be true that century rolling after century thickens the
dust upon Adam Scrivener's vellum! Can it be true that proceeding time
widens the gulf yawning betwixt thee and ourselves, thy compatriots of
another day, thy poetical posterity! The supposition is
unnatural--un-English--un-Scottish. Thou hast been the one popular poet
of England. Shakspeare alone has unseated thee. Thou hast been taken to
the heart of Scottish poets, as though there were not even a dialectical
shadow of difference distinguishing thine and their languages. A dim
time, an eclipsing of light and warmth fell upon the island, and to read
thee was a feat of strange scholarship, a study of the more learned. But
happier years shall succeed. As Antaeus the giant acquired life and
strength by dropping back upon the bosom of his mother earth--she, the
universal parent, was, you know, in a more private and domestic meaning
his mother--so, giants of our brood, dropping back upon they bosom, O
Father Chaucer! shall from that infusive touch renew vitality and
vigour, and go forth exultingly to scale, not Olympus, but Parnassus.
And now, in illustration of the ruling spirit--known and felt in its
full power only by ourselves--of this series--NORTH'S SPECIMENS OF THE
BRITISH CRITICS--we invite unexpectedly--(for who can foresee the
ensuing segment of our orbit?)--the people of these realms to admire
with us the critical genius of Dryden and of Pope, displayed in their
matchless satires--MAC-FLECNOE and the DUNCIAD.

In regard to these poems, shall we seek to conciliate our countrymen by
admitting, at the outset, that there is something in both to be
confessed and forgiven? That there is something about them that places
them upon a peculiar footing--that is not quite right? They must be
distinguished from the legitimate poems, in which the poet and the
servant of the Muses merely exercises his ministry. He then furnishes to
the needs of humanity, and is the acknowledged benefactor of his kind.
But these are _wilful_ productions. They are from the _personal_ self of
the poet. They are arbitrary acts of mighty despots. They kill, because
they choose and can. And we, alas!--we are bribed by the idolatry of
power to justify the excesses of power. Let not our maligners--our
foes--hear of it, for it is one of our vulnerable points.

Yet as long as men and women are weak and mortal, genius will possess a
privilege of committing certain peccadilloes that will be winked at