and, writing too often without Aristotle or Locke
by his side, he gave the town pure Dennis, and almost ceased to be
read. "The oppression" of which he complains might not be less
imaginary than his alarm, while a treaty was pending with France, that
he should be delivered up to the Grand Monarque for having written a
tragedy, which no one could read, against his majesty.

It is melancholy, but it is useful, to record the mortifications of
such authors. Dennis had, no doubt, laboured with zeal which could
never meet a reward; and, perhaps, amid his critical labours, he
turned often with an aching heart from their barren contemplation to
that of the tranquillity he might have derived from an humbler
avocation.

It was not literature, then, that made the mind coarse, brutalising
the habits and inflaming the style of Dennis. He had thrown himself
among the walks of genius, and aspired to fix himself on a throne to
which Nature had refused him a legitimate claim. What a lasting source
of vexation and rage, even for a long-lived patriarch of criticism!

Accustomed to suspend the scourge over the heads of the first authors
of the age, he could not sit at a table or enter a coffee-house
without exerting the despotism of a literary dictator. How could the
mind that had devoted itself to the contemplation of masterpieces,
only to reward its industry by detailing to the public their human
frailties, experience one hour of amenity, one idea of grace, one
generous impulse of sensibility?

But the poor critic himself at length fell, really more the victim of
his criticisms than the genius he had insulted. Having incurred the
public neglect, the blind and helpless Cacus in his den sunk fast into
contempt, dragged on a life of misery, and in his last days, scarcely
vomiting his fire and smoke, became the most pitiable creature,
receiving the alms he craved from triumphant genius.

FOOTNOTES:

[37] It is curious to observe that Kippis, who classifies with the
pomp of enumeration his heap of pamphlets, imagines that, as
Blackmore's Epic is consigned to oblivion, so likewise must be
the criticism, which, however, he confesses he could never
meet with. An odd fate attends Dennis's works: his criticism
on a bad work ought to survive it, as good works have survived
his criticisms.

[38] See in Dennis's "Original Letters" one to Tonson, entitled, "On
the conspiracy aga