But the mistaken foundation on which the critic difputes, or at least doubts, the validity of our author's claim, betrays itself in his admitting that Mr. POPE has difplayed more imagination in the Rape of the Lock, than in all his other works taken together; with this abatement, that he was not the FIRST former and creator of thofe beautiful machines, the Sylphs.

If by this is meant, that Mr. POPE was not the first who brought the Sylphs into poetical machinery, the obfervation, were it true, would have weight. But it is deftitute of truth: for Mr. POPE was unquestionably the first who employed this machinery. He first discovered the relations between those imaginary beings of air, and the light fantastic objects he intended to ridicule. He firft affigned thofe beings their several charges, directed their feveral functions, denoun-. ced their several punishments, and framed various new affociations of pleafing ideas from this whimfical fyftem and if this is not INVENTION, it is difficult to say what is.

If, on the other hand, it is only meant that Mr. POPE was not the inventor of the Rofycrucian fyftem of the Sylphs, this is true; but it is fo far from arguing his want of invention, that, to have made fuch a system, was not only out of the province of poetical invention, but had it been brought into it, would have destroyed all its effect.

Poetical invention must have the popular belief to work upon, or it can never attain its end. Gg 2 Could

Could Homer have brought his gods, or Milton his devils, into poetical machinery, had they been the inventors of either fyftem? No: They took them as they found them, ready framed for their purpose, by having become the objects of popular belief.

It is faid, indeed, that there have been critics, in former as well as later times, weak enough to fuppofe, that Homer himself was the first inventor of his gods and goddeffes. But furely what made him the admiration of the Greeks of his own and after times, was his giving them back, conveyed in the most splendid light, the image of their own minds.

But he who at prefent ufes the pagan mythology for his poetical machinery, may be fairly charged with want of invention; because it has not only been pre-occupied, but has been fo long ufed, that it is now worn out. For a fupernatural fyftem may be too old, as well as too new; and is alike unfit for poetic ufe, either when it has lost, or when it never had, the popular belief:

It is from this reafon, that the antient mythology is become difgufting. We cannot now bear invocations to the mufes. Apollo now no longer fhines in the fplendid fphere, to which the poets exalted him. Even Venus herfelf, though girt with her Ceftus, muft give up the power of inspiration; and her fon, Cupid, now can wound no longer. We may indeed fmile to fee him in Anacreon, fluttering his wings, and pointing his

arrows;

arrows; but if a modern were to draw fuch a picture, we should throw it afide with disgust, and defpife him as the pitiful copift of an exploded fyftem.

What a Phenomenon of a poet then must he be, who, to affect the name of an Inventor, first conceives a system of faith for the people, and then, without waiting till it be received, founds all his probable adventures upon it! The reader not being previously acquainted with the fyftem, or with the nature of the Beings it comprizes, would be at a lofs to conceive why fuch and fuch particular attributes and functions are affigned to each; and fuch an attempt would rather shock, than delight the imagination.

Homer, the great Inventor, did far otherwife; he took the popular religion as he found it, and employed the traditional tales, of which it was full, to convey to his readers, in all the majesty of numbers, and fplendour of painting, the trueft philofophy of the human paffions and affections. This was that MAGIC OF INVENTION, which has fo fascinated every age, from his own to the present.

Even the wild Ariofto was not fo far gone, as to have recourfe to the moon for Invention; though he sent one of his heroes, and might have fent many of his critics, thither for the recovery of their wits. He was not the firft Doctor who advised this remedy. As grotefque a picture as he gives us of humanity, it was a true one of the times he lived in; which were extravagantly de→ praved, by the romances of chivalry, and the legendary tales of the faints.

Gg 3

But

But to fhew the false ground on which Mr. POPE's title to invention is brought into queftion, let us fuppofe a critic on Newton fhould fay "He had not much phyfical Invention. His "merit of that kind muft reft on the reflecting

Telefcope. Here he has shown more invention, "than in any of his works; and yet, even here we must remember, that he was not the firft "former of Steel and Glafs."

66

Though this may be thought too extravagant, to be faid feriously; yet it is much less so, than the above objection to POPE's claim of invention. Had Newton firft difcovered the use of steel and glafs, it had not fpoiled his optical Invention, and had greatly benefited mankind; but had POPE been the inventor of the Sylphian System, he had been difabled from making any poetical ufe of the whimfies he had created; and had, moreover, injured fociety, by adding an overload to labouring fuperftition.

In fhort, a critic who denies our poet the merit of invention, because he did not invent the Sylphian Syftem, might with as much propriety fay, that Mr. POPE had no invention, because he did not make Mifs Fermor's lock of hair, nor the fciffars with which her gallant divided it.

One would be apt to fuppofe, that they who difpute Mr. POPE's claim in this refpect, confined their ideas of invention, merely to the production of fomewhat fabulous and fantaftic, fuch as the ftories of the Centaurs, the Mermaids, and Syrens, &c.

In the estimation of fuch, one would imagine that Ovid must be the prince of poets, as he is continually entertaining our imagination with the fpeciofa miracula, and is constantly teeming with a fucceffion of monsters *.

But they do not confider that the mind which first created these imaginary existencies, did not display greater, nor yet fo great power of invention, as he who firft introduced them into poetical machinery.

The first formation of them, was effected by the combination of a very few fimple ideas. But to bring them into action, to prescribe their various provinces, to direct their feveral operations, and to deduce the moral refulting from their

The right reverend and learned author of the Divine Legation of Mofes, has shown, nevertheless, that even Ovid here was no Inventor, but indebted for his fables to the preceding Greek writers, who took them from the popular tales. The METAMORPHOSIS, his Lordship obferves with his ufual acumen, arofe from the doctrine of the METEMPSYCHOSIS; and was, indeed, a mode of it, and, of course, a very confiderable part of the Pagan theology: fo that we are not to wonder if feveral grave writers made collections of them, such as Nicander, Boeus, Callisthenes, Dorotheus, Theodorus, Parthenius, and Adrian the fophift. Of what kind these collections were, we may fee by that of Antonius Liberalis, who tranfcribed from them thence, too, Ovid gathered his materials, and formed them into a poem, on the most fublime and regular plan, A POPULAR HISTORY OF PROVIDENCE; carried down in as methodical a manner, as the graces of poetry would allow, from the creation to his own times, through the EGYPTIAN, PHENICIAN, GREEK, and ROMAN hiftories: And this the elegant Paterculus feems to intimate, in the character he gives of the poet and his works.

Gg 4

respective