. marked by a learned writer,* when he observes that | ration, victory and wisdom, which every Briton *this weapon, in the dissolute times of Charles II. promises himself, there be also revived an Augustan completed the ruin of the best minister of that age. age of letters. The historians tell us, that Chancellor Hyde was brought into his majesty's contempt by this court argument. They mimicked his walk and gesture, with a fire-shovel and bellows for the mace and purse. Thus, it being the representation, and not the object represented, which strikes the fancy, vice and virtue must fall indifferently before it." Though the foregoing observations may appear digressive from the main design of this Essay, yet as the subject is important, and took its rise in a great measure from the writings of Mr. Fielding, to advert awhile to the consequences which flowed to the community from his actions, cannot be deemed altogether impertinent. It is only like going out of the way a little to trace a rivulet in its progress, to mark its windings, to observe whether it bestows fertility on the neighbouring meadows, and then returning to the straight road, to pursue the regular track of the journey. In the comedy called Rape upon Rape, or, The Coffee-house Politician, we have an admirable draught of a character very common in this country, namely, a man who is smitten with an insatiable thirst for news, and concerns himself more about the balance of power than of his books. The folly of these statesmen out of place is there exhibited with a masterly ridicule;—and indeed, in all the plays of our author, however in some respects deficient, there are strokes of humour, and half length paintings, not excelled by some of the ablest artists. The farces written by Mr. Fielding were almost all of them very success a continuance of approbation. They were generally the production of two or three mornings, so great was his facility in writing; and, to this day, they bear frequent repetition, at least as well as any other pieces of the kind. It need not be observed, in justi If such were the effects of private mimicry, public drolls would undoubtedly be found of more pernicious consequence. Away with them, therefore; they are illiberal, they are unworthy; let licentiousness be banished from the theatres, but let the liberty of the freeborn Muse be immortal! The true idea of liberty consists in the free and unlimited power of doing whatever shall not injure the civil and religious institutions of the state, nor be deemed invasive of the peace and welfare of our fellow-subjects; but dramatic authors are so circumstanced at present, that this invaluable blessing is withdrawn from them; the Muses are enslaved in a land of liberty; and this at least should excuse the poets of the age for not rising to nobler heights, till the weight is taken off which now depresses their strongest efforts. It must be allowed that, in restraining the licentiousness of the theatre, our legislature very wisely imitated the goodful, and many of them are still acted every winter with sense of the Athenian magistracy, who by law interdicted the freedoms of the MIDDLE COMEDY; but it is to be wished that they had also imitated the moderation of the Greek lawgivers, who, when they resolved to give a check to indecorum, yet left a free and unbounded scope to the new comedy, which consisted❘fication of their being preserved in this collection of in agreeable and lively representations of manners, passions, virtues, vices, and follies, from the general volume of nature, without giving to any part of the transcript the peculiar marks or singularities of any individual. Thus poets were only hindered from being libellers, but were left in full possession of useful and general satire, and all avenues of access to the pub-either be taken accurately, so as to reflect a faithful bc were generously thrown open to them. As we have at present the happiness of living in a reign when majesty condescends to look with a favourable aspect on the liberal arts, many are sanguine enough to entertain hopes that the Muse may be released from her fetters, and restored to the free exercise of the amiable part of her province. When a bee has been deprived of its noxious sting, it may be safely permitted to rove at large among all the flowers of a garden; and it will be no inconsiderable addition to the lustre of the crown, if, with an AUGUSTAN REIGN of equity, mode Dever existed. speech, so deservedly admired, has been repeated by subsequent writers who copy each other, until a violent opposition to the measure has been supposed which The whole of Mr. Coxe's account of this bill, in his " Memoirs of Sir Robert Walpole," will show the inconsistency and absurdity of the declamawon in our author on this subject. The last century presented two grand checks to the immorality and licentiousness of the stage; the one was brought about by the single efforts of Jeremy Collier; and the other by the act of parliament just mentioned; and in both cases the dramatic writers were the only complainants, while the public rejoiced that their favourite entertainment might be visited with safety to morals and character; and that the mirth of the evening was no longer to be interrupted by such confusion and riot as the introduction of political sentiments and prejudices must unavoidably occasion in a mixed assembly. C. The author of the Divine Legation of Moses. more important works, that farce is deemed by our best critics an appendage of the theatre as well as pieces of a higher nature. A learned and excellent critic† has given it a full consideration, in his Dissertation on the several Provinces of the Drama. "The representations," says he, "of common nature may and exact image of their original, which alone is that I would call cOMEDY; or they may be forced and overcharged above the simple and just proportions of nature; as when the excesses of a few are given for standing characters; when not the man (in general) but the passion is described; or when, in the draught of the man, the leading feature is extended beyond measure; and in these cases, the representation holds of the province of farce." These remarks, from the pen of so accurate and sensible a writer, will evince that our author's farces very justly make a part of this edition. The mock tragedy of Tom Thumb is replete with as fine parody as, perhaps, has ever been written: the Lottery, the Intriguing Chambermaid, and the Virgin Unmasked, besides the real entertainment they afford, had on their first appearance, this additional merit, that they served to make early discoveries of that true comic genius which was then dawning forth in Mrs. Clive, which has since unfolded itself to a fulness of perfection, and continues to this day to be one of the truest ornaments of the stage. As this excellent actress received great advantages from the opportunities Mr. Fielding's pen afforded her; so he, in his turn, reaped the fruits of success from her abilities; and accord fore has but a bad claim to the name of poet, seems to be unguardedly adopted in the very beginning of that ingenious and entertaining work; and from that principle the conclusion will probably decide against our English Homer. From the elegant, and, in general, true spirit of criticism, which the Essayist on Mr. Pope's life and writings is acknowledged to possess, it was reasonably to be expected that he would have taken a comprehensive view of what INVENTION is, and then examined how far the want of it can be charged upon his author. But, in that ingly we find him acknowledging it, in a very hand- | sertion which has been in every half critic's mouth, some letter addressed to her, and prefixed to the namely, that Mr. Pope had little invention, and thereIntriguing Chambermaid: such a testimony of her merit, as it conduced to advance her progress, so it now will serve to perpetuate her fame; being enrolled in the records of a genius, whose works will be long admired: "I cannot help reflecting," says our author, "that the town has one obligation to me, who made the first discovery of your great capacity, and brought you earlier forward on the theatre than the ignorance of some, and the envy of others, would have otherwise permitted. I shall not here dwell on any thing so well known as your theatrical merit; which one of the finest judges, and the greatest man of his age, hath acknow-point, does he not seem to think him defenceless, ledged to exceed in humour that of any of your predecessors in his time." If this remark, was true thirty years ago, it may be added to her honour, that she hath not been eclipsed by any who have entered into the service of the Comic Muse since that time.* when he asserts that it is upon the merit of the Rape of the Lock that he will rank as a poet with pos| terity?-The introduction of machinery into this beautiful poem, Mr. Warton seems to think, shows more invention than any other composition of the Twickenham Bard; though even in this point he deals out to him the reputation of a MAKER with a sparing and a thrifty hand. As the book is near me, I will transcribe his words: "It is in this composition Pope principally appears a poet, in which he has displayed more imagination than in all his other works taken together: It should, however, be remembered, that he was not the FIRST former and creator of those beautiful machines, the Sylphs, on which his claim to imagination is chiefly founded. He found them existing ready to his hand; but has indeed employed them with singular judg As this Essay promises to treat of the genius, as well as the life of Henry Fielding, it may not be improper to pause here for an inquiry into his talents; though we are not arrived at that period of his life when they displayed themselves in their full warmth and splendour. And here it is necessary to caution the reader not to confine his idea of what is intended by the word genius to any one single faculty of the mind; because it is observable that many mistakes have arisen, even among writers of penetrating judgment, and well versed in critical learning, by hastily attaching themselves to an imperfect notion of this term, so common in literary dissertations.ment and artifice." But surely, in the use made of That invention is the first great leading talent of a poet, has been a point long since determined; because it is principally owing to that faculty of the mind that he is able to create, and be as it were a MAKER; which is implied in his original title, given to him by the consent of Greece. But surely there are many other powers of the mind, as fully essential to constitute a fine poet; and therefore in order to give the true character of any author's abilities, it should seem necessary to come to a right understanding of what is meant by GENIUS, and to analyze and arrange its several qualities. This once adjusted, it might prove no unpleasing task to examine what are the specific qualities of any poet in particular, to point out the talents of which he seems to have the freest command, or in the use of which he seems, as it were, to be lefthanded. In this plain, fair-dealing way, the true and real value of an author will be easily ascertained; whereas in the more confined method of investigation, which establishes, at the outset, one giant quality, and finding the object of the inquiry deficient in that, immediately proceeds to undervalue him in the whole, there seems to be danger of not trying his cause upon a full and equitable hearing. Thus, I think, a late celebrated poet is likely to suffer an unjust sentence from a gentleman who has already obliged the public with the first volume of an Essay on his Life and Genius. The common as the Sylphs and Gnomes, and the various employments assigned to those imaginary beings, the British author is as much a POET, as manifestly a MAKER, as the great father of the epic fable. Homer invented not the gods and goddesses, which he has interwoven in his immortal rhapsody. He took up the system of theology which he found received in Greece. "He rose," says Mr. Pope, "with the finest turn imaginable for poetry; and, designing to instruct mankind in the manner for which he was most adapted, made use of the ministry of the gods to give the highest air of veneration to his writings. Nor was it his business, when he undertook the province of a poet, (not of a mere philosopher,) to be the first who should discard that which furnishes poetry with its most beautiful appearance. Whatever, therefore, he might think of his gods, he took them as he found them; he brought them into action according to the notions which were then entertained, and in such stories as were then believed." In the same manner, the author of the Rape of the Lock availed himself of the Rosicrucian system, as he found it set forth in a French book, called "LE COMTE DE GaBALIS," and to those ideal beings he has given such a ministry, such interests, affections and employments, as carried with them sufficient poetical proba bility, and made a very beautiful machinery in his poem, enlarging the main action, and ennobling the trifles which it celebrates; not to mention that the superintendency of those imaginary agents was as new in poetry as the Ministeria Deorum in the Iliad or Odyssey. Perhaps, if the matter could be traced with accuracy, and a full knowledge of the state of Most of this digression might have been spared, if learning, the various systems of theology, and all the the author had waited for Dr. Warton's second volume, doctrines, opinions, and fables, which existed in Howhich, to say the truth, was most unaccountably de-mer's days, could be attained, we should find that This lively actress retired from the stage in 1769, and passed the rest of her life in the society of a few select friends, at her small but elegant cottage, near Strawberry-hill: she died at this place, Dec. 6, 1785, and was buried in Twickenham church. On the monu ment are some affectionate lines, written by Miss Pope, who was brought up by Mrs. Clive.-C. layed.-C. has observed, that "in the MYSTERIES, the description of the passage into the other world was borrowed" by the Egyptians themselves," as was natural, from the circumstances of their funeral rites: and it might easily be proved, if there were occasion, that they themselves transferred these realities into the MYOO, and not the Greeks, as latter writers generally imagine." The same learned inquirer into antiquity has remarked, in another part of the same tract, that if "an old the invention of the father of epic poetry did not so | of the republic of letters and the church,* in a most much consist in creating new existences, and striking admirable dissertation on the sixth book of the Æneid, out new ideas, as in making a poetic use of the fabulous deities which previously existed in the imaginations of mankind, and in forming new combinations of those ideas which had been conceived before, but had never been arranged in those complexities into which his fancy was able to dispose them. Thus we find that Homer's celebrated description of the state of the dead, is an absolute copy of the rites, customs, and ceremonies observed by the Egyptians at their funerals. The distribution of rewards and punish-poem, under the name of Orpheus, entitled a Descent ments, the residence of the blessed in the Elysian fields, and the shadows of the deceased, correspond exactly, says Diodorus Siculus, with the funerals of the Egyptians. The Grecian Mercury was founded upon the custom of a man's delivering a dead body to be conveyed or carried by another, who wore a mask with three heads resembling the fiction of Cerberus.-The Ocean was no other than the Nile, and was even so called by the Egyptians; the gates of the sun meant the town of Heliopolis; and the mansions of the happy, the delightful country about the lake Acherusia, near Memphis, where the dead were deposited in subterraneous vaults. Many other circumstances also agree with the solemnities of Egypt, as they were practised in the time of Diodorus; as the boat in which the deceased were carried; the ferryman, who was called Charon in the language of the country; the temple of Hecate, placed by the poets at the entrance of the infernal regions; the gates of Cocytus and Lethe, shut with bars of brass; and the gates of Truth, where there was an image of Justice. Minos and Rhadamanthus were indeed nam taken from Crete; but the ideas were derived from the Egyptian custom of sitting in judgment upon the life, manners, and conduct of the dead before they were allowed the rights of sepulture. And even strong traces of the punishment of Tityos, Tantalus, and Sisyphus, appear in the antiquities of Egypt; not to mention that the allotment of the daughters of Daraus is a manifest allusion to the ceremony of three hundred and twenty priests pouring water from the Nile into a vessel with holes in the bottom, at a city not far from Memphis. The Greek traveller and historian enumerates many other mystic traditions, fables, and religious ceremonies, from which the poet made palpable insertions into his work: Sir John Marsham also, elaborate in his researches into antiquity, has pointed out, in the Canon Egyptiacus, a considerable number of those transfusions from the customs and theology of Egypt. But it would lead too far from the scope of this Essay, should we enter into a detail of these matters; the curious reader may, if he pleases, see this inquiry pursued with great Laste and accuracy, by the ingenious author of the Inquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer; who makes it sufficiently evident that Egypt, like its own Nile upon the adjacent country, overflowed with all the fertility of science, fable, and mythology, to enrich the vast and capacious imagination of the Grecian bard. It will be proper, however, to add one observation more in this place, namely, that Homer was not the first who saw that the Asiatic customs, manners, and learning were capable of being perpetuated with that venerable air with which they have come down to posterity: a very illustrious ornament both into Hell, had been now extant, it would, perhaps, have shown us that no more was meant than Orpheus's initiation." Now as it is a settled point, that Orpheus preceded Homer, what shall we say of that invention which all succeeding ages have agreed to call the very origin and fountain of poetry? Shall we, in the style of the ancient or the modern Zoilus, illiberally call his immortal rhapsodies mere patch-work plundered from the fopperies of Egypt? Shall we not rather admire and venerate the vigour of that mind, which, in an age of general darkness and ignorance, could, by unabating industry, by indefatigable travels, and a constant pursuit of knowledge, so replenish itself with the stories of morality, history, politics geography, fable, and theology, as to import them all into Greece from the various Asiatic climes which he had visited, and interweave them in the texture of two poems, adorned and dignified with all the graces of the most fruitful imagination? If Homer did not originally form and create those prodigious images which abound in his work; if he was not the MAKER of many of those fables, particularly the Descent into Hell, which mankind have so much admired, he at least found out the use and application of them; the combination of those ideas was his own; the scheme was his which assembled them all into that wonderful union: in other words, the general fable was Homer's; and it required no less a genius to give uniformity amidst such an exuberance of variety, intri cacy, and complication, with such a noble perspicuity, such a consent of parts so uniting, as the painters express it, into harmony, and rising gradually into such a wonderful whole, that, as Mr. Pope expresses it, it shall always stand at the top of the sublime character, to be gazed at by readers with an admiration of its perfection, and by writers with a despair that it should ever be emulated with success.-There can be no manner of doubt but Homer, from the fecundity of his own fancy, enriched his poetry with many noble descriptions and beautiful episodes, which have never presented themselves to any of his predecessors: but as the models of many passages are still extant in the records of antiquity, it must be allowed that he possessed two sorts of invention; one, primary and original, which could associate images never before combined; the other, secondary and subordinate, which could find out for those ideas, which had been assembled before, a new place, a new order and arrangement, with new embellishments of the most harmonious and exalted language. From this observation arises the true idea of INVENTION; and whether a poet is hurried away into the description of a fictitious battle, or a grand council of gods or men, or The author of the Divine Legation of Moses. employs himself in giving poetic colourings to a real | gress of that action, together with a proper degree of system of Mysteries, (as Virgil has done in the sixth marvellous machinery, invention must be proscribed, Eneid,) there is invention in both cases-and, though and declared to have no hand in the work? Even the former may astonish more, the latter will always in this way of reasoning, the Dunciad will be an everhave its rational admirers; and from such a com-lasting instance of Mr. Pope's invention, and will, mentary as the Bishop of Gloucester's, instead of perhaps, constitute him a poet in a degree superior losing from its influence, will appear with a truer and to the Rape of the Lock, however exquisite it be in more venerable sublime, than when it was considered its kind. But these two pieces (if we except the latas the mere visionary scheme of a poetic imagination. ter part of the fourth Dunciad, which is in its subject Thus, then, we see the two provinces of invention; important, and in its execution sublime) seem to be at one time it is employed in opening a new vein of but the sportive exercise of the poet's fancy; or, as thought; at another, in placing ideas that have been he himself, talking of the Batrachomyomachia, has preoccupied in a new light, and lending them the ad- expressed it, they are "a beautiful raillery, in which vantages of novelty, by the force of a sublimer dic- a great writer might delight to unbend himself: an tion, or the turn of delicate composition.-There is a instance of that agreeable trifling which generally acpoetic touch that changes whatever it lights upon to companies the character of a rich imagination; like gold; and surely he who calls forth from any object vein of mercury running mingled with a mine of in nature, or any image of the mind, appearances that gold." The Essay on Man will always stand at the have not been observed before, is the inventor, the top of the sublime character: a noble work, indeed, maker of those additional beauties.-There is reason where we find the thorny reasonings of philosophy to believe, that, of what we have called primary, or blooming and shooting forth into all the flowers of original invention, there has not been so much in any poetry; feret et rubus asper amomum? To give to a one poet (not even excepting Homer) as has been subject of this kind such beautiful embellishments, regenerally imagined; and indeed, from the many fine quired, in Lord Shaftesbury's language, a Muse-like descriptions in the Iliad and the Odyssey, which can apprehension; and I cannot see why the treating of fairly be proved to be copies, (but the copies of a essential truths in a poetic manner should not be master poet,) there seems room to think that of the allowed as cogent an instance of invention, as the second sort he held a very considerable portion. Nor ornamented display of an Egyptian theology. The should this remark be thought derogatory from the Georgics would have gained Virgil the name of a high character of the bard, because it only tends to poet though the Eneid had never been written; and show that he availed himself of all the knowledge, re- Mr. Pope must ever be considered by posterity as a ligion, and mythology, that in his time were scattered Christian Lucretius. It was, perhaps, harder to give over the different regions of Asia and Greece. What a poetic air and grace to the following ideas, than to is here asserted concerning Homer, may also with describe the imaginary beings of the Rosicrucian phitruth be asserted of Mr. Pope. Determining to ac-losophy, or the fabulous deities of Greece. quire the exalted character of a poet, he enriched his mind with all the knowledge that subsisted in his time; all that could be furnished by the valuable remains of antiquity; all the improvements in science which modern application has brought to light; the pure morality and sublime theology which Revelation has handed down to us; together with the various systems of philosophy, which speculative men have formed and of all these he has made as noble a use as a fine imagination could suggest.* The scheme of thought, which introduces his acquired ideas into any of his poems, was surely his own; the virtue and venus of order which he has given to them was his own; the apt allusion which illustrates the metaphor which raises his language into dignity, the general splendour of his diction, the harmony of his numbers, and, in short, the poetic turn of his pieces, were all his own; and all these surely were the work of in-materials require, and in a barren field finds the most vention; and as this invention glows equally through all his poetry, it is not easy to conceive upon what principle it can be said, that upon the single strength of the Rape of the Lock he will rank as a poet with posterity. Can it be said that invention solely consists in describing imaginary beings? or that, where there is not what the critics call a fable, that is to say, a unity of action, with all the various perplexities and incidents which retard or accelerate the pro *Pope understood neither the sublime theology of Revelation, nor the various systems of philosophy. His "Essay on Man" proves this; a work in which he has embellished and exalted, by the graces of poetry, certain religious and philosophical opinions which he did not understand, and which he was glad to find vindicated by the ingenuity of his friends.-C. Say what the use, were finer optics given, If nature thunder'd in his op'ning ears, beautiful flowers to adorn his design, can never, in reason, be charged with a want of invention. The three great primary branches of composition are finely united in the writings of Pope; the imagination is delighted, the passions are awakened, and reason receives conviction; there is poetry to charm, rhetoric to persuade, and argument to demonstrate: and, perhaps, if Empedocles, whom Aristotle pronounces a physiologist rather than a poet, had been thus excellent in the graces of style, the great critic would have passed upon him a less severe sentence. It may be observed by the reader, that in pursuing the foregoing train of reflections, sight has been lost of Henry Fielding: but it never was intended, in this little tract, to observe the rules of strict biography. Besides, men of genius, like the arts they practise, have a connexion with each other, and are in a man- | mind was come to its full growth, he enjoyed every ner linked together by certain ties of affinity; habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur. Moreover, it was expedient, for the true delineation of an eminent writer's character, to remove difficulties out of the way, and to explain the terms of art which critics make use of. And thus having shown the different provinces of invention, we may now arrive at a juster idea of what is meant, when we talk of an author's genius. one of these qualifications, in great strength and vigour; yet, in order to give the true character of his talents, to mark the distinguishing specific qualities of his genius, we must look into the temper of the man, and see what bias it gave to his understanding; for when abilities are possessed in an eminent degree by several men, it is the peculiarity of habit that must discriminate them from each other. A love of imitation very soon prevailed in Mr. Fielding's mind. By imitation the reader will not understand that illegitimate kind, which consists in mimicking singularities of person, feature, voice, or manner; but that higher species of representation, which delights in just and faithful copies of human life. So early as when he was at Leyden, a propensity this way began to exert its emotions; and even made some efforts towards a comedy, in the sketch of Don Quixote in England. When he left that place, and settled in London, a variety of characters could not fail to attract his notice, and of course to strengthen his favourite inclination. It has been already observed in this Essay, that distress and disappointments betrayed him into occasional fits of peevishness and satiric humour. The eagerness of creditors, and the fallacy of dissembling friends, would for a while sour his temper; his feelings were acute, and naturally fixed his attention to those objects from whence his uneasiness sprung; of course he became, very early in life, an observer of men and manners. Shrewd and piercing in his discernment, he saw the latent sources of human actions, and he could trace the various incongruities of conduct arising from them. He may be truly said to be a genius, who possesses the leading faculties of the mind in their vigour, and can exercise them with warmth and spirit upon whatever subject he chooses. The imagination (in order to form a writer of eminence) must, in particular, be very quick and susceptible, or, as a fine poet has expressed it, it must be feelingly alive all o'er, that it may receive the strongest impressions either from the objects of nature, the works of art, or the actions and manners of men: for it is in proportion as this power of the mind is wrought upon, that the author feels in his own breast those fine sensations, which it is his business to impart to others, and that he is able to describe things in so lively a manner as to make them, as it were, present to us, and of consequence to give what turn he pleases to our affections. The judgment also must be clear and strong, that the proper parts of a story or description may be selected, that the disposition of the various members of a work may be such as to give a lucid order to the whole, and that such expression may be made use of, as shall not only serve to convey the intended ideas, but shall convey them forcibly, and with that decorum of style which the art of composition requires; so that simplicity shall not be impoverished into meanness, nor dignity be encumbered with a load of finery and affected ornament. Invention must also concur, that new scenery may be opened to the fancy, or, at least, that new lights may be thrown upon the prospects of Nature; that the sphere of our ideas may be enlarged, or a new assemblage may be formed of them, either in the way of fable or illustration; so that, if the author does not disclose original traces of thinking, by presenting to us objects unseen before, he may at least delight by the novelty of their combination, and the points of view in which he offers them. The power of the mind, moreover, which exerts itself in what Mr. Locke calls the association of ideas, must be quick, vigorous, and warm, because it is from thence that language receives its animated figures, its bold translation of phrases from one idea to another, the verbum ardens, the glowing metaphorical expression, which constitutes the richness and bold-seems so happy as when he is developing a characness of his imagery; and from thence likewise springs the readiness of ennobling a sentiment of description with the pomp of sublime comparison, or striking it deeper on the mind by the aptness of witty allusion. Perhaps what we call genius might be still more minutely analyzed; but these are its principal efficient qualities; and in proportion as these, or any of these, shall be found deficient in an author, so many degrees shall he be removed from the first rank and character of a writer. To bring these remarks home to the late Mr. Fielding, an estimate of him may be justly formed, by inquiring how far these various talents may be attributed to him; or, if he failed in any, what that faculty was, and what discount he must suffer for it. But though it will appear, perhaps, that, when he attained that period of life in which his As the study of man is delightful in itself, affording a variety of discoveries, and particularly interesting to the heart, it is no wonder that he should feel delight from it; and what we delight in soon grows into a habit. The various ruling passions of men, their foibles, their oddities, and their humours, engaged his attention; and, from these principles, he loved to account for the consequences which appeared in their behaviour. The inconsistencies that flow from vanity, from affectation, from hypocrisy, from pretended friendship, and, in short, all the dissonant qualities, which are often blended together by the follies of men, could not fail to strike a person who had so fine a sense of ridicule. A quick perception in this way, perhaps, affords as much real pleasure as the exercise of any other faculty of the mind: and accordingly we find that the ridiculous is predominant through all our author's writings; and he never ter made up of motley and repugnant properties, and shows you a man of specious pretences, turning out, in the end, the very reverse of what he would appear. To search out and to describe objects of this kind, seems to have been the favourite bent of Mr. Fielding's mind, as indeed it was of Theophrastus, Moliere, and others: like a vortex it drew in all his faculties, which were so happily employed in descriptions of the manners, that, upon the whole, he must be pronounced an admirable comic genius. When I call our author a comic genius, I would be understood in the largest acceptation of the phrase; implying humorous and pleasant imitation of men and manners, whether it be in the way of fabulous narration, or dramatic composition. In the former species of writing lay the excellence of Mr. Field |