to win the crown,
With no illustrious names I cheat the town.
The galleries thunder, and the pit commends;
My verses, everywhere, my only friends!
'Tis from their charms alone my praise I claim;
'Tis to myself alone, I owe my fame;
And know no rival whom I fear to meet,
Or injure, when I grant an equal seat.

Voltaire censures Corneille for making his heroes say continually they
are great men. But in drawing the character of a hero he draws his own.
All his heroes are only so many Corneilles in different situations.

Thomas Corneille attempted the same career as his brother; perhaps his
name was unfortunate, for it naturally excited a comparison which could
not be favourable to him. Gacon, the Dennis of his day, wrote the
following smart impromptu under his portrait:--

Voyant le portrait de Corneille,
Gardez-vous de crier merveille;
Et dans vos transports n'allez pas
Prendre ici _Pierre_ pour _Thomas_.

POETS.

In all ages there has existed an anti-poetical party. This faction
consists of those frigid intellects incapable of that glowing expansion
so necessary to feel the charms of an art, which only addresses itself
to the imagination; or of writers who, having proved unsuccessful in
their court to the muses, revenge themselves by reviling them; and also
of those religious minds who consider the ardent effusions of poetry as
dangerous to the morals and peace of society.

Plato, amongst the ancients, is the model of those moderns who profess
themselves to be ANTI-POETICAL.

This writer, in his ideal republic, characterises a man who occupies
himself with composing verses as a very dangerous member of society,
from the inflammatory tendency of his writings. It is by arguing from
its abuse, that he decries this enchanting talent. At the same time it
is to be recollected, that no head was more finely organised for the
visions of the muse than Plato's: he was a true poet, and had addicted
himself in his prime of life to the cultivation of the art, but
perceiving that he could not surpass his inimitable original, Homer, he
employed this insidious manner of depreciating his works. In the Phaedon
he describes the feelings of a genuine Poet. To become such, he says, it
will never be sufficient to be guided by the rules of art, unless we
also feel the ecstasies of that _furor_, almost divine, which in this
kind of composition is the most