* _Brutus_ for want of _Wit_, sets up for _Criticism_; yet has so much ambition to be thought a _Wit_, that he lets his Spleen prevail against Nature, and turns Poet. In this Capacity he is as just to the World as in the other injurious. For, as the _Critick_ wrong'd every Body in his Censure, and snarl'd and grin'd at their Writings, the _Poet_ gives 'em opportunity to do themselves Justice, to return the Compliment, and laugh at, or despise his. He takes his _Malice_ for a _Muse_, and thinks himself _Inspir'd_, when he is only _Possess'd_, and blown up with a Flatus of _Envy_ and _Vanity_. His Works are _Libels_ upon others, but _Satyrs_ upon himself; and while they bark at Men of _Sense_, call him Fool that writ 'em. He has a very great Antipathy to his own Species, and hates to see a Fool any where but in his Glass; for, as he says, _they provoke him, and offend his Eyes_. His Fund of Criticism, is a set of Terms of Art, pick'd out of the _French Criticks_, or their Translators; and his _Poetical Stock_, is a common Place of certain _Forms_ and manners of Expression. He writes better in _Verse_ than _Prose_; for in that there is _Rhime_, in this, neither _Rhime_ nor _Reason_. He rails both at the _French_ Writers, "whom he does not understand, and at those _English_ Authors, whose Excellencies he cannot reach; with him _Voiture_ is flat and dull, _Corneille_ a stranger to the Passions, _Racine_, Starch'd and Affected, _Moliere_, Jejune, _la Fontaine_ a poor Teller of Tales; and even the Divine _Boileau_, little better than a Plagiary. As for the _English_ Poets, he treats almost with the same Freedom; _Shakespear_ with him has neither Language nor Manners; _Ben. Johnson_ is a Pedant; _Dryden_ little more than a tolerable Versifier; _Congreve_ a laborious Writer; _Garth_, an indifferent imitator of _Boileau_. He traduces _Oldham_, for want of Breeding and good Manners, without a grain of either, and steals his own Wit to bespatter him with; but like an ill Chymist, he lets the _Spirit_ fly off in the drawing over and retains only the _Phlegm_. He Censures _Cowley_ for too much Wit, and corrects him with none. He is a great Admirer of the incomparable _Milton_, but while he fondly endeavours to imitate his _Sublime_, he is blown up with _Bombast_ and _puffy Expressions_. He is a great stickler for _Euripides_, _Sophocles_, _Horace_, _Virgil_, _Ovid_, and the rest of the Ancients; but his ill and lame Translations of 'em, ridicule those he would commend. He ventures to write for the Play-Houses, but having his stol'n, ill-patch'd fustian Plays Damn'd upon the Stage, he ransacks _Bossu_, _Rapin_, and _Dacier_, to arraign the ill-taste of the Town. To compleat himself in the Formalities of _Parnassus_, he falls in Love, and tells his Mistress in a very pathetick Letter, he is oblig'd to her bright _Beauty_ for his Poetry; but if this Damsel prove no more indulgent than his Muse, his Amour is like to conclude but unluckily."