deduction, they loosed their genius to its own cause, passed from one sentiment to another, without expressing the intermediate ideas, and roved at large over the ideal world, with such lightness and agility, that their footsteps are scarcely to be traced.
From this accidental peculiarity of the ancient writers the critics deduce the rules of lyrick poetry, which they have set free from all the laws by which other compositions are confined, and allow to neglect the niceties of transition, to start into remote digressions, and to wander without restraint from one scene of imagery to another.
A writer of later times has, by the vivacity of his essays, reconciled mankind to the same licentiousness in short dissertations; and he, therefore, who wants skill to form a plan, or diligence to pursue it, needs only entitle his performance an essay, to acquire the right of heaping together the collections of half his life, without order, coherence, or propriety.
In writing, as in life, faults are endured without disgust, when they are associated with transcendent merit, and may be sometimes recommended to weak judgments by the lustre which they obtain from their union with excellence; but it is the business of those who presume to superintend the taste or morals of mankind, to separate delusive combinations, and distinguish that which may be praised, from that which can only be excused. As vices never promote happiness, though when overpowered by more active and more numerous virtues, they cannot totally destroy it; so confusion and irregularity produce no beauty, though they cannot always
