"One moment's time might I presume to beg?" Cries modest WATSON, on his wooden leg; That leg, in which such wond'rous art is shown, It almost seems to serve him like his own; Oh! had the monster, who for breakfast eat That luckless limb, his nobler noddle met, The best of workmen, nor the best of wood, Had scarce supply'd him with a head so good.
To have asserted that neither the utmost extent of human skill, nor the greatest perfection in the materials, could have been equal to an undertaking so arduous, would have been a species of adulation so fulsome, as to have shocked the known modesty of the worthy magistrate; but the forcible manner in which the difficulty of supplying so capital a loss is expressed, conveys, with the utmost delicacy, a handsome, and, it must be confessed, a most justly merited compliment to the Alderman's abilities.
The imitation of celebrated writers is recommended by Longinus, and has, as our readers must have frequently observed, been practised with great success, by our author; yet we cannot help thinking that he has pushed the precept of this great critic somewhat too far, in having condescended to copy, may we venture to say with so much servility, a genius so much inferior to himself as Mr. Pope. We allude to the following lines:
Can I, NEWHAVEN, FERGUSON forget, While Roman spirit charms, or Scottish wit? MACDONALD, shining a refulgent star, To light alike the senate and the bar; And HARLEY, constant to support the throne, Great follower of its interests and his own.
The substitution of _Scottish_ for _Attic_, in the second line, is unquestionably an improvement, since however Attic wit may have been proverbial in ancient times, the natives of Scotland are so confessedly distinguished among modern nations for this quality, that the alteration certainly adds considerable force to the compliment. But however happily and justly the characters are here described, we cannot think this merit sufficient to counterbalance the objection we have presumed to suggest, and which is principally founded upon the extreme veneration and high respect we entertain for the genius of our author.
Mr. Addison has observed, that Virgil falls infinitely short of Homer in the characters of his Epic Poem, both as to their variety and novelty, but he could not with justice have said the same of the author of the ROLLIAD; and we will venture to assert, that the single book of this Poem, now under our consideration, is, in this respect, superior to the whole, both of the Iliad and the Æneid together. The characters succeed each other with a rapidity that scarcely allows the reader time to admire and feel their several beauties.