Proud of our lyric Galaxy, I hear
Of faded Genius with supreme disdain;
As when we see the Miser bend insane
O'er his full coffers, and in accents drear
Deplore imagin'd want;--and thus appear
To me those moody Censors, who complain,
As [1]Shaftsbury plain'd in a now _boasted_ reign,
That “POESY had left our darken'd sphere.”
Whence may the present stupid dream be traced
That now she shines not as in days foregone?
Perchance neglected, often shine in waste
Her LIGHTS, from number into confluence run,
More than when _thinly_ in th' horizon placed
Each Orb shone separate, and appear'd a Sun.
1: Of the Poets, who were cotemporary with Lord Shaftsbury, Dryden,
Cowley, Pope, Prior, Congreve, Gay, Addison, &c. in the Period which
_this_ Age styles AUGUSTAN, his Lordship speaks with _sovereign
scorn_. In his Characteristics he, without making any exception,
labors to prove, that the compositions of Dryden are uniformly
contemptible. See his advice to an Author in the second Volume of the
Characteristics, and also his miscellaneous reflections in the third
Volume; “If,” says he to the authors, “your Poets are still to be
_Mr. Bayses_, and your prose writers _Sir Rogers_, without offering
at a _better_ manner, must it follow that the manner is good, and the
wit genuine?”
Thus it is that the jealousy People of literary fame often feel of
each other, produces the foolish, and impolitic desire of decrying
the general pretensions of the Age to Genius. Their narrow
selfishness leads them to _betray_ the common cause, which it is
their _true_ interest to _support_. They persuade the credulous Many,
with whom envy of superior talents increases their willingness to
despise, that Imagination is become enervated; designing, however, to
have it understood, that in their individual instance exists the sole
exception,
“For they wou'd each bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus.”