It has been frequently obferved that a confiderable part of the works of our English. Poets will in another century become in a great meafure unintelligible

, for want of being accompanied with Notes; or at leaft that they will ceafe to be read with pleafure, when fo many of their allufions ccafe to be underftood. Some of

our greater Englifh Clafsics have been fecured from fuch a fate, and

(6) are handed down to us, protected by the elucidations of men of literature. Whether all the works of the numerous Authors, who have contributed to form the great body of Englifh Poetry, merit fo much attention may

will be queftioned: but it is certain that there are many of them which highly deferve, and greatly require it. Among these the most faftidious Critic will fcarcely, hefitate to place our Englifh Georgic, which, at the diftance of more than four fcore years from its original publication, is non first offered to the World illuf

trated (7)

trated with Notes ; many of which its provincial subject seemed to make necefsary to render it perfectly intelligible to pofterity.---- Some of them may appear tedious, and some trifling; particularly the very frequent çitations of passages from Virgil and Milton, which are

supposed to have been imitated. But, in endeavouring to make the Reader acquainted with the writingo,

and at the same time with the genius, of a Poct, it is a principal part of a Commentator's office to point out his Author's imitations; and, in so doing, let it be

confidered, that it is no easy task to produce those which may be really worth noticing, without exhibiting some that (at least by many perfons) may be confidered as immaterial.