PREFACE.
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cepts to be fairly and legitimately deduced from the most popular authorities of the day. One maxim of the exploded critics we still admit to be just; that the rules for writing in verse cannot be laid down by dint of previous reasoning, or, as the metaphysicians express it, a priori, but must be drawn from poems, which have been crowned with the greatest success, and which, therefore, we conclude to be the best. Thus, Aristotle, in the first art of poetry that was ever written, derives his maxims from the works of Homer; and our countryman, Mr. Pope, admits the propriety of this plan in the following lines of his Essay on Criticism,
Just precepts thus from great examples given,
She drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n.
She drew from them what they deriv'd from Heav'n.
Waving therefore all claim to the in-
