l. i. p. 144.]

[Footnote 8: "Mac Flecknoe, the Dunciad, and all Swift's lampooning
ballads.--Whatever their other works may be, these originated in
personal feelings and angry retort on unworthy rivals; and though the
ability of these satires elevates the poetical, their poignancy detracts
from the personal, character of the writers."]

[Footnote 9: "Harvey, the _circulator_ of the _circulation_ of the
blood, used to fling away Virgil in his ecstasy of admiration, and say
'the book had a devil.' Now, such a character as I am copying would
probably fling it away also, but rather wish that the devil had the
book; not from a dislike to the poet, but a well-founded horror of
hexameters. Indeed, the public-school penance of 'Long and Short' is
enough to beget an antipathy to poetry for the residue of a man's life,
and perhaps so far may be an advantage."]

[Footnote 10: "'Hell,' a gaming-house so called, where you risk little,
and are cheated a good deal: 'Club,' a pleasant purgatory, where you
lose more, and are not supposed to be cheated at all."]

[Footnote 11: "As Mr. Pope took the liberty of damning Homer, to whom he
was under great obligations--'And Homer (damn him) calls'--it may be
presumed that any body or any thing may be damned in verse by poetical
license; and in case of accident, I beg leave to plead so illustrious a
precedent."]

[Footnote 12: "This well-meaning gentleman has spoilt some excellent
shoemakers, and been accessary to the poetical undoing of many of the
industrious poor. Nathaniel Bloomfield and his brother Bobby have set
all Somersetshire singing. Nor has the malady confined itself to one
county. Pratt, too (who once was wiser), has caught the contagion of
patronage, and decoyed a poor fellow, named Blackett, into poetry; but
he died during the operation, leaving one child and two volumes of
'Remains' utterly destitute. The girl, if she don't take a poetical
twist, and come forth as a shoemaking Sappho, may do well, but the
'Tragedies' are as rickety as if they had been the offspring of an Earl
or a Seatonian prize-poet. The patrons of this poor lad are certainly
answerable for his end, and it ought to be an indictable offence. But
this is the least they have done; for, by a refinement of barbarity,
they have made the (late) man posthumously ridiculous, by printing what
he would have had sense enough never to print himself. Certes, these
rakers of 'Remains' come under the statute against res