Gh 62.994 HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY FROM THE LIBRARY OF MRS. COOLIDGE S. ROBERTS 39-236 21-2 PREFACE. The HOMER is universally allowed to have had the greatest Invention of any writer whatever. praise of judgment Virgil has justly contested with him, and others may have their pretensions as to particular excellencies; but his Invention remains yet unrivalled. Nor is it a wonder if he has ever been acknowledged the greatest of poets, who most excelled in that which is the very foundation of poetry. It is the Invention that in différent degrees distinguishes all great geniuses: the utmost stretch of human study, learning, and industry, which masters every thing besides, can never attain to this. It furnishes Art with all her materials, and without it Judg ment itself can at best but steal wisely! for Art is only like a prudent steward that lives on managing the riches of Nature. Whatever praises may be given to works of judgment, there is not even a single beauty in them to which the Invention must not contribute; as in the most regular gardens, Art can only reduce the beauties of Nature to more regularity, and such a figure, which the common eye may better take in, and is therefore more entertained with. And perhaps the reason why common critics are inclined to prefer a judicious and methodical genius to a great and fruitful one, is, because they find it easier for themselves to pursue their observations through an aniform and bounded walk of Art, than to comprehend the vast and various extent of Nature. Our author's work is a wild paradise, where if we cannot see all the beauties so distinctly as in an ordered garden, it is only because the number of VOL. I. Б |