Page:Sir Martyn (1777).djvu/11

 It is an etablihed maxim in criticim, That an intereting moral is eential to a good poem. The character of the Man of Fortune is of the utmot importance both in the political and moral world; to throw, therefore, a jut ridicule on the puruits and pleaures which often prove fatal to the important virtues of the Gentleman, mut afford an intereting moral, but it is the management of the Writer which alone mut render it triking. Yet however he may have failed in attaining this, the Author may decently aert, that to paint fale pleaure as it is, ridiculous and contemptible, alike detructive to virtue and to happines, was, at leat, the purpoe of his Poem.

It is also an etablihed maxim in criticim, That the ubject of a poem hould be One; that every part hould contribute to the completion of One deign, which, properly purued, will naturally diffue itelf into a regular Beginning, Middle, and End. Yet in attaining this Unity of the Whole, the neceary Regularity must till be poetical, for the pirit of poetry cannot exit under the hackles of logical or mathematical arrangement. Or, to ue the words of a very eminent Critic, "As there must needs be a connexion, o that connexion will bet anwer its end, and the purpoe of the writer, which, whilt it leads by a ure train of thinking to the concluion in view, conceals itelf all the while, and leaves to the Reader the atisfaction of upplying the intermediate links, and joining together, in his "own