dice can obscure the judgement of a generally shrewd
observer, and it is the more remarkable since he selects as its especial
fault the failure of the author's attempts at humour; while all other
critics, from Macaulay to Thackeray, agree in placing it among those
works in which the humour is most conspicuous and most attractive. Even
Johnson, when Boswell once, thinking perhaps that his "illustrious
friend" might be offended with its occasional coarseness, pronounced
Sterne to be "a dull fellow," was at once met with, "Why no, Sir."]

[Footnote 3: Bishop Warburton was Bishop of Gloucester, a prelate whose
vast learning was in some degree tarnished by unepiscopal violence of
temper. He was a voluminous author; his most important work being an
essay on "The Divine Legation of Moses." In one of his letters to
Garrick he praises "Tristram Shandy" highly, priding himself on having
recommended it to all the best company in town.]

_ERSE POETRY--"THE DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD"--"THE COMPLETE ANGLER."_

TO SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE.

_June_ 20, 1760.

I am obliged to you, Sir, for the volume of Erse poetry: all of it has
merit; but I am sorry not to see in it the six descriptions of night
with which you favoured me before, and which I like as much as any of
the pieces. I can, however, by no means agree with the publisher, that
they seem to be parts of an heroic poem; nothing to me can be more
unlike. I should as soon take all the epitaphs in Westminster Abbey, and
say it was an epic poem on the History of England. The greatest part are
evidently elegies; and though I should not expect a bard to write by the
rules of Aristotle, I would not, on the other hand, give to any work a
title that must convey so different an idea to every common reader. I
could wish, too, that the authenticity had been more largely stated. A
man who knows Dr. Blair's character will undoubtedly take his word; but
the gross of mankind, considering how much it is the fashion to be
sceptical in reading, will demand proofs, not assertions.

I am glad to find, Sir, that we agree so much on "The Dialogues of the
Dead;"[1] indeed, there are very few that differ from us. It is well for
the author, that none of his critics have undertaken to ruin his book
by improving it, as you have done in the lively little specimen you sent
me. Dr. Brown has writ a dull dialogue, called "Pericles and Aristides,"
which will have a different effect from what yours would have. One o