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The PRESENT STATE
'If you have the misfortune not to excel in your profession as a poet, repentance must tincture all your future enjoyments. If you succeed, you make enemies. You tread a narrow path, contempt on one side, and hatred on the other, are ready to seize you upon the slightest deviation.
'But, why must I be hated, you will, perhaps, reply, why must I be persecuted for having wrote a pleasing poem, for having produced an applauded tragedy, or for otherwise instructing, or amusing mankind, or myself.
'My dear friend, these very successes shall render you miserable for life. Let me suppose your performance has merit, let me suppose you have surmounted'the
