No. 92. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 1753
Cum tabulis animum censoris sumet honesti.
HOR. Lib. ii. Ep. ii. 110.
Bold be the critick, zealous to his trust,
Like the firm judge inexorably just.
TO THE ADVENTURER.
SIR,
IN the papers of criticism which you have given to
the publick, I have remarked a spirit of candour
and love of truth equally remote from bigotry and
captiousness; a just distribution of praise amongst
the ancients and the moderns: a sober deference to
reputation long established, without a blind adoration
of antiquity; and a willingness to favour later
performances, without a light or puerile fondness
for novelty.
I shall, therefore, venture to lay before you, such
observations as have risen to my mind in the
consideration of Virgil's pastorals, without any inquiry
how far my sentiments deviate from established rules
or common opinions.
If we survey the ten pastorals in a general view,
it will be found that Virgil can derive from them
very little claim to the praise of an inventor. To
search into the antiquity of this kind of poetry is
not my present purpose; that it has long subsisted in
the east, the Sacred Writings sufficiently inform us;
and we may conjecture, with great probability, that
it was sometimes the devotion, and sometimes the
entertainment of the first generations of mankind.
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