a great deal finer than his master.  In short, a man without common sense may very well judge of what a man writes without common sense, and without common sense composes.’  He then inquires what the consequence will be if we banish poetry, which is, that taste, politeness, erudition and public spirit will fall with it, and all for a Song.  The declension of poetry in Greece and Rome was soon followed by that of liberty and empire; according to Roscommon in his Essay on Translated Verse.

  True poets are the guardians of a state,
  And when they fail, portend approaching fate: 
  For that which Rome to conquest did inspire,
  Was not the Vestal, but the Muses fire;
  Heav’n joins the blessings, no declining age
  E’er felt the raptures of poetic rage.

In 1711 Mr. Dennis published an Essay upon Public Spirit, being a satire in prose, upon the Manners and Luxury of the Times, the chief sources of our present Parties and Divisions.  This is one of the most finished performances of our author; the intention is laudable, and the execution equal to the goodness of the design.  He begins the Essay, with a definition, of the love of our country, shews how much the phrase has been prostituted, and how seldom understood, or practised in its genuine sense.  He then observes how destructive it is to indulge an imitation of foreign fashions; that fashions are often followed by the manners of a people from whom they are borrowed; as in the beginning of king Charles the IId’s reign.  After the general distraction which was immediately consequent upon the Restoration, lord Halifax informs us, the people began to shake off their slavery in point of dress, and to be ashamed of their servility in that particular; ’and that they might look the more, says his lordship, like a distinct people, they threw off their fashions, and put on vests:  The French did not like this independence, this slight shewn to their taste, as they thought it portended no good to their politics, considering that it is a natural introduction, first to make the world their asses, that they may afterwards make them their slaves.  They sent over the duchess of Portsmouth, who, besides many other commissions, bore one to laugh us out of our vests, which she performed so effectually, that in a moment we were like so many footmen, who had quitted their masters livery, we took it again, and returned to our old service.  So that the very time of doing this gave a very critical advantage to France, since it looked like an evidence or returning to their interests, as well as their fashions.’

After giving this quotation from the marquis of Halifax, he proceeds to inveigh against the various kinds of luxury, in which people of fashion indulge themselves.