se sudden Emotions,
which excite illustrious Men, to act and speak out of the_ Common Road?
_They seem irregular to Us by reason of the Fondness and Bigottry we pay
to_ Custom, _which is no Standard to the Brave and the Wise. The Rules
we receive in our first Education, are laid down with this Purpose, to
restrain the_ Mind; _which by reason of the Tenderness of our Age and
the ungovernable Disposition of Young Nature, is apt to start out into
Excess and Extravagance. But when Time has ripen'd us, and Observation
has fortify'd the Soul, we ought to lay aside those common Rules with
our Leading strings; and exercise our Reason with a free, generous and
manly Spirit. Thus a_ Good Poet _should make use of a Discretionary
Command; like a_ Good General, _who may rightly wave the vulgar Precepts
of the Military School (which may confine an ordinary Capacity, and curb
the Rash and Daring) if by a new and surprizing Method of Conduct, he
find out an uncommon Way to Glory and Success._

Bocalin, _the_ Italian _Wit, among his other odd Advertisements, has
this remarkable one, which is parallel to the present Discourse. When_
Tasso _(says he) had presented_ Apollo _with his_ Poem, _call'd_
Giurasalemme Liberata; _the_ Reformer _of the_ Delphic Library, _to
whose Perusal it was committed, found fault with it, because it was not
written according to the Rules of_ Aristotle; _which affront being
complain'd of,_ Apollo _was highly incens'd, and chid_ Aristotle _for
his Presumption in daring to prescribe Laws and Rules to the high
Conceptions of the_ Virtuosi, _whose Liberty of Writing and Inventing,
enrich'd the Schools and Libraries with gallant Composures; and to
enslave the Wits of Learned Men, was to rob the World of those alluring
Charms which daily flow'd from the Productions of Poets, who follow the
Dint of their own unbounded Imagination. You will find the rest in the
28th Advertisement._

_The Moral is instructive; because to judge well and candidly, we must
wean our selves from a slavish Bigotry to the Ancients. For, tho'_ Homer
_and_ Virgil, Pindar _and_ Horace _be laid before us as Examples of
exquisite Writing in the Heroic and Lyric Kind, yet, either thro' the
Distance of Time, or Diversity of Customs, we can no more expect to find
like Capacities, than like Complexions. Let a Man follow the Talent that
Nature has furnish'd him with, and his own Observation has improv'd, we
may hope to see Inventions in all Arts, which