to be punished for the malice of the action, as our witches are justly hanged, because they think themselves to be such; and suffer deservedly for believing they did mischief, because they meant it. You have described him, said Crites, so exactly, that I am afraid to come after you with my other extremity of poetry: he is one of those who, having had some advantage of education and converse, knows better than the other what a poct should be, but puts it into practice more unluckily than any man. His style and matter are every where alike he is the most calm, peaceable writer you ever read: he never disquiets your passions with the least concernment, but still leaves you in as even a temper as he found you; he is a very leveller in poetry: he creeps along with ten little words in every line, and helps out his numbers with For to, and Unto, and all the pretty expletives he can find, till he drags them to the end of another line; while the sense is left tired half way behind it; he doubly starves all his verses, first for want of thought, and then of expression. His poetry neither has wit in it, nor seems to have it; like him in Martial:

Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper.

He affects plainness, to cover his want of imagination when he writes the serious way, the

This passage evidently furnished Pope with his wellknown couplet in the ESSAY ON CRITICISM;

"While expletives their feeble aid do join,
"And ten low words oft creep in one dull line."

highest flight of his fancy is some miserable antithesis, or seeming contradiction; and in the comick he is still reaching at some thin conceit, the ghost of a jest, and that too flies before him, never to be caught. These swallows which we see beforc us on the Thames, are the just resemblance of his wit: you may observe how near the water they stoop, how many proffers they make to dip, and yct how seldom they touch it; and when they do, it is but the surface: they skim over it but to catch a gnat, and then mount into the air and leave it.

Well, gentlemen, said Eugenius, you may speak your pleasure of these authors; but though I and some few more about the town may give you a peaceable hearing, yet assure yourselves, there are multitudes who would think you malicious and them injured: especially him whom you first described. He is the very Withers of the city: they have bought more editions of his works than would serve to lay under all their pies at the lord mayor's Christmas. When his famous poem first came out in the year 1660, I have seen them reading it in the midst of 'Change time; nay so vehement they were at it, that they lost their bargain by the candles' ends: but what will you say, if he has been received amongst great persons? I can assure you

* George Wither, a very voluminous poetaster.See Wood's ATH. OXON. vol. ii. col. 391.

A sale by the candle is one of the modes of selling goods by publick auction.

he is, this day, the envy of one who is lord in the art of quibbling; and who does not take it well, that any man should intrude so far into his province. All I would wish, replied Crites, is, that they who love his writings, may still admire him, and his fellow poet: Qui Bavium non odit, &c. is curse sufficient. And farther, added Lisideius, I believe there is no man who writes well, but would think he had hard measure, if their admirers should praise any thing of his : Nam quos contemnimus, eorum quoque laudes contemnimus. There are so few who write well in this age, said Crites, that methinks any praises should be welcome; they neither rise to the dignity of the last age, nor to any of the ancients: and we may cry out of the writers of this time, with more reason than Petronius of his, Pace vestra liceat dixisse, primi omnium eloquentiam perdidistis: you have debauched the true old poetry so far, that Nature, which is the soul of it, is not in of your writings.

any

If your quarrel (said Eugenius) to those who now write, be grounded only on your reverence to antiquity, there is no man more ready to adore those great Greeks and Romans than I am : but on the other side, I cannot think so contemptibly of the in which I live, or so dishonourably of my age own country, as not to judge we equal the ancients in most kinds of poesy, and in some surpass them; neither know I any reason why I may not be as zealous for the reputation of our age, as we find the ancients themselves were in reference to

those who lived before them. For

Horace✶ saying,

you hear

your

Indignor quidquam reprehendi, non quia crassé
Compositum, illepidève putetur, sed quia nuper.

And after:

Si meliora dies, ut vina, poemata reddit,

Scire velim, pretium chartis quotus arroget annus?

But I see I am engaging in a wide dispute, where the arguments are not like to reach close on either side; for poesy is of so large an extent, and so many both of the ancients and moderns have done well in all kinds of it, that in citing one against the other, we shall take up more time this evening than each man's occasions will allow him: therefore I would ask Crites to what part of pocsy he would confine his arguments, and whether he would defend the general cause of the ancients against the moderns, or oppose any age of the moderns against this of ours?

Crites, a little while considering upon this demand, told Eugenius, that if he pleased, he would limit their dispute to Dramatick Poesy; in which he thought it not difficult to prove, either that the ancients were superior to the moderns, or the last age to this of ours.

Eugenius was somewhat surprised, when he heard Crites make choice of that subject. For aught I sec, said he, I have undertaken a harder province than I imagined; for though I never

This passage adds some support to my conjecture, that CRITES was intended to represent lord Roscommon.

judged the plays of the Greek or Roman poets. comparable to ours, yet, on the other side, thosewe now see acted come short of many which were written in the last age. But my comfort is, if we are overcome, it will be only by our own countrymen and if we yield to them in this one part of poesy, we more surpass them in all the other: for in the epick or lyrick way, it will be hard for them to shew us one such amongst them, as we have many now living, or who lately were: they can produce nothing so courtly writ, or which expresses so much the conversation of a gentleman, as Sir John Suckling; nothing so even, sweet, and flowing, as Mr. Waller; nothing so majestick, so correct, as Sir John Denham; nothing so elevated, so copious, and full of spirit, as Mr. Cowley. As for the Italian, French, and Spanish plays, I can make it evident, that those who now write, surpass them; and that the drama is wholly ours.

All of them were thus far of Eugenius his opinion, that the sweetness of English verse was never understood or practised by our fathers; even Crites himself did not much oppose it: and every one was willing to acknowledge how much our poesy is improved, by the happiness of some writers yet living; who first taught us to mould our

This ungrammatical phraseology continued to be used by all our best writers, till the beginning of the present reign. Our author, as Dr. Lowth, bishop of London, has clearly shewn, (Grammar, p. 31,) ought to have written Eugeniusis opinion."

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