We purposed to begin with his life, parentage, and education: but as to these, even his cotemporaries do exceedingly differ. One saith,[134] he was educated at home; another,[135] that he was bred at St Omer's by Jesuits; a third,[136] not at St Omer's, but at Oxford; a fourth,[137] that he had no University education at all. Those who allow him to be bred at home differ as much concerning his tutor: one saith,[138] he was kept by his father on purpose; a second,[139] that he was an itinerant priest; a third,[140] that he was a parson; one[141] calleth him a secular clergyman of the Church of Rome; another,[142] a monk. As little do they agree about his father, whom one[143] supposeth, like the father of Hesiod, a tradesman or merchant; another,[144] a husbandman; another,[145] a hatter, &c. Nor has an author been wanting to give our Poet such a father as Apuleius hath to Plato, Jamblichus to Pythagoras, and divers to Homer, namely, a demon: For thus Mr Gildon[146]: 'Certain it is, that his original is not from Adam, but the Devil; and that he wanteth nothing but horns and tail to be the exact resemblance of his infernal Father.' Finding, therefore, such contrariety of opinions, and (whatever be ours of this sort of generation) not being fond to enter into controversy, we shall defer writing the life of our Poet, till authors can determine among themselves what parents or education he had, or whether he had any education or parents at all. Proceed we to what is more certain, his Works, though not less uncertain the judgments concerning them; beginning with his Essay on Criticism, of which hear first the most ancient of critics-- MR JOHN DENNIS. 'His precepts are false or trivial, or both; his thoughts are crude and abortive, his expressions absurd, his numbers harsh and unmusical, his rhymes trivial and common:--instead of majesty, we have something that is very mean; instead of gravity, something that is very boyish; and instead of perspicuity and lucid order, we have but too often obscurity and confusion.' And in another place: 'What rare numbers are here! Would not one swear that this youngster had espoused some antiquated Muse, who had sued out a divorce from some superannuated sinner, upon account of impotence, and who, being poxed by her former spouse, has got the gout in her decrepid age, which makes her hobble so damnably.'[147] No less peremptory is the censure of our hypercritical historian, MR OLDMIXON. 'I dare not say anything of the Essay on Criticism in verse; but if any more curious reader has discovered in it something new which is not in Dryden's prefaces, dedications, and his Essay on Dramatic Poetry, not to mention the French critics, I should be very glad to have the benefit of the discovery.'[148] He is followed (as in fame, so in judgment) by the modest and simple-minded MR LEONARD WELSTED,