thunder at those guilty heads; but it is kind, and regards their follies with pity, nor will destroy creatures that it loved into being.

But whatever success this practice of making demigods might have been attended with in barbarous nations, I do not know that any man became a god in a country where the inhabitants were refined. Such countries generally have too close an inspection into human weakness to think it invested with celestial power. They sometimes, indeed, admit the gods of strangers, or of their ancestors, who had their existence in times of obscurity; their weakness being forgotten, while nothing but their power and their miracles were remembered. The Chinese, for in stance, never had a god of their own country; the idols which the vulgar worship at this day were brought from the barbarous nations around them. The Roman emperors, who pretended to divinity, were generally taught by a poniard that they were mortal; and Alexander, though he passed among barbarous countries for a real god, could never persuade his polite countrymen into a similitude of thinking. The Lacedæmonians shrewdly complied with his commands, by the following sarcastic edict:

Εἱ Αλεξανδρος Ευλεται είναι Θεός, Θεος εστω.

Εμοι προς φιλοσοφες εςι φιλια προς μεν τοι σοφιςας η γραμματισαι τε νυν εςι φιλια μητε ύτερον ποτε γενοιτο. Tolerabile si Ædificia nostra diruerent Ædificandi capaces.

THE FIRST EDITION OF THIS WORK APPEARED IN 1759, AND THE SECOND WAS PRINTED IN 1774.

AN INQUIRY,

&c.

CHAP. I.

INTRODUCTION.

Ir has been so long the practice to represent literature as declining, that every renewal of this complaint now comes with diminished influence. The public has been so often excited by a false alarm, that at present the nearer we ap. proach the threatened period of decay, the more our security increases.

It will now probably be said, that taking the decay of genius for granted, as I do, argues either resentment or partiality. The writer, possessed of fame, it may be asserted, is willing to enjoy it without a rival, by lessening every competitor; or, if unsuccessful, he is desirous to turn upon others the contempt which is levelled at himself; and being convicted at the bar of literary justice, hopes for pardon, by accusing every brother of the same profession.

Sensible of this, I am at a loss where to find an apology for persisting to arraign the merit of the age; for joining in a cry, which the judicious have long since left to be kept up by the vulgar; and for adopting the sentiments of the multitude, in a performance that at best can please only a few.