make it appear that they understand little
of Poetry in comparison of himself, but he forbears 'em meerly out of
Gratitude and Compassion. He is the _Oracle_ of those that want _Wit_,
and the _Plague_ of those that have it; for he haunts their Lodgings,
and is more terrible to them than their Duns.

* _Brutus_ for want of _Wit_, sets up for _Criticism_; yet has so much
ambition to be thought a _Wit_, that he lets his Spleen prevail against
Nature, and turns Poet. In this Capacity he is as just to the World as
in the other injurious. For, as the _Critick_ wrong'd every Body in his
Censure, and snarl'd and grin'd at their Writings, the _Poet_ gives 'em
opportunity to do themselves Justice, to return the Compliment, and
laugh at, or despise his. He takes his _Malice_ for a _Muse_, and thinks
himself _Inspir'd_, when he is only _Possess'd_, and blown up with a
Flatus of _Envy_ and _Vanity_. His Works are _Libels_ upon others, but
_Satyrs_ upon himself; and while they bark at Men of _Sense_, call him
Fool that writ 'em. He has a very great Antipathy to his own Species,
and hates to see a Fool any where but in his Glass; for, as he says,
_they provoke him, and offend his Eyes_. His Fund of Criticism, is a set
of Terms of Art, pick'd out of the _French Criticks_, or their
Translators; and his _Poetical Stock_, is a common Place of certain
_Forms_ and manners of Expression. He writes better in _Verse_ than
_Prose_; for in that there is _Rhime_, in this, neither _Rhime_ nor
_Reason_. He rails both at the _French_ Writers, "whom he does not
understand, and at those _English_ Authors, whose Excellencies he cannot
reach; with him _Voiture_ is flat and dull, _Corneille_ a stranger to
the Passions, _Racine_, Starch'd and Affected, _Moliere_, Jejune, _la
Fontaine_ a poor Teller of Tales; and even the Divine _Boileau_, little
better than a Plagiary. As for the _English_ Poets, he treats almost
with the same Freedom; _Shakespear_ with him has neither Language nor
Manners; _Ben. Johnson_ is a Pedant; _Dryden_ little more than a
tolerable Versifier; _Congreve_ a laborious Writer; _Garth_, an
indifferent imitator of _Boileau_. He traduces _Oldham_, for want of
Breeding and good Manners, without a grain of either, and steals his own
Wit to bespatter him with; but like an ill Chymist, he lets the _Spirit_
fly off in the drawing over and retains only the _Phlegm_. He Censures
_Cowley_ for too much Wit, and corrects him with none. He is a grea