What can be more natural or more
ingenuous than to suppose that the persons principally commended in a
work, were themselves the writers of it? And for that allusion of the
Scotch pedlars, for my part, I hold it to be inimitable.
2. But what is most admirable is the independent spirit, with which they
stemmed the torrent of fashion, and forestalled the second thoughts of
their countrymen. There was a time when Tristram Shandy was applauded,
and Churchill thought another Dryden. But who reads Tristram now? There
prevails indeed a certain quaintness, and something "like an affectation
of being immoderately witty, throughout the whole work." But for real
humour not a grain. So said the Monthly Reviewers, (v. 21. p. 568.) and
so says the immortal Knox. Both indeed grant him a slight knack at the
pathetic; but, if I may venture a prediction, his pretensions to the
latter will one day appear no better founded, than his pretentions to
the former.
And then poor Churchill! His satire now appears to be dull and
pointless. Through his tedious page no modern student can labour. We
look back, and wonder how the rage of party ever swelled this _thing_
into a poet. Even the great constellation, from whose tribunal no
prudent man ever appealed, has excluded him from a kingdom, where Watts
and Blackmore reign.
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