gance, and to sanction absurdity. But, it may be asked,
as these illusions are unavoidable, and, no doubt, eminently useful to
the mind as a process, what good can be gained by making observations,
the tendency of which is to diminish the confidence of youth in its
feelings, and thus to abridge its innocent and even profitable
pleasures? The reproach implied in the question could not be warded off,
if Youth were incapable of being delighted with what is truly excellent;
or, if these errors always terminated of themselves in due season. But,
with the majority, though their force be abated, they continue through
life. Moreover, the fire of youth is too vivacious an element to be
extinguished or damped by a philosophical remark; and, while there is no
danger that what has been said will be injurious or painful to the
ardent and the confident, it may prove beneficial to those who, being
enthusiastic, are, at the same time, modest and ingenuous. The
intimation may unite with their own misgivings to regulate their
sensibility, and to bring in, sooner than it would otherwise have
arrived, a more discreet and sound judgment.

If it should excite wonder that men of ability, in later life, whose
understandings have been rendered acute by practice in affairs, should
be so easily and so far imposed upon when they happen to take up a new
work in verse, this appears to be the cause;--that, having discontinued
their attention to poetry, whatever progress may have been made in other
departments of knowledge, they have not, as to this art, advanced in
true discernment beyond the age of youth. If, then, a new poem fall in
their way, whose attractions are of that kind which would have
enraptured them during the heat of youth, the judgment not being
improved to a degree that they shall be disgusted, they are dazzled; and
prize and cherish the faults for having had power to make the present
time vanish before them, and to throw the mind back, as by enchantment,
into the happiest season of life. As they read, powers seem to be
revived, passions are regenerated, and pleasures restored. The Book was
probably taken up after an escape from the burden of business, and with
a wish to forget the world, and all its vexations and anxieties. Having
obtained this wish, and so much more, it is natural that they should
make report as they have felt.

If Men of mature age, through want of practice, be thus easily beguiled
into admiration of absurdities,