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same, the colours on the pallet are so too. Although each has handled the same object in a manner peculiar to himself, and although such a number of excellent Madonnas are in being, yet inost assuredly no future great painter will be deterred thereby from adding his. It is, however, even for a Horace, so difficult to talk to the publick about his own works, and it is so common in such cases to say either too little or too much, that the best course a man can take against the Zoiluses, is not to say a word, but leave the work to speak for itself and its author. Is it good? it delivers a testimony which, if not by contemporaries, yet certainly by posterity, will be heard, understood, and confirmed,

even stole the matter of his odes,
his applications, and his very expres-
sions; in short, like the jay in the
fable, they adorned themselves withhis
plumage, and mingling in the choir
of the birds, flew away with them as
songsters of the grove. These gen-
try, it seems, thought to justify them-
selves by saying: why, Horace him-
self is only an imitator of the
Greeks, to wit; for that he was the
first lyric poet of the Romans,
at least the first who could sustain a
comparison with the versemen of
Greece, was undeniable. Now, in
order to point out to the Roman
public, who were as easy to be gulled
by words as any other public, the
obvious difference between one sort
of imitation and another, he con-
tends that he is not more the imita-
tor of Archilochus than even Alcæus
and Sappho; that he had made the
prosody of the Greek (numeros) and
his spirit, his fire (animosque) his
own, but not stolen from him the
subject-matter and the words and
given them as his own. Horace's
admirers might, perhaps, have had
reason to wish that he had not con-
descended to make such an apology
at all. Every real artist imitates, in one
sense, his predecessor; Virgil, how
ever, in spite of all he has borrowed
or copied from Homer, is still a
great, and even by the manner of
nitation, an original poet. A bun-
gler without a grain of talent may
have spun an extremely pitiful work,
both as to the invention and exe-
cution, of 50 cantos, out of his own
addle pate, and have imitated no
mau, and yet would be nothing more
than an original blockhead; on the
other hand, a great poet may have ta-
ken not only the subject, but, if he
thought fit, the whole plan of his per-
formance from another, and by the
mammer of execution create a new,
and excellent work out of a bad one.
That which constitutes the real mas-
ter, is not the invention of a new
and strange subject, unheard-of inci-
dents, characters, situations, &c. but
the spirit and animation which he
breathes into his work, and the beauty
and grace he diffuses over it. In this
respect it is with poets as with pain-
ters and other artists. All the ex-
cellent painters have painted Virgin-
Maries and holy families: the subject
is the same, the characters are the

Tritæ munere vestis] An unmerciful stroke at the poor fellows, who had the two-fold misfortune to make bad verses and to starve.

Non ego, nobilium scriptorum auditor & ultor, &c.] "If one of our eminent writers any where with great pomp reads his new work, I know nothing of it, and am not there either to clap, &c." This practice of reading the work in public, which is said to have been first introduced in Rome by Virgil's patron Asinius Pollio, was in the days of Horace beginning to be the fashion; and that fashion in the sequel, along with the fashion of being an author, got to such a height, that it became an ordinary duty of society to attend such readings; a duty which a man could not fail in without violating the laws of good manners, People, as we learn from a letter of Pliny, were regularly invited to them; the company met together in a spacious hall; the author mounted a sort of tribune, from which he recited his performance; and when done, he descended amidst the loud clappings of his polite audience, collected his elecmosynary dole of praise from bench to bench, thanked them, assured them of the reciprocum, and scated himself the next day at another meeting, in order to keep his word. How much the interesis of literature were promoted by this uncommonly courteous custom, may easily be conjectured.

Grammaticas ambire tribus &; pulpita dignor.] There were at that time indeed no literary journals and reviews, which in virtue of a tacit compassion

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commission had arrogated to themselves in the name of the publick the right of holding a penal court of judicature upon all new writings and their authors; yet the grammarians and rhetoricians (that is, teachers of the fine arts, who particularly made it their business to explain and analyse the antient poets) amply supplied that defect, no less by their multitude, than by the influence they acquired from the circumstance that the literary education of the Roman youth was entirely in their hands. The authors à la douzaine had therefore every reason to court the favour, indulgence, and patronage of these consequential gentry, Horace thought he might dispense with that ceremony, and we, his present readers, think so too: but in his life-time it was another affair. It is the very genius and spirit of the republic of letters to be always labouring to preserve the due equality amongst its coetaneous members, and to contract or distend with violence where nature refuses to comply. The reading and judging publick, like the Roman people, imagine they can confer and resume the fasces, upon whom and whenever they please. The most excellent writer is often obliged to do penance for his excellence as a crime; and, like Aristides, is therefore ostracised, because he is just. Horace made the experiment in his time; and who will name to me only one of the celebrated dead who did not make it also?

Hinc illæ lacrymæ.] An allusion to a well-known passage in the Andria of Terence, which, it should seem was grown into a proverb.

Jovis auribus ista servas.] A proverbial phrase borrowed from the Greeks, and was used concerning people who affected to make a mystery of something. In this place it may fitly be applied to Augustus, who at that time, at least in the provinces (to whom the Romans allowed al-ready one degree of meanness more than themselves) had altars erected to him, and on coins and monuments publicly suffered himself to be called our Lord God Augustus. Great Ormond-street. ** A sad mistake in our last. For *xov (p. 395, 2d col. line 12 from bottom) read καλον.

GENT. MAG. June, 1808.

W. T.

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Mr. URBAN,

Epping, May 18.

BROXBOURNE Church is situate

about a mile and a half from Hoddesdon, between the great road and the river Lea; it contains three ailes, one of which was built by Sir William Say; it is appropriated to the peculiar use of the Bishop of Loudon, who is the patron of it: but this parish is exempt from the jurisdiction of the Bishop and Archdeacon of the Diocese, and pays no procurations nor synodals,

The Church has a square tower with a short spire upon it, erected at the West end; and it has a good ring of five bells. The cemetery on the North side is bounded by the New River, which glides slowly along, seeming to leave with regret the source from which it flows,

The great attempt to join two streams in Middlesex and Hertfordshire for the supply of the Metropolis was first granted by an Act of Parliament in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who allowed ten years for the performance; but her death, happening shortly after, put an end to the intended attempt. However, in the time of James I. Sir Hugh Middleton, a rich citizen of London, undertook to bring the river from Chadwell and Amwell, near Ware, to the North side of London, near Islington, where a large reservoir was built to receive it. The work was begun February 20th, 1608, and completed in 1613; but Sir Hugh expended his whole fortune in the undertaking. The river in all its windings is 38 miles three quarters and 16 poles long, and is under the direction of a corporation, called The New River Company,

The parish to which this Church belongs was antiently called Brookesbourne, or Brochesborne, from the river, and is thus mentioned in Domesday Book:

In Hertford hundred. Adeliz, uxor Hugonis de Grentmaisnill, tenuit Brochesbourne, pro quinq' hidis et dimid se defendebat. Terra est sex car. in dominio tres hid' et tres virgat' et ibi est una car'; ibi quatuor vill', cum presbytero, et uno socmano, et duobus hord habentibus quinq' car'; ibi duo servi et unus molin' de octo sol'; pratum sex sol, et quatuor sol' de

fino

fino pastura ad pecud', sylva ce porc'. In totis valent valet quatuor lib' quando recepit LX sol. Tempore Regis Edwardi septeni lib'. Hoc manerium tenuit Stigan Archiepiscopus, et ibi fuit unus Socmanus homo et prepositus ejusdem Archiepisc', dim' hid' et vendere potuit.

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Adeliza, wife of Hugh of Grentmaisnill, held Brochesbourne in the hundred of Hertford, rated at five hides and a half; the arable land is six carucates, in demesne three hides and three virgates, and there is one carucate; there are four villains, with a priest and one socman and two borders, having five carucates; there are two servants, and one mill of eight shillings rent by the year, meadow six shillings, pasture four shillings common for cattle, wood for 200 hogs. In the whole value, it is worth four pounds, when received 60 shillings. In the time of King Edward the Confessor seven pounds. Archbishop Stigand held this Manor; and there was a sockman, an officer of the same Arch! ishop; he had half a hide, and was able to sell it.

The village is situate very agreeably either for business or pleasure; it is about five miles and a half South of Ware, and the same distance from Hertford; and conveyances to the Metropolis, either for persons or goods, by stages or waggons, are casily obtained, as they are passing through this village and Hoddesdon almost every hour in the day, The country round is beautifully diversified with hanging woods and the meandering courses of rivers; and the spires of distant churches, peeping from behind the luxuriant green that envelopes the landscape, present to the observing eye an interesting sight. As the town of Hoddesdon stands partly in this parish, it may not be

of Hertford; and also jurisdiction of Leet and Court Baron: all which were allowed.

The manor of Base was formerly distinct from that of Hoddesdon; and, in the time of Edward IV. be longed to Sir William Say; but since that period it has passed with the manor of Hoddesdon to the Lords of the latter.

Of the situation and appearance of Hoddesdon, little can be said; it is not calculated to excite admiration, either by its rusticity or elegance, and does not seem a place which a person would willingly choose to spend his days in.

It is situate at a convenient distance from the Metropolis, and yet is without trade; is near two rivers, yet it derives no advantage from either; and has no curiosities or antiquities of any note.

Queen Elizabeth by charter granted a Grammar-school to be kept in Hoddesdon, and incorporated it with some other privileges."

A chapel was once erected for the ease of the inhabitants in the middle of the town, which was situated in the parishes of Amwell and Broxbourne, and the inhabitants of both parishes residing in the town formerly kept it in repair; but, through neglect, it became so ruinous that it was pulled down, and nothing remains but the clock-house, which is kept for the conveniency of the inhabitants.

The Lords of Broxbourne manor are entitled to Leet and Court Baron.

Yours, &c. J. H. WIFFEN,

THE PROJECTOR. No. LXXXIV, "Errat longè, meâ quidem sententiâ, Qui imperium credat gravius esse aut sta[adjungitur."

bilius,

Vi quod fit, quàm illud quod amicitiâ
TER. Adelphi,

Tis a very common error with us

amiss in this place to say a few words PROJECTORS, to suppose that the

concerning it.

The hamlet of Hoddesdon stands upon a small eminence on the high road, about a mile and a half to the North-west of Broxbourne, in which parish part of it stands, and the other part in Amwell. It is, however, a separate manor; for in the 6th year of Edward I. Stephen de Bassinburne claimed, by the grants of King John, free warren, gallows and waife, and a park by antient custom, without grant, in Hoddesdon, in the county

attention of the whole world must
necessarily be directed to that sub
ject which happens to employ our
Even the Medical Pro-
meditations.
jectors, whom I choose to rank rather
low in the class, seem to be of opi-
nion, that people have nothing to
do but cure incurable disorders, by
swallowing the medicnes which they
recommend. One tells us, that "ne-
ver were agues so prevalent;" ano-
ther says, that the prevailing evil

of

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