world.
It is with me a matter of infinite concern, that if candour be the criterion of genius, the ancients possessed more genius than the moderns. When Euripides died, Sophocles went into mourning;

and yet, to prove that Sophocles was fond of applause, he died with joy at the success of one of his own tragedies. What can be more noble than the declaration of Theodore Gaza, that if all the works then extant were to be thrown into the sea, the last that would merit such a fate would be the works of Plutarch! Or the forbearance of Zenophon, who might have had the writings of Thucidides attributed to him, but he disdained it!
If the cotemporaries of Terence acknowledge that he has imitated Plautus, they never fail to add that it was making gold out of dross. By one it was said, that the very prostitutes of Terence speak with more modesty than the honest women of Plautus. Cicero, speaking of the purity of Terence, calls him the regulator of the Latin tongue. Alexander, when he sacked Thebes, spared the house and posterity of Pindar. Plato was called the divine. Zenophon, from his sweetness and beauty, is called the bee, and the attic muse. His works are said to have inspired Scipio, the African, and

Lucullus, in like manner as those of Homer fired the mind of Alexander.
When do we hear, in these times, such warmth and candour as that of Appolonius Molus? who, on hearing Cicero harrangue, exclaimed—
'Poor Greece! Now thou art utterly undone!—The Romans had before conquered thee