knowledge of the mechanical arts; and I have
somewhere read, that in Scotland they could write elegant Latin verse
before they could make a wheel-barrow. For my own part, in my late visit
to London, I thought the decline of poetry no favorable symptom."

"I rejoice to hear it _is_ declining," said Mr. Tyrrel. "I hope that
what is decaying, may in time be extinguished."

"Mr. Tyrrel would have been delighted with that with which I was
displeased," replied I. "I met with philosophers, who were like Plato in
nothing but his abhorrence of the Muses; with politicians, who resembled
Burleigh only in his enmity to Spenser; and with warriors, who, however
they might emulate Alexander in his conquests, would never have imitated
him in sparing the house of Pindarus."

"The _art_ of poetry," said Mr. Stanley, "is to touch the passions, and
its _duty_ to lead them on the side of virtue. To raise and to purify
the amusements of mankind; to multiply and to exalt pleasures, which
being purely intellectual, may help to exclude such as are gross, in
beings so addicted to sensuality, is surely not only to give pleasure,
but to render service. It is allowable to seize every avenue to the
heart of a being so prone to evil; to rescue him by every fair means,
not only from the degradation of vice, but from the dominion of
idleness. I do not now speak of gentlemen of the sacred function, to
which Mr. Edward Tyrrel aspires, but of those who, having no profession,
have no stated employment; and who, having more leisure, will be in
danger of exceeding the due bounds in the article of amusement. Let us
then endeavor to snatch our youth of fashion from the low pleasures of
the dissolute; to snatch them, not only from the destruction of the
gaming-table, but from the excesses of the dining-table, by inviting
them to an elegant delight that is safe, and especially by enlarging the
range of pure mental pleasure.

"In order to this, let us do all we can to cultivate their taste, and
innocently indulge their fancy. Let us contend with impure writers,
those deadliest enemies to the youthful mind, by opposing to them in the
chaster author, images more attractive, wit more acute, learning more
various; in all which excellences our first-rate poets certainly excel
their vicious competitors."

"Would you, Mr. Tyrrel," said Sir John, "throw into the enemy's camp all
the light arms which often successfully annoy where the heavy artillery
can not reach?"