It seems not often to have happened that the same writer aspired to reputation in verse and prose; and of those few that attempted such diversity of excellence, I know not that even one succeeded. Contrary characters they never imagined a single mind able to support, and therefore no man is recorded to have undertaken more than one kind of dramatick poetry.
What they had written they did not venture in their first fondness, to thrust into the world, but considering the impropriety of sending forth inconsiderately, that which cannot be recalled, deferred the publication, if not nine years, according to the direction of Horace, yet, till their fancy was cooled, after the raptures of invention and the glare of novelty had ceased to dazzle the judgment.
There were in those days no weekly or diurnal writers; multa dies, & multa litura, much time, and many rasures, were considered as indispensable requisites; and that no other method of attaining lasting praise has been yet discovered, may be conjectured from the blotted manuscripts of Milton now remaining, and from the tardy emission of Pope's compositions, delayed more than once till the incidents to which they alluded were forgotten, till his enemies were secure from his satire, and what to an honest mind must be more painful, his friends were deaf to his encomiums.
To him whose eagerness of praise hurries his productions soon into the light, many imperfections are unavoidable, even where the mind furnishes the materials, as well as regulates their disposition, and nothing depends upon search or information. Delay opens new veins of thought, the subject dismissed for a time, appears with a new train of dependant
