Comparing Gray's ode with an ode of Horace[63], he says, 'there is in _the Bard_ more force, more thought, and more variety'--as indeed there very well may, for in the one there are thirty-six lines only, and in the other one hundred and forty-four. His whole works are full of such trifling observations. 'But to copy is less than to invent, theft is always dangerous.' If he means to insinuate that Gray's Bard is a copy of Horace, (and this is the plain inference from his words) I charge him in direct terms as _an atrocious violator of_ TRUTH. 'The fiction of Horace was to the Romans credible; (NO) but its revival disgusts _us_ with apparent and unconquerable falsehood, _Incredulus odi_[64].' How will the Doctor's verdict be digested at Aberdeen by 'a poet, a philosopher, and a good man[65].' It is diverting to remark how these _mutual admirers_ clash on the clearest point, with not a possibility of reconcilement. I pass by five or six lines, which are not worth contradiction, though they cannot resist it. 'I do not _see_ that _the Bard_ promotes any truth moral or political[66].' The Rambler's intellect is _blind_.--He seems to have stared a great deal, to have seen little or nothing. The Bard very forcibly impresses this moral, political, and important truth, that eternal vengeance would pursue the English Tyrant and his posterity, as enemies to posterity, and exterminators of mankind. Dr Johnson, a stickler for the _jus divinum_, did not relish this idea. He commends the 'Ode on Adversity,' but the hint was at 'first taken from Horace[67].' The poem referred to has almost no resemblance to Mr Gray's. And if we go on at this rate, where will we find any thing original? He mistakes the title of this poem, which is not an 'Ode on,' but a 'Hymn to' Adversity. This is a clear though trifling proof of his inattention. As he dare not condemn this piece, it is dismissed in six lines, to make room for '_The wonderful wonder of wonders_, the two Sister Odes, by which many have been persuaded to think themselves delighted[68].' He chews them through four tedious octavo pages. We come then to Gray's Elegy, which occupies an equal share of a paragraph containing only fourteen lines. So much more plentiful is the critic in gall than honey! And in reading this fragment we may remark that _nonsense_ is not _panegyric_. Speaking of Welsh Mythology, he says, 'Attention recoils from the repetition of a tale that, even when it was _first_ heard, was heard with scorn[69].' There is no reason to think that the Welsh disbelieved these fictions. It is much more likely that many believe them at this day. Shakespeare has from this superstition made a whimsical picture of Owen Glendower: He painted nature. This is one of those assertions which our dictator should have qualified with a _perhaps_, an adverb, which, wherever it _ought_ to be met with in the Doctor's pages, 'will not easily be found[70].'