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treated each so happily, it might be thought he had studied that alone. Our language is more indebted to him not only for words and phrases, but for images, than to any other writer in prose. If his style has any

fault, it is want of force.

This defect in our prose composition was supplied by lord Bolingbroke; who, in his dissertation on parties, in his Letter to Sir William Windham, and in his Idea of a Patriot King, has united strength with elegance, and energy and elevation with grace. It is not possible to carry farther the beauty and force of our multifarious tongue, without endangering the one or the other. The earl of Chesterfield is perhaps more elegantly correct, and gracefully easy, but he wants the sinews of his master; and if Johnson, on some subjects, appears to have more force than Bolingbroke, he is generally destitute of ease. His periods are too artificially arranged, and his words too remote from common use. He writes like a scholar, not like a gentleman: like a man who had mingled little with the world, or never complied with its forms.

What Bolingbroke performed in prose, his friend Pope accomplished even more fully in verse. Having early discovered the bent of his genius, he diligently studied the poets who had written before him in his native tongue, but more especially those who had made use of rhyme; not, as has been invidiously insinuated, that he found his genius too feeble to give vigour to blank verse, but because rhyme was the prevailing mode of versification when he began to turn his mind to poetry. The public had not yet acquired a taste for the majesty of Miltonic numbers, or that varied harmony which they afford to the delicate and classical ear. He seems therefore to have confined his attention chiefly to Waller, Denham and Dryden.

I have not hitherto had occasion to mention Denham. He wrote in the reign of Charles II. but was little infected with the bad taste of his age. His descriptive poem, entitled Cooper's Hill, is still deservedly admired.

It abounds with natural images, happily blended with moral reflections. His style is close, and his versification vigorous. The following lines will exemplify his manner of writing:

"My eye, descending from the HILL, surveys

"Where Thames among the wanton vallies strays:
"Thames, the most lov'd of all the ocean's sons
"By his old sire, to his embraces runs;
"Hast'ning to pay his tribute to the sea,
"Like mortal life, to meet eternity.

"Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
"Whose foam is amber and their gravel gold,
"His genuine and less guilty wealth t'explore,
"Search not his bottom, but survey his shore."

Pope was not insensible to the merit of Denham's versification, but he saw the necessity of looking nearer to his own time for a master. And he found such a master as he sought in Dryden; who, to the sweetness of Waller, and the strength of Denham, has added a compass of verse, and an energy that is entirely his own. Pope accordingly made the versification of Dryden his model. And if his own compositions have not all the fire of the Alexander's Feast, the easy vigour of the Absalom and Achitophel, or the animated flow of the fables of his master, the collected force and finer polish of his numbers; a nicer choice of words, and a more delicate and just, though less bold imagery, entitled him to all the praise that can possibly belong to an emulous imitator, not invested with absolute superiority; while new flights of fancy, and new turns of thought and expression, more sensibility of heart, and greater elevation of mind, with a closer attention to natural and moral objects, yield him all the requisites of a rival more favoured by fortune, and more zealous in the pursuit of fame. The Rape of the Lock, the Eloise to Abelard, the Messiah, and the Essay on Man, are not only the finest poems of their kind in ours, but in any modern language.

If Pope's versification has any fault, it is that of too much regularity. He generally confines the sense, and consequently

We

consequently the run of metrical harmony to the couplet. This practice enabled him to give great brilliancy to his thoughts and strength to his numbers. It has, therefore, a good effect in his moral and satirical pieces; though it certainly offends the ear, when often repeated, and becomes altogether cloying in long poems, but especially in those of the narrative or descriptive kind. A fault so obvious, though committed by himself, could not escape the correct taste and keen discernment of Pope. accordingly find in his translation of Homer, (where such monotonous uniformity would have been inexcusable) as well as in his fanciful pieces, a more free and varied versification often attempted with success. Two examples will be sufficient to set this matter in a clear light; to shew both his manner of confining his sense to the couplet, and of extending it farther, in compositions of a different species.

"Our humbler province is to tend the fair,

"Not a less pleasing, though less glorious care;
"To save the powder from too rough a gale,
"Nor let th'imprison'd essences exhale ;

"To draw fresh colours from the vernal flowers,
"To steal from rainbows, ere they drop in showers,
"A brighter wash," &c. Rape of the Lock, Cant. ii.
"Thus breathing death, in terrible array,

"The close-compacted legions urg'd their way: "Fierce they drove on, impatient to destroy;

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Troy charg'd the first, and Hector first of Troy. "As from some mountain's craggy forehead torn "A rock's round fragment flies, with fury borne, "(Which from the stubborn stone a torrent rends), "Precipitate the ponderous mass descends; "From steep to steep, the rolling ruin bounds, "At every shock the crackling wood resounds;

"Still gathering strength, it smokes; and, urg'd amain, "Whirls, leaps, and thunders down, impetuous to the

plain:

"There stops-So Hector," &c.

Iliad, xii.

Pope

Pope, in a word, if we may judge by the unsuccessful attempts of later writers, has given to our heroic verse in rhyme, all the freedom and variety of which it is capable, without breaking its structure or impairing its vi

gour.

Of the former of these faults, examples are numerous among the poetical successors of Pope; but one, from the writings of a man of genius, whence hundreds might be selected, will serve to illustrate the justice of this remark.

"And are there bards, who on creation's file

"Stand rank'd as men, who breathe in this fair isle
"The air of freedom, with so little gall

"So low a spirit, prostrate thus to fall
"Before these idols, and without a groan

"Bear wrongs, might call forth murmurs from a "stone?" Churchill's Independence.

How much inferior to the bold interrogative of the author of the Essay on Man!

"Who knows but HE, whose hand the lightning forms, "Who heaves old ocean, and who wings the storms, "Pours fierce ambition in a Cæsar's mind, "Or turns young Ammon loose to scourge mankind?"

The latter fault, however, want of vigour, is more common in this age of refinement. Even such lines as the following, though easy and flowing, contradict the general character of our language and versification, that of comprehending much meaning in few words. "Of that enchanting age her figure seems, "When smiling Nature with the vital beams "Of vivid youth, and Pleasure's purple flame, "Gilds her accomplish'd work, the female frame, "With rich luxuriance tender, sweetly wild, "And just between the woman and the child.”

Could any one, on reading these much admired verses, discern the propriety of Roscommon's famous metaphor in speaking of English poetry?

"The weighty bullion of one STERLING line,

"Drawn in French wire, would through whole pages

shine?"

They

They who aspire at a greater compass of harmony, and who are ambitious of continuing unbroken its winding stream, must throw aside the fetters of rhyme.

Born with a strong understanding, a benevolent heart, and an enthusiastic fancy-with all the powers necessary to form a great poet, Thomson perceived that Pope had attained the summit of excellence in that mode of composition which he had adopted. He was not, however, discouraged. He saw there were other paths to Fame; and by judiciously making choice of blank verse, which was perfectly suited to the exuberance of his genius, to the grandeur of his conceptions, and to the boldness of his metaphorical images, as well as to the minute wildness of his poetical descriptions, he has left us, in his Seasons, a greater number of just, beautiful, and sublime views of external nature, than are to be found in the works of all other poets since the days of Lucretius.

Akenside, feelingly alive to all the impressions of natural and moral beauty, who surveyed the universe with a truly benevolent eye, and a heart filled with admiration and love of the wisdom and goodness of the Supreme Being, has given us in his Pleasures of Imagination, a delightful system of the philosophy of taste, unfolded in all the pomp of Miltonic verse.

And Armstrong, the friend of Thomson, and like Akenside, a physician by profession, has bequeathed to mankind a more valuable legacy, in his Art of Preserving Health, while he has furnished the literary world with a more classical poem, in the same species of versification, than either the Seasons or the Pleasures of Imagination. After such profuse praise, it will be necessary to give a specimen of the composition of this truly elegant writer.

"He without riot in the balmy feast

"Of life, the wants of nature has supplied,
"Who rises cool, serene, and full of soul.
"But pliant nature more or less demands,

"As custom forms her:-and all sudden change
"She hates, of habit, even from bad to good.

VOL. V.

30

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