No poem of our author’s more deservedly obtained him reputation, than his Essay on Criticism.  Mr. Addison, in his Spectator, No. 253, has celebrated it with such profuse terms of admiration, that it is really astonishing, to find the same man endeavouring afterwards to diminish that fame he had contributed to raise so high.

The art of criticism (says he) which was published some months ago, is a master-piece in its kind.  The observations follow one another, like those in Horace’s Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity, which would have been requisite in a prose writer.  They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that elegance and perspicuity in which they are delivered.  As for those which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity.  And here give me leave to mention, what Monsieur Boileau has so well enlarged upon, in the preface to his works; that wit and fine writing do not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn.  It is impossible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or any art and science, which have not been touched upon by others.  We have little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights.  If a reader examines Horace’s Art of Poetry, he will find but few precepts in it, which he may not meet with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Augustan age.  His way of expressing, and applying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire.—­

“Longinus, in his Reflexions, has given us the same kind of sublime, which he observes in the several passages which occasioned them.  I cannot but take notice, that our English author has, after the same manner, exemplified several of his precepts, in the very precepts themselves.”  He then produces some instances of a particular kind of beauty in the numbers, and concludes with saying, that “we have three poems in our tongue of the same nature, and each a master-piece in its kind:  The Essay on Translated Verse, the Essay on the Art of Poetry, and the Essay on Criticism.” [Transcriber’s note:  Opening quotes missing in original.]

In the Lives of Addison and Tickell, we have thrown out some general hints concerning the quarrel which subsisted between our poet and the former of these gentlemen; here it will not be improper to give a more particular account of it.

The author of Mist’s Journal positively asserts, ’that Mr. Addison raised Pope from obscurity, obtained him the acquaintance and friendship of the whole body of our nobility, and transferred his powerful influence with those great men to this rising bard, who frequently levied by that means, unusual contributions on the public.[Transcriber’s note:  ‘pubic’ in original.] No sooner was his body lifeless, but this author reviving his resentment, libelled the memory of his departed friend, and what was still more heinous, made the scandal public.’