as to discharge the duty which Providence assigns him.



No. 107. TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1751.

_Alternis igitur contendere versibns ambo
Coepere: alternos Musoe meminisse volebant_. VIRG. Ec. vii. 18

On themes alternate now the swains recite;
The muses in alternate themes delight. ELPHINSTON.

Among the various censures, which the unavoidable comparison of my
performances with those of my predecessors has produced, there is none
more general than that of uniformity. Many of my readers remark the want
of those changes of colours, which formerly fed the attention with
unexhausted novelty, and of that intermixture of subjects, or
alternation of manner, by which other writers relieved weariness, and
awakened expectation.

I have, indeed, hitherto avoided the practice of uniting gay and solemn
subjects in the same paper, because it seems absurd for an author to
counteract himself, to press at once with equal force upon both parts of
the intellectual balance, or give medicines, which, like the double
poison of Dryden, destroy the force of one another. I have endeavoured
sometimes to divert, and sometimes to elevate; but have imagined it an
useless attempt to disturb merriment by solemnity, or interrupt
seriousness by drollery. Yet I shall this day publish two letters of
very different tendency, which I hope, like tragi-comedy, may chance to
please even when they are not critically approved.