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That this will prove the case, there needs no ghost from the grave to tell us; but that there will be found any possessed of sufficient candour to allow it, is quite a different matter; for the cry will be on all sides—“God bless me! how much that reminds me of so and so!” “Well, one would really suppose, that the poet had had Lord this, or the other in his eye, when he committed his ideas to paper;” yet, while those wondrous discoveries are making, the fools will carefully withhold from the mention of their own fooleries, howsoever well their heads may be adapted for the cap which has been made for them.

This is certainly very contemptuous of the poet, who might have used the words of our bard, to convey his idea of the effect produced upon his labours by the slander of fools.

I make no doubt, but that numerous fools, on the perusal of this little book, would be heartily glad to realize the Italian proverb, which saith,

Se la lingua fosse una lancia farebbe più male, che dieci altra.

The poet has ventured a great deal in this line; grant that his affirmation may be verified by experience. I must certainly say, that if there are any such, who refuse the meed of approbation, I shall at once pronounce, that they were not possessed of a single grain of gratitude, which is the worst that can be said of human nature, for,

In this third line, the bard has checked himself with the word few, a very lucky circumstance truly, for to find him tripping in judgment, after censuring all the world, (his few excepted) would indeed have subjected him even to the ridicule of folly, which would have been warranted in its full extent, while the scoffers, in arraying him in their own bells, cap, and ladle, and calling him fool, would have said with Horace,

And doubtless will repay their neglect as Jaques did the moralizing of the fool, who saith,