d cannot
keep his poetry unmingled with trade. To hinder that intellectual
bankruptcy which he affects to fear, he will erect a _bank for wit_.

In this poem he justly censured Dryden's impurities, but praised his
powers; though, in a subsequent edition, he retained the satire, and
omitted the praise. What was his reason I know not; Dryden was then no
longer in his way.

His head still teemed with heroick poetry; and, 1705, he published
Eliza, in ten books. I am afraid that the world was now weary of
contending about Blackmore's heroes; for I do not remember that by any
author, serious or comical, I have found Eliza either praised or blamed.
She "dropped," as it seems, "dead-born from the press." It is never
mentioned, and was never seen by me till I borrowed it for the present
occasion. Jacob says, "it is corrected and revised for another
impression;" but the labour of revision was thrown away.

From this time he turned some of his thoughts to the celebration of
living characters; and wrote a poem on the Kit-cat Club[21], and Advice
to the Poets how to celebrate the Duke of Marlborough; but, on occasion
of another year of success, thinking himself qualified to give more
instruction, he again wrote a poem of Advice to a Weaver of Tapestry.
Steele was then publishing the Tatler; and, looking round him for
something at which he might laugh, unluckily lighted on sir Richard's
work, and treated it with such contempt, that, as Fenton observes, he
put an end to the species of writers that gave _advice to painters_.

Not long after, 1712, he published Creation, a philosophical poem, which
has been, by my recommendation, inserted in the late collection. Whoever
judges of this by any other of Blackmore's performances, will do it
injury. The praise given it by Addison, Spectator, 339, is too well
known to be transcribed; but some notice is due to the testimony of
Dennis, who calls it a "philosophical poem, which has equalled that of
Lucretius in the beauty of its versification, and infinitely surpassed
it in the solidity and strength of its reasoning."

Why an author surpasses himself, it is natural to inquire. I have heard
from Mr. Draper, an eminent bookseller, an account received by him from
Ambrose Philips, "That Blackmore, as he proceeded in this poem, laid his
manuscript, from time to time, before a club of wits with whom he
associated; and that every man contributed, as he could, either
improvement or correction; so t