exhibiting at once the learning of an historian, an antiquary,
a naturalist, and a geographer, and embellished by the
imagination of a poet."--ED.

[136] In the dedication of the first part to Prince Henry, the author
says of his work, "it cannot want envie: for even in the birth
it alreadie finds that."--ED.

THE ILLUSIONS OF WRITERS IN VERSE.

Who would, with the awful severity of Plato, banish poets from the
Republic? But it may be desirable that the Republic should not be
banished from poets, which it seems to be when an inordinate passion
for writing verses drives them from every active pursuit. There is no
greater enemy to domestic quiet than a confirmed versifier; yet are
most of them much to be pitied: it is the _mediocre_ critics they
first meet with who are the real origin of a populace of _mediocre_
poets. A young writer of verses is sure to get flattered by those who
affect to admire what they do not even understand, and by those who,
because they understand, imagine they are likewise endowed with
delicacy of taste and a critical judgment. What sacrifices of social
enjoyments, and all the business of life, are lavished with a
prodigal's ruin in an employment which will be usually discovered to
be a source of early anxiety, and of late disappointment![137] I say
nothing of the ridicule in which it involves some wretched Maevius, but
of the misery that falls so heavily on him, and is often entailed on
his generation. Whitehead has versified an admirable reflection of
Pope's, in the preface to his works:--

For wanting wit be totally undone,
And barr'd all arts, for having fail'd in one?

The great mind of BLACKSTONE never showed him more a poet than when he
took, not without affection, "a farewell of the Muse," on his being
called to the bar. DRUMMOND, of Hawthornden, quitted the bar from his
love of poetry; yet he seems to have lamented slighting the profession
which his father wished him to pursue. He perceives his error, he
feels even contrition, but still cherishes it: no man, not in his
senses, ever had a more lucid interval:--

I changed countries, new delights to find;
But ah! for pleasure I did find new pain;
Enchanting pleasure so did reason blind,
That father's love and words I scorn'd as vain.
I know that all the Muses' heavenly lays,
With toil of spirit which are so dearly bought,
As idle sounds of few or none are soug