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The PRESENT STATE
infinitely superior. Maffei is the first who has introduced a tragedy among his country-men without a love-plot. Perhaps the Sampson of Milton, and the Athalia of Racine, might have been his guides in such an attempt. Yet he seems as much inferior to either as a poet, as the subject of his Merope is more happily chosen.
Two poets, however, in an age are not sufficient to revive the splendor of decaying genius; nor should we consider the few as the national standard, by which to characterize the many. Our measures of literary reputation must be taken rather from that numerous class of men who, placed above the vulgar, are yet beneath the great, and who confer fame on others without receiving any portion of it themselves.
In
