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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.

The great Danger in these latter kind of Genius’s, is, lest they cramp their own Abilities too much by Imitation, and form themselves altogether upon Models, without giving the full Play to their own natural Parts. An Imitation of the best Authors is not to compare with a good Original; and I believe we may observe that very few Writers make an extraordinary Figure in the World, who have not something in their Way of thinking or expressing themselves that is peculiar to them, and entirely their own.

[6] It is odd to consider what great Genius’s are sometimes thrown away upon Trifles.

I once saw a Shepherd, says a famous Italian Author, [who [7]] used to divert himself in his Solitudes with tossing up Eggs and catching them again without breaking them: In which he had arrived to so great a degree of Perfection, that he would keep up four at a time for several Minutes together playing in the Air, and falling into his Hand by Turns. I think, says the Author, I never saw a greater Severity than in this Man’s Face; for by his wonderful Perseverance and Application, he had contracted the Seriousness and Gravity of a Privy-Councillor; and I could not but reflect with my self, that the same Assiduity and Attention, had they been rightly applied, might have made him a greater Mathematician than Archimedes.

C.

[Footnote 1: that]

[Footnote 2: The Camisars, or French Prophets, originally from the Cevennes, came into England in 1707. With violent agitations and distortions of body they prophesied and claimed also the power to work miracles; even venturing to prophesy that Dr Ernes, a convert of theirs, should rise from the dead five months after burial.]

[Footnote 3: The]

[Footnote 4: Not a new paragraph in the first issue.]

[Footnote 5: in]

[Footnote 7: Not a new paragraph in the first issue.]

[Footnote 8: that]