mane fentiments towards the dead, though he cannot forbear observing, that the not paying more of our public debts was, as hinted in this character, a great, and the only great, error in that long administration."

No. II.

Letter from Mr. Hume to the Authors of the Critical Review, respecting Mr. WILKIE'S Epigoniad, 2d edit.; referred to by him in his Letter to Dr. Adam Smith, of 12 April, 1759.

[By perufing the following article, the reader will perceive, that how subject foever we, the Reviewers, may be to overfights and errors, we are not so hardened in critical pride and infolence, but that, upon conviction, we can retract our cenfures, and provided we be candidly rebuked, kiss the rod of correction with great humility.]

TO THE AUTHORS OF THE CRITICAL REVIEW.

Gentlemen,

April, 1759.

The great advantages which refult from literary journals have recommended the ufe of them all over Europe; but as nothing is free from abufe, it must be confeffed, that fome inconveniencies have alfo attended thefe undertakings. The works of the learned multiply in fuch a furprising manner, that a journalist, in order to give an account to the public of all new performances, is obliged to pe

ruse a small library every month; and as it is impoffible for him to bestow equal attention on every piece which he criticizes, he may readily be furprised into mistakes, and give to a book such a character as, on a more careful perufal, he would willingly retract. Even performances of the greateft merit are not fecure against this injury, and, perhaps, are fometimes the most exposed to it. An author of genius fcorns the vulgar arts of catching applaufe; he pays no court to the great; gives no adulation to thofe celebrated for learning; takes no care to provide himfelf of partizans, or proneurs, as the French call them; and by that means his work fteals unobferved into the world; and it is fome time before the public, and even men of penetration, are sensible of its merit. We take up the book with prepoffeffion, perufe it carelessly, are feebly affected by its beauties, and lay it down with neglect, perhaps with disapprobation.

The public has done so much justice to the gentlemen engaged in the Critical Review as to acknowledge that no literary journal was ever carried on in this country with equal spirit and impartiality; yet I must confefs that an article, published in your Review of 1757, gave me great furprise, and not a little uneafinefs. It regarded a book called the Epigoniad, a poem of the epic kind, which was at that time publifhed with great applaufe at EdinBurgh, and of which a few copies had been fent up to London. The author of that article had furely been lying under ftrong prepoffeffions, when he

fpoke

fpoke fo negligently of a work which abounds in fuch fublime beauties, and could endeavour to dif credit a poem, confifting of near fix thoufand lines, on account of a few mistakes in expreffion and profody, proceeding entirely from the author's being a Scotchman, who had never been out of his own country. As there is a new edition publifhed of this poem, wherein all or most of these trivial miftakes are corrected, I flatter myself that you will gladly lay hold of this opportunity of retracting your overfight, and doing juftice to a performance, which may, perhaps, be regarded as one of the ornaments of our language. I appeal from your fentence, as an old woman did from a fentence pronounced by Philip of Macedon: I appeal from Philip, ill-counfelled and in a hurry, to Philip welladvifed, and judging with deliberation.

The authority which you poffefs with the public makes your cenfure fall with weight, and I question. not but you will be the more ready on that account to redrefs any injury, into which either negligence, prejudice, or mistake, may have betrayed you. As I profefs myself to be an admirer of this performance, it will afford me pleafure to give you a fhort analysis of it, and to collect a few specimens of thofe great beauties in which it abounds.

The author, who appears throughout his whole. work to be a great admirer and imitator of Homer, drew the fubject of this poem from the fourth Iliad, where Sthenelus gives Agamemnon a fhort account Ee 3

of

of the facking of Thebes. After the fall of those he roes celebrated by Statius, their fons, and among the rest Diomede, undertook the fiege of that city, and were fo fortunate as to fucceed in their enterprize, and to revenge on the Thebans and the ty rant Creon, the death of their fathers. These young heroes were known to the Greeks under the title of the Epigoni, or the Defcendants; and for this reafon the author has given to his poem the title of Epigoniad; a name, it must be confeffed, fomewhat unfortunately chofen : for as this particular was known only to a very few of the learned, the public were not able to conjecture what could be the fubject of the poem, and were apt to neglect what it was impoffible for them to understand.

There remained a tradition among the Greeks, that Homer had taken this fecond fiege of Thebes for the fubject of a poem, which is loft; and our author seems to have pleased himself with the thoughts of reviving the work, as well as of treading in the footsteps of his favourite author. The actors are mostly the fame with thofe of the Iliad; Diomede is the hero; Ulyffes, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Neftor, Idomeneus, Merion, even Therfites, all appear in different paffages of the poem; and act parts fuitable to the lively characters drawn of them by that great mafter. The whole turn of this new poem would almost lead us to imagine, that the Scottish bard had found the loft manuscript of that father of poetry, and had made a

faithful