Note 289 — QUARRELS OF AUTHORS; (continued 2)

Isaac Reed, in his “Repository of Fugitive Pieces of Wit and Humour,” vol. iv., in republishing “The Hilliad,” has judiciously preserved the offending “Impertinent” and the abjuring “Inspector.” The style of “The Impertinent” is volatile and poignant. His four classes of authors are not without humour. “There are men who write because they have wit; there are those who write because they are hungry; there are some of the modern authors who have a constant fund of both these causes; and there are who will write, although they are not instigated either by the one or by the other. The first are all spirit; the second are all earth; the third disclose more life, or more vapidity, as the one or the other cause prevails; and for the last, having neither the one nor the other principle for the cause, they show neither the one nor the other character in the effect; but begin, continue, and end, as if they had neither begun, continued, nor ended at all.” The first class he instances by Fielding; the second by Smart. Of the third he says:—“The mingled wreath belongs to Hill,” that is himself; and the fourth he illustrates by the absurd Sir William Browne.

“Those of the first rank are the most capricious and lazy of all animals. The monkey genius would rarely exert itself, if even idleness innate did not give way to the superior love of mischief. The ass (that is Smart), which characters the second, is as laborious as he is empty; he wears a ridiculous comicalness of aspect (which was, indeed, the physiognomy of the poor poet), that makes people smile when they see him at a distance. His mouth opens, because he must be fed, while we laugh at the insensibility and obstinacy that make him prick his lips with thistles.”