Some have contended, with Scaliger at their head, that this pretended _Art of Poetry_ is totally void of art; and that the very work, in which the beauty and excellence of _Order_ (ordinis virtus et Venus!) is strongly recommended, is in itself unconnected, confused, and immethodical. The advocates for the writer have in great measure confessed the charge, but pleaded in excuse and vindication, the familiarity of an epistle, and even the genius of Poetry, in which the formal divisions of a prosaick treatise on the art would have been insupportable. They have also denied that Horace ever intended such a treatise, or that he ever gave to this Epistle the title of _the Art of Poetry_; on which title the attacks of Scaliger, and his followers, are chiefly grounded. The title, however, is confessedly as old as the age of Quintilian; and that the work itself has a perpetual reference to _Poets and Poetry,_ is as evident, as that it is, from beginning to end, in its manner, stile, address, and form, perfectly _Epistolary._ The learned and ingenious Critick distinguished above, an early ornament to letters, and now a worthy dignitary of the church, leaving vain comments, and idle disputes on the title of the work, sagaciously directed his researches to scrutinize the work itself; properly endeavouring to trace and investigate from the composition the end and design of the writer, and remembering the axiom of the Poet, to whom his friend had been appointed the commentator. _In every work regard THE AUTHOR'S END! For none can compass more than they intend. _ Pope. With this view of illustrating and explaining Horace's Art of Poetry, this shrewd and able writer, about thirty years ago, republished the original Epistle, giving the text chiefly after Dr. Bentley, subjoining an English Commentary and Notes, and prefixing an Introduction, from which I beg leave to transcribe most part of the three first paragraphs, "It is agreed on all hands, that the antients are our masters in the _art_ of composition. Such of their writings, therefore, as deliver instructions for the exercise of this _art_, must be of the highest value. And, if any of them hath acquired a credit, in this respect, superior to the rest, it is, perhaps, the _following work:_ which the learned have long since considered as a kind of _summary_ of the rules of good writing; to be gotten by heart by every young student; and to whose decisive authority the greatest masters in taste and composition must finally submit.