human
A Scotchman must be a sturdy moralist, who does not prefer Scotland to truth.
gpt
The Poems of Dr. Watts were by my recommendation inserted in this collection; the readers of which are to impute to me whatever pleasure or weariness they may find in the perusal of Blackmore, Watts, Pomfret and Yalden.
human
Alas, Jerusalem! alas! where's now Thy pristine glory, thy unmatch'd renown, To which the heathen monarchies did bow? Ah, hapless, miserable town!
gpt
Before the Almighty Artist fram'd the sky, Or gave the earth its harmony, His first command was for thy light; He view'd the lovely birth, and blessed it: _In purple swaddling bands it struggling lay_, Old Chaos then a chearful smile put on, And from thy beauteous form did first presage its own.
human
My chearful soul now all the day Sits waiting here and sings; Looks through the ruins of her clay, And practises her wings. O, rather let this flesh decay, The ruins wider grow! Till glad to see the enlarged way, I stretch my pinions through.
gpt
He seemed to me to have an unaccountable prejudice against Swift.--He said to-day,--I doubt if the _Tale of a Tub_ was his; it has so much more thinking, more knowledge, more power, more colour, than any of the works that are indisputably his. If it was his, I shall only say, he was _impar sibi_.
human
may probably be derived from the same source as Blackmore's, if we may venture to form a judgement from the panegyrick he bestows on the following groundless invective, expressly aimed at Swift as the author of _A Tale of a Tub_, which he quotes in his life of Blackmore:
gpt
Several, in their books, have many sarcastical and spiteful strokes at religion in general; while others make themselves pleasant with the principles of the Christian. Of the last kind, this age has seen a most audacious example, in the book intituled _A Tale of a Tub_.
human
The greatest part of that book was finished above thirteen years since, (1696) which is eight years before it was published. The author was then young, his invention at the height, and his reading fresh in his head. And again:
gpt
Men should be more cautious in losing their time, if they did but consider, that to answer a book effectually requireth more pains and skill, more wit, learning and judgement, than were employed in writing it.--And the author assureth those gentlemen, who have given themselves that trouble with him, that his discourse is the product of the study, the observation, and the invention of _several years_; that he often blotted out more than he left; and if his papers had not been a long time out of his possession, they must still have undergone more severe corrections.