Page:The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, Volume 4.djvu/98

94 very imperfect piece, though not without good lines. While the author was unknown, some, as will always happen, favoured him as an adventurer, and some censured him as an intruder; but all thought him above neglect; the sale increased, and editions were multiplied.

The subsequent editions of the first Epistle exhibited two memorable corrections. At first, the poet and his friend

For which he wrote afterwards,

for, if there was no plan, it was in vain to describe or to trace the maze.

The other alteration was of these lines;

but having afterwards discovered, or been shewn, that the "truth" which subsisted "in spite of reason" could not be very "clear," he substituted

Rh