ON READING A DESCRIPTION OF POPE's GARDENS AT TWICKENHAM.
Ah! might I range each hallow'd bower and glade Musæus cultur'd, many a raptur'd sigh Wou'd that dear, local consciousness supply Beneath his willow, in the grotto's shade, Whose roof his hand with ores and shells inlaid. How sweet to watch, with reverential eye, Thro' the sparr'd arch, the streams he oft survey'd, Thine, blue Thamésis, gently wandering by! This is the POET's triumph, and it towers O'er Life's pale ills, his consciousness of powers That lift his memory from Oblivion's gloom, Secure a train of these heart-thrilling hours By his idea deck'd in rapture's bloom, For Spirits rightly touch'd, thro' ages yet to come.
Proud of our lyric Galaxy, I hear Of faded Genius with supreme disdain; As when we see the Miser bend insane O'er his full coffers, and in accents drear Deplore imagin'd want;--and thus appear To me those moody Censors, who complain, As [1]Shaftsbury plain'd in a now _boasted_ reign, That “POESY had left our darken'd sphere.” Whence may the present stupid dream be traced That now she shines not as in days foregone? Perchance neglected, often shine in waste Her LIGHTS, from number into confluence run, More than when _thinly_ in th' horizon placed Each Orb shone separate, and appear'd a Sun.
1: Of the Poets, who were cotemporary with Lord Shaftsbury, Dryden, Cowley, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Gay, Addison, &c. in the Period which _this_ Age styles AUGUSTAN, his Lordship speaks with _sovereign scorn_. In his Characteristics he, without making any exception, labors to prove, that the compositions of Dryden are uniformly contemptible. See his advice to an Author in the second Volume of the Characteristics, and also his miscellaneous reflections in the third Volume; “If,” says he to the authors, “your Poets are still to be _Mr. Bayses_, and your prose writers _Sir Rogers_, without offering at a _better_ manner, must it follow that the manner is good, and the wit genuine?”
Thus it is that the jealousy People of literary fame often feel of each other, produces the foolish, and impolitic desire of decrying the general pretensions of the Age to Genius. Their narrow selfishness leads them to _betray_ the common cause, which it is their _true_ interest to _support_. They persuade the credulous Many, with whom envy of superior talents increases their willingness to despise, that Imagination is become enervated; designing, however, to have it understood, that in their individual instance exists the sole exception,