blended with their authors fense, that what they cite in fuch a manner, cannot be adjudged either to the one or the other. Some injudicioufly extract the worst parts of their author, and even infert thofe under improper topicks; and others quote authors they never looked into, but take upon truft wherever they find them. Some have been fo careless as to borrow paffages from those who stole them: And all, especially our late compilers, have neglected even to look into the many excellent ancient poets, from whom the following fheets are taken, whofe thoughts might often have claimed a preference, or, at least, an equality with those they have inferted in their collections, the dress of words only excepted. I would not derogate in the leaft from the praise of the more modern or cotemporary poets, to whom the highest regard and veneration is moft juftly due; but to exclude the merits of the dead, whom themselves have always admired, is fo far from being a compliment to them, that it must be an unpardonable partiality in their fense; especially whilst they know, that the old vices and follies of mankind are perpetually reviving, and that the prefervation of as much of the knowledge of things as poffible, is so neceffary to correct the ignorance and follies, and improve the knowA 3 ledge ledge and manners, of mankind; the great ends of all useful learning, and especially that diviner species of it, poetry. But to come more particularly to the proof of the defects we have ascribed to the poetical Commonplace Books hitherto published, we proceed to a brief review of all that have come to our knowledge, from the first appearance of fuch collections in print. It is obferved, even in the middle of Queen Elizabeth's reign, that books of poetry, and works of a poetical nature, were more * numerous than any other kind of writings in our language. Accordingly, in the latter end of it, they were thought to abound with fuch elegancies, that no lefs than two collections, principally from the poets of her time, were published in one year. One of these is called BELVEDERE, Or, The Garden of the Mufes +. The author's name was John Bodenham, a gentleman undoubtedly ambitious of diftinguishing himself by the Laconick fingularity of his performance. Hence, we fuppofe it was, that he made it his inviolable rule to admit no quotation of more than one line, or a couplet of ten syllables. This *Webbe's Difcourfe of English Poetry, 4to. 1586. Pref. † Printed at London for Hugh Aftley, 8vo. 1600. This makes him fo fparing of his fenfe, and gives him fo dogmatical an air, that his reader is rather offended, than fatisfied with his entertainment. The length or brevity of a paffage is, indeed, no reason for either admitting or rejecting it; its value being to be rated not by its fize, but fenfe; but where the former is fo penurious, the latter ought to make amends either in beauty or inftruction. This, his friend the publisher feems to have underftood; for he tells us, his author would not be perfuaded to enlarge his method, and promises ample additions in the fecond impreffion. So affected a piece did not escape cenfure. It was expofed in a dramatick performance at Cambridge a few years after, in which the poet compares this mutilating compiler to a poor beggar gleaning of ears after harvest (he might have faid fingle grains from thofe ears.) There is, indeed, fo abrupt and fudden a hurry from one idea to another in every chapter of his book, that the fentences flip through the reader's apprehenfion as quickfilver through the fingers; he fcarce perceives them before they are gone. The author had not only a friend to diftribute these minute particles for him under properheads, * A 4 Return from Parnaffus, &c. publickly acted by the Students of St. John's College, Cambridge, 4to, 1606. heads, and to fubjoin a section of fimiles, and another of examples, to each of them; but a printer fo obfervant of an odd method and uniformity, undoubtedly prefcribed him, that there has fcarce been a book printed fince with a formality fo remarkably infignificant. But there is another fingularity of a more ferious nature in this performance, which is, the collector's having omitted to annex the poets names to his citations; which leaves room to fufpect, that he was afraid of being detected of having mangled his originals egregiously in his barbarous manner of curtailing them. The other collection, published the fame year in a larger volume, is called ENGLAND'S PARNASSUS; or, The choiceft Flowers of our modern Poets, &c. It is dedicated to Sir Thomas Monfon by the author, who, in moft of the copies, writes himself R. A. but in one or two I have met with, there is R, Allot, of which name I find a bookfeller at that time, but know not whether he was the collector. He has, indeed, been more liberal in his entertainment, for the generality, than the former; for he does not mince his quotations, and is not fo fhy of his authors; but his performance is evidently defective in feveral other refpects. He cites no more more than the names of his authors to their verfes, who are most of them now fo obfolete, that not knowing what they wrote, we can have no recourfe to their works, if ftill extant. And, perhaps, this might be done defignedly, to prevent fome, tho' not all, readers from difcovering his indifcretion in maiming fome thoughts, his prefumption in altering others, and his error in afcribing to one poet what had been wrote by another. This artifice, if real, does not prevent us from obferving his ill judgment in the choice of his authors; and in his extracts from them, his negligence in repeating the fame paffages in different places, and particularly his unpardonable hafte and irregularity, in throwing almost the laft half of his book out of its alphabetical order, into a confused jumble of topicks without order or method. This book, bad as it is, fuggefts one good obfervation however upon the ufe and advantage of fuch collections, which is, that they may prove more fuccessful in preferving the best parts of fome authors, than their works themselves. But what renders both these collections very defective, and prevents them from affording the redundant light, of which they were capable, is the little merit of the obfolete poets, from which they are |