punning, in the first; and that of judging character by
exteriors, in the last; are both attributed to Henley.--ED.

[46] The title is, "Esther, Queen of Persia, an historical Poem, in
four books; by John Henley, B.A. of St. John's College,
Cambridge. 1714."

[47] Many of the rough drafts of his famed discourses delivered at
the Oratory are preserved in the library of the Guildhall,
London. The advertisements he drew up for the papers,
announcing their subject, are generally exceedingly whimsical,
and calculated to attract popular attention.--ED.

[48] This narrative is subscribed A. Welstede. Warburton maliciously
quotes it as a life of Henley, written by Welsted--doubtless
designed to lower the writer of that name, and one of the
heroes of the Dunciad. The public have long been deceived by
this artifice; the effect, I believe, of Warburton's
dishonesty.

[49] Every lecture is dedicated to some branch of the royal family.
Among them one is on "University Learning," an attack.--"On
the English History and Historians," extremely curious.--"On
the Languages, Ancient and Modern," full of erudition.--"On
the English Tongue," a valuable criticism at that moment when
our style was receiving a new polish from Addison and Prior.
Henley, acknowledging that these writers had raised
_correctness_ of expression to its utmost height, adds,
though, "if I mistake not, something to the detriment of that
_force_ and _freedom_ that ought, with the most concealed art,
to be a perfect copy of nature in all compositions." This is
among the first notices of that artificial style which has
vitiated our native idiom, substituting for its purity an
affected delicacy, and for its vigour profuse ornament. Henley
observes that, "to be perspicuous, pure, elegant, copious, and
harmonious, are the chief good qualities of writing the
English tongue; they are attained by study and practice, and
lost by the contrary: but _imitation_ is to be avoided; they
cannot be made our own but by keeping the force of our
understandings superior to our models; by _rendering our
thoughts the original, and our words the copy_."--"On Wit and
Imagination," abounding with excellent criticism.-