N 121. THE RAMBLER. 99

univerfal and acknowledged practice of copying the ancients, there has prevailed in every age a par- ticular fpecies of fiction. At one time all truth was conveyed in allegory ; at another, nothing was feen but in a vifion ; at one period all the poets followed fheep, and every event produced a paftoral ; at another they bufied themfelves wholly in giving di- rections to a painter. It is indeed eafy to conceive why any fafhion (hould become popular, by which idlenefs is fa- voured,' and imbecility aihfted $ but furely no man of genius can much applaud himfelf for re- jpeating a tale with which the audience is already -tired, and which could bring no honour to any but its inventor. There are, I think, two fehcmes of writing, on which the laborious wits of the prefent time enr- ploy their faculties. One is the adaptation of fenfe to all the rhymes which our language can fupply to fome word, that makes the burden of the ftanzaj but this, as it has been only ufed in a kind of amorous .burlefque, can fcarcely be cenfured with much acri- mony. The other is the imitation of $penfer which, by the influence of fome men of learning and genius, feems likely to gain upon the age, and therefore de- ferves to be more attentively conlidcred. To imitate the iitVions and fentirnents of Spetifer can incur no reproach, for allegory is perhaps one of the moft pleafing vehicles of inftrution. But I am very far from extending the fume refpeft to his ilicTion or his ftanza. His ftyle was in his own time allowed to be vicious, fo darkened with old words and peculiarities of phrafe, and fo remote from -common ule, that Johnfon boldly pronounces him ^ /:ui'c written no language, ^is ilanza is at once F 2 difficult