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of this preference would, I suppose, have been," the improved gallantry of the "Gothic knights; and the fuperior folemnity of their fuperftitions.”

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IF any great poet, like HOMER, had flourished in these times, and given the feudal manners from the life (for, after all, SPENSER and TASSO came too late, and it was impoffible for them to paint truly and perfectly what was no longer feen or believed); this preference, I perfuade myself, had been very sensible, But their fortune was not fo happy:

-omnes illacrymabiles

Urgentur, ignotique longâ

Nocte, carent quia vate facro.

As it is, we may take a guefs of what the fubject was capable of affording to real genius, from the rude sketches we have of it in the old Romancers. And it is but looking into any of them to be convinced, that the GALLANTRY, which

infpirited

infpirited the feudal times, was of a nature to furnish the poet with finer scenes and fubjects of defcription in every view, than the fimple and uncontrolled barbarity of the Grecian.

THE principal entertainment arifing from the delineation of these confifts in the exercise of the boisterous paffions, which are provoked and kept alive, from one end of the Iliad to the other, by every imaginable fcene of rage, revenge, and flaughter. In the other, together with thefe, the gentler and more humane affections are awakened in us by the most interesting difplays of love and friendship; of love, elevated to its nobleft heights; and of friendship, operating on the pureft motives. The mere variety of these paintings is a relief to the reader, as well as writer. But their beauty, novelty, and pathos give them a vaft advantage, on the comparison.

So

So that, on the whole, though the fpirit, paffions, rapine, and violence of the two fets of manners were equal, yet there was an elegance, a variety, a dignity in the feudal, which the other wanted.

As to RELIGIOUS MACHINERY, perhaps the popular fyftem of each was equally remote from reafon; yet the lat ter had fomething in it more amusing, as well as more awakening to the imagination.

THE current popular tales of Elves and Fairies were even fitter to take the credulous mind, and charm it into a willing admiration of the Specious miracles which wayward fancy delights in, than thofe of the old traditionary rabble of Pagan divinities. And then, for the more folemn fancies of witchcraft and incanta

tion,

tion, the Gothic are above measure striking and terrible.

You will tell me, perhaps, that these fancies, as terrible as they were, are but of a piece with thofe of Pagan fuperstition; and that nothing can exceed what the claffic writers have related or feigned of its magic and necromantic horrors.

To spare you the trouble of muftering up against me all that your extenfive knowledge of antiquity would furnish, let me confefs to you that many of the antient poets have occafionally adorned this theme. If, among twenty others, I felect only the names of OVID, SENECA, and LUCAN, it is, because these writers, by the character of their genius, were beft qualified for the task, and have, befides, exerted their whole ftrength upon it. LUCAN, especially, has drawn out all the pomp of his eloquence in

celebrating

celebrating those THESSALIAN CHARMS,

ficti quas nulla licentia monftri

Tranfierat, quarum, quicquid non creditur, ars eft.

YET STILL I pretend to fhew you that all his prodigies fall fhort of the Gothic and you will come the lefs reluctantly into my fentiments, if you re flect," THAT the thick and troubled ftream of fuperftition, which flowed fo plentifully in the claffic ages, has been conftantly deepening and darkening by the confluence of thofe fupplies, which ignorance and corrupted religion have poured in upon it."

FIRST, you will call to mind that all the gloomy vifions of dæmons and fpirits, which fprung out of the Alexandrian or Platonic philofophy, were in the later ages of Paganism, engrafted on the old ftock of claffic fuperftition. These portentous dreams, new batched to the wo

ful

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