"To one dissection of the fore quarter of an ass," says
Haydon in his diary, "I owe my information." Yet even in his earliest
criticisms we are struck with the same penetration and steadiness of
judgment, the same firm grasp of the essential and permanent, that were
afterwards to make his opinions law in the courts of taste. For example,
he says of Thomson, that, "as a dramatic poet, he had the fault of never
knowing when to leave off; he lets every character talk so long as
anything can be said; accordingly, during these prolonged conversations,
the action stands still, and the story becomes tedious." Of "Roderick
Random," he says that "its author is neither a Richardson nor a Fielding;
he is one of those writers of whom there are plenty among the Germans and
French." We cite these merely because their firmness of tone seems to us
uncommon in a youth of twenty-four. In the "Letters," the range is much
wider, and the application of principles more consequent. He had already
secured for himself a position among the literary men of that day, and
was beginning to be feared for the inexorable justice of his criticisms.
His "Fables" and his "Miss Sara Sampson" had been translated into French,
and had attracted the attention of Grimm, who says of them (December,
1754): "These Fables commonly contain in a few lines a new and profound
moral meaning.
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