intituled ‘The Tragedy of Douglas,’ and got it to be acted at the theatre of Edinburgh; and that he, with several other ministers of the Church, were present, and some of them oftener than once, at the acting of the said play before a numerous audience.  The presbytery being deeply affected with this new and strange appearance, do publish these sentiments,’” &c., &c.—­sentiments with which I will not disgust the reader.]

[Footnote 2:  Walpole’s criticism is worth preserving as a singular proof how far prejudice can obscure the judgement of a generally shrewd observer, and it is the more remarkable since he selects as its especial fault the failure of the author’s attempts at humour; while all other critics, from Macaulay to Thackeray, agree in placing it among those works in which the humour is most conspicuous and most attractive.  Even Johnson, when Boswell once, thinking perhaps that his “illustrious friend” might be offended with its occasional coarseness, pronounced Sterne to be “a dull fellow,” was at once met with, “Why no, Sir.”]

[Footnote 3:  Bishop Warburton was Bishop of Gloucester, a prelate whose vast learning was in some degree tarnished by unepiscopal violence of temper.  He was a voluminous author; his most important work being an essay on “The Divine Legation of Moses.”  In one of his letters to Garrick he praises “Tristram Shandy” highly, priding himself on having recommended it to all the best company in town.]

ERSE POETRY—­“THE DIALOGUES OF THE DEAD”—­“THE COMPLETE ANGLER."

TO SIR DAVID DALRYMPLE.

June 20, 1760.

I am obliged to you, Sir, for the volume of Erse poetry:  all of it has merit; but I am sorry not to see in it the six descriptions of night with which you favoured me before, and which I like as much as any of the pieces.  I can, however, by no means agree with the publisher, that they seem to be parts of an heroic poem; nothing to me can be more unlike.  I should as soon take all the epitaphs in Westminster Abbey, and say it was an epic poem on the History of England.  The greatest part are evidently elegies; and though I should not expect a bard to write by the rules of Aristotle, I would not, on the other hand, give to any work a title that must convey so different an idea to every common reader.  I could wish, too, that the authenticity had been more largely stated.  A man who knows Dr. Blair’s character will undoubtedly take his word; but the gross of mankind, considering how much it is the fashion to be sceptical in reading, will demand proofs, not assertions.

I am glad to find, Sir, that we agree so much on “The Dialogues of the Dead;"[1] indeed, there are very few that differ from us.  It is well for the author, that none of his critics have undertaken to ruin his book by improving it, as you have done in the lively little specimen you sent me.  Dr. Brown has writ a dull dialogue, called “Pericles and Aristides,” which will have a different effect from what yours would have.  One of the most objectionable passages in Lord Lyttelton’s book is, in my opinion, his apologising for the moderate government of Augustus.  A man who had exhausted tyranny in the most lawless and unjustifiable excesses is to be excused, because, out of weariness or policy, he grows less sanguinary at last!