(1) A Mr. Rose and the Rev. Dr. Kippis were for many years its principal
support. Mrs. Rose (I have heard my father say) contributed the Monthly
Catalogue. There is sometimes a certain tartness and the woman's tongue
in it. It is said of Gray's _Elegy_, 'This little poem, however humble
its pretensions, is not without elegance or merit.' The characters of
prophet and critic are not always united.
(2) There are some splendid exceptions to this censure. His comparison
between Ovid and Virgil and his character of Shakespear are masterpieces
of their kind.
(3) We have critics In the present day (1821) who cannot tell what to
make of the tragic writers of Queen Elizabeth's age (except Shakespear,
who passes by prescriptive right), and are extremely puzzled to reduce
the efforts of their 'great and irregular' power to the standard of
their own slight and showy common-places. The truth is, they had better
give up the attempt to reconcile such contradictions as an artificial
taste and natural genius; and repose on the admiration of verses which
derive their odour from the scent of rose leaves inserted between the
pages, and their polish from the smoothness of the paper on which they
are printed. They, and such writers as Decker, and Webster, Beaumont
and Fletcher, Ford and Marlowe, move in different orbits of the human
intellect, and need never jostle.
(4) The intelligent reader will be pleased to understand that there is
here a tacit allusion to Squire Western's significant phrase of _Hanover
Rats._
(5) Of the two the latter alternative is more likely to happen. We abuse
and imitate them. They laugh at, but do not imitate us.
(6) The title of _Ultra-Crepidarian critics_ has been given to a variety
of this species.