PREFACE.

N an age advanced to the highest degree of refinement, that species of curiofity commences, which is bufied in contemplating the progrefs of focial life, in difplaying the gradations of fcience, and in tracing the tranfitions from barbarifm to civility.

That these fpeculations fhould become the favourite pursuits, and the fashionable topics, of such a period, is extremely natural. We look back on ancestors with the

the favage condition of our triumph of superiority; we are pleased to mark the fteps by which we have been raised from rudeness to elegance and our reflections on this subject are accompanied with a confcious pride, arifing, in great measure, from a tacit comparison of the infinite difproportion. between the feeble efforts of remote ages, and our present improvements in knowledge.

1

In the mean time, the manners, monuments, customs, practices, and opinions of antiquity, by forming fo ftrong a contraft with those of our own times, and by exhibiting human nature and human inventions in new lights, in unexpected appearances, and in various forms, are objects which forcibly ftrike a feeling imagination.

Nor does this fpectacle afford nothing more than a fruitlefs gratification to the fancy. It teaches us to set a juft eftimation on our own acquifitions; and encourages us to cherish that cultivation, which is fo closely connected with the existence and the exercise of every focial virtue.

On these principles, to develope the dawnings of genius, and to pursue the progress of our national poetry, from a rude origin and obfcure beginnings,. to its perfection in a polifhed age, muft prove an interesting and inftructive inveftigation. But a hiftory of poetry, for another reason, yet on the fame principles, must be more especially productive of entertainment and utility. I mean, as it is an art, whose object is human fociety: as it has the peculiar merit, in its operations on that object, of faithfully recording the features of the times, and of pre

ferving

ferving the moft picturefque and expreffive representations of manners: and, because the firft monuments of compofition in every nation are those of the poet, as it poffeffes the additional advantage of transmitting to pofterity genuine delineations of life in its fimpleft ftages. Let me add, that anecdotes of the rudiments of a favourite art will always be particularly pleafing. The The more early specimens of poetry muft ever amufe, in proportion to the pleasure which we receive from its finished productions.

Much however depends on the execution of fuch a defign, and my readers are to decide in what degree I have done juftice to fo fpecious and promifing a difquifition. Yet a few more words will not be perhaps improper, in vindication, or rather in explanation, of the manner in which my work has been conducted. I am fure I do not mean, nor can I pretend, to apologise for its defects.

I have chose to exhibit the hiftory of our poetry in a chronological feries: not diftributing my matter into detached articles, of periodical divifions, or of general heads. Yet I have not always adhered fo fcrupulously to the regularity of annals, but that I

have often deviated into incidental digreffions; and have fometimes ftopped in the course of my career, for the fake of recapitulation, for the purpose of collecting fcattered notices into a fingle and uniform point of view, for the more exact inspection of a topic which required a separate confideration, or for a comparative survey of the poetry of other nations.

A few years ago, Mr. MASON, with that liberality which ever accompanies true genius, gave me an authentic copy of Mr. POPE's scheme of a Hiftory of English Poetry, in which our poets were classed under their fuppofed refpective schools. The late lamented Mr. GRAY had also projected a work of this kind, and translated fome Runic odes for its illustration, now published: but foon relinquishing the prosecution of a defign, which would have detained him from his own noble inventions, he moft obligingly condefcended to favour me with the fubftance of his plan, which I found to be that of Mr. POPE, confiderably enlarged, extended, and improved.

It is vanity in me to have mentioned these communications. But I am apprehenfive my vanity will justly be thought much greater, when it shall appear, that in giving the hiftory of English poetry,