given to activity in the ambitious pursuit of the laurel, which was now only to be obtained by glorious exertions of intellect. The beautiful productions of Greece, operating strongly upon their minds, excited them to imitation; imitation, when roused amongst a number, produced emulation; and emulation cherished an extraordinary thirst of fame, which, in every exertion of the human mind, is the parent of excellence. This liberal contention was not a little promoted by the fashion introduced at Rome, for poets to recite their compositions in public; a practice which seems to have been carried even to a ridiculous excess.—Such was now the rage for poetical composition in the Roman capital, that Horace describes it in the following terms:
Mutavit mentem populus levis, et calet uno
Scribendi studio: pueri patresque severi
Fronde comas vincti coenant, et carmina dictant.—Epist. ii. 1.
* * * * * *
Now the light people bend to other aims;
A lust of scribbling every breast inflames;
Our youth, our senators, with bays are crowned,
And rhymes eternal as our feasts go round.
(190) Scribimus indocti doctique poemata passim.—Hor. Epeat. ii. 1.
But every desperate blockhead dares to write,
Verse is the trade of every living wight.—Francis.The thirst of fame above mentioned, was a powerful incentive, and is avowed both by Virgil and Horace. The former, in the