ther his performances were not yet susceptible of improvement. The
excellencies and faults of celebrated writers have been equally
recommended to posterity; and, so far has blind reverence prevailed,
that even the number of their books has been thought worthy of
imitation.

The imagination of the first authors of lyrick poetry was vehement and
rapid, and their knowledge various and extensive. Living in an age when
science had been little cultivated, and when the minds of their
auditors, not being accustomed to accurate inspection, were easily
dazzled by glaring ideas, they applied themselves to instruct, rather by
short sentences and striking thoughts, than by regular argumentation;
and, finding attention more successfully excited by sudden sallies and
unexpected exclamations, than by the more artful and placid beauties of
methodical deduction, they loosed their genius to its own course, passed
from one sentiment to another without expressing the intermediate ideas,
and roved at large over the ideal world with such lightness and agility,
that their footsteps are scarcely to be traced.

From this accidental peculiarity of the ancient writers the criticks
deduce the rules of lyrick poetry, which they have set free from all the
laws by which other compositions are confined, and allow to neglect the
niceties of transition, to start into remote digressions, and to wander
without restraint from one scene of imagery to another.

A writer of later times has, by the vivacity of his essays, reconciled
mankind to the same licentiousness in short dissertations; and he
therefore who wants skill to form a plan, or diligence to pursue it,
needs only entitle his performance an essay, to acquire the right of
heaping together the collections of half his life without order,
coherence, or propriety.

In writing, as in life, faults are endured without disgust when they are
associated with transcendent merit, and may be sometimes recommended to
weak judgments by the lustre which they obtain from their union with
excellence; but it is the business of those who presume to superintend
the taste or morals of mankind, to separate delusive combinations and
distinguish that which may be praised from that which can only be
excused. As vices never promote happiness, though, when overpowered by
more active and more numerous virtues, they cannot totally destroy it;
so confusion and irregularity produce no beauty, though they cannot
always obstruct