and fro in his Bed and burning with Resentment, to a Piece of Flesh broiled on the Coals.  This particular Failure in the Ancients, opens a large Field of Raillery to the little Wits, who can laugh at an Indecency but not relish the Sublime in these Sorts of Writings.  The present Emperor of Persia, conformable to this Eastern way of Thinking, amidst a great many pompous Titles, denominates himself The Sun of Glory and the Nutmeg of Delight.  In short, to cut off all Cavilling against the Ancients and particularly those of the warmer Climates who had most Heat and Life in their Imaginations, we are to consider that the Rule of observing what the French call the Bienseance in an Allusion, has been found out of latter Years, and in the colder Regions of the World; where we would make some Amends for our want of Force and Spirit, by a scrupulous Nicety and Exactness in our Compositions.

Our Countryman Shakespear was a remarkable Instance of this first kind of great Genius’s.

I cannot quit this Head without observing that Pindar was a great Genius of the first Class, who was hurried on by a natural Fire and Impetuosity to vast Conceptions of things and noble Sallies of Imagination.  At the same time, can any thing be more ridiculous than for Men of a sober and moderate Fancy to imitate this Poet’s Way of Writing in those monstrous Compositions which go among us under the Name of Pindaricks?  When I see People copying Works which, as Horace has represented them, are singular in their Kind, and inimitable; when I see Men following Irregularities by Rule, and by the little Tricks of Art straining after the most unbounded Flights of Nature, I cannot but apply to them that Passage in Terence: 

_...  Incerta haec si tu postules Ratione certa facere, nihilo plus agas, Quam si des operam, ut cum ratione insanias_.

In short a modern Pindarick Writer, compared with Pindar, is like a Sister among the Camisars [2] compared with Virgil’s Sibyl:  There is the Distortion, Grimace, and outward Figure, but nothing of that divine Impulse which raises the Mind above its self, and makes the Sounds more than human.

[There is another kind of great Genius’s which I shall place in a second Class, not as I think them inferior to the first, but only for Distinction’s sake, as they are of a different kind.  This [3]] second Class of great Genius’s are those that have formed themselves by Rules, and submitted the Greatness of their natural Talents to the Corrections and Restraints of Art.  Such among the Greeks were Plato and Aristotle; among the Romans, Virgil and Tully; among the English, Milton and Sir Francis Bacon.

[4] The Genius in both these Classes of Authors may be equally great, but shews itself [after [5]] a different Manner.  In the first it is like a rich Soil in a happy Climate, that produces a whole Wilderness of noble Plants rising in a thousand beautiful Landskips, without any certain Order or Regularity.  In the other it is the same rich Soil under the same happy Climate, that has been laid out in Walks and Parterres, and cut into Shape and Beauty by the Skill of the Gardener.