thinks it sometimes a beauty to imitate the licence of the Greeks, and leave two vowels opening on each other, as in that verse of the Third Pastoral,

Et succus pecori, et lac subducitur agnis.

But, nobis non licet esse tam disertis, at least if we study to refine our numbers. I have long had by me the materials of an English Prosodia, containing all the mechanical rules of versification, wherein I have treated, with some exactness, of the feet, the quantities, and the pauses. The French and Italians know nothing of the two first; at least their best poets have not practised them. As for the pauses, Malherbe first brought them into France within this last century; and we see how they adorn their Alexandrines. But, as Virgil propounds a riddle, which he leaves unsolved

Dic, quibus in terris, inscripti nomina regum
Nascantur flores; et Phyllida solus habeto—

so I will give your lordship another, and leave the exposition of it to your acute judgment. I am sure there are few who make verses, have observed the sweetness of these two lines in Cooper's Hill:

Though deep, yet clear; though gentle, yet not dull;
Strong without rage; without o'erflowing, full---*

and there are yet fewer who can find the reason of that sweetness. I have given it to some of my friends in conversation; and they have allowed the

* This celebrated couplet occurs in Sir John Denham's "Cooper's Hill," a poem which was praised beyond its merit by the author's contemporaries. After allowing that the lines are smooth and sonorous, which indeed were infrequent qualities of the versification of the period, I fear much of their merit lies in the skilful antithesis of the attributes of the river.

criticism to be just. But, since the evil of false quantities is difficult to be cured in any modern language; since the French and the Italians, as well as we, are yet ignorant what feet are to be used in heroic poetry; since I have not strictly observed those rules myself, which I can teach others; since I pretend to no dictatorship among my fellow-poets; since, if I should instruct some of them to make well-running verses, they want genius to give them strength as well as sweetness; and, above all, since your lordship has advised me not to publish that little which I know, I look on your counsel as your command, which I shall observe inviolably, till you shall please to revoke it, and leave me at liberty to make my thoughts public. In the mean time, that I may arrogate nothing to myself, I must acknowledge that Virgil in Latin, and Spenser in English, have been my masters. Spenser has also given me the boldness to make use sometimes of his Alexandrine line, which we call, though improperly, the Pindaric, because Mr Cowley has often employed it in his Odes. It adds a certain majesty to the verse, when it is used with judgment, and stops the sense from overflowing into another line. Formerly the French, like us, and the Italians, had but five feet, or ten syllables, in their heroic verse; but, since Ronsard's time, as I suppose, they found their tongue too weak to support their epic poetry, without the addition of another foot. That indeed has given it somewhat of the run and measure of a trimeter; but it runs with more activity than strength: their language is not strung with sinews, like our English; it has the nimbleness of a greyhound, but not the bulk and body of a mastiff. Our men and our verses overbear them by their weight; and Pondere, non numero, is the British motto. The French have set up purity for the standard of their

language; and a masculine vigour is that of ours. Like their tongue, is the genius of their poets, light and trifling in comparison of the English; more proper for sonnets, madrigals, and elegies, than heroic poetry. The turn on thoughts and words is their chief talent; but the epic poem is too stately to receive those little ornaments. The painters draw their nymphs in thin and airy habits; but the weight of gold and of embroideries is reserved for queens and goddesses. Virgil is never frequent in those turns, like Ovid, but much more sparing of them in his Æneïs, than in his Pastorals and Georgics.

Ignoscenda quidem, scirent si ignoscere manes.

That turn is beautiful indeed; but he employs it in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, not in his great poem. I have used that licence in his Æneïs sometimes; but I own it as my fault. It was given to those who understand no better. It is like Ovid's

Semivirumque bovem, semibovemque virum.

The poet found it before his critics, but it was a darling sin, which he would not be persuaded to reform. The want of genius, of which I have accused the French, is laid to their charge by one of their own great authors, though I have forgotten his name, and where I read it. If rewards could make good poets, their great master* has not been wanting on his part in his bountiful encouragements:

• Louis XIV.; whom Dryden probably in his heart compared with disadvantage to the needy Charles, who loved literary merit without rewarding it; the saturnine James, who rewarded without loving it; and the phlegmatic William, who did neither the one nor the other.

for he is wise enough to imitate Augustus, if he had a Maro. The triumvir and proscriber had descended to us in a more hideous form than they now appear, if the emperor had not taken care to make friends of him and Horace. I confess, the banishment of Ovid was a blot in his escutcheon: yet he was only banished; and who knows but his crime was capital, and then his exile was a favour? Ariosto, who, with all his faults, must be acknowledged a great poet, has put these words into the mouth of an evangelist: but whether they will pass for gospel now, I cannot tell.

*

Non fu si santo ni benigno Augusto,
Come la tuba di Virgilio suona.
L'haver havuto in poesia buon gusto,
La proscrittione iniqua gli perdona.

But heroic poetry is not of the growth of France, as it might be of England, if it were cultivated. Spenser wanted only to have read the rules of Bossu; for no man was ever born with a greater genius, or had more knowledge to support it. But the performance of the French is not equal to their skill; and hitherto we have wanted skill to perform better. Ségrais, whose preface is so wonderfully good, yet is wholly destitute of elevation, though his version is much better than that of the two brothers, or any of the rest who have attempted Virgil. Hannibal Caro is a great name amongst the Italians; yet his translation of the Eneïs is most scandalously mean, though he has taken the advantage of writing in blank verse, and freed himself from the shackles of modern rhyme, if it be modern; for Le

* St John, in his conversation with Astolfo, on the latter's arrival in the Moon.

Clerc has told us lately, and I believe has made it out, that David's Psalms were written in as errant rhyme as they are translated. Now, if a Muse

cannot run when she is unfettered, it is a sign she has but little speed. I will not make a digression here, though I am strangely tempted to it; but will only say, that he who can write well in rhyme, may write better in blank verse. * Rhyme is certainly a constraint even to the best poets, and those who make it with most ease; though perhaps I have as little reason to complain of that hardship as any man, excepting Quarles and Withers. What it adds to sweetness, it takes away from sense; and he who loses the least by it, may be called a gainer. It often makes us swerve from an author's meaning; as, if a mark be set up for an archer at a great distance, let him aim as exactly as he can, the least wind will take his arrow, and divert it from the white.-I return to our Italian translator of the Eneïs. He is a foot-poet, he lacquies by the side of Virgil at the best, but never mounts behind him. Doctor Morelli, † who is no mean critie in our poetry, and therefore may be presumed to be a better in his own language, has confirmed me in this opinion by his judgment, and thinks, withal, that he has often mistaken his master's sense. I would say so, if I durst, but am afraid I have committed the same fault more often, and more grossly; for I have for

This is not expressed with sufficient precision. Undoubtedly one possessing those true poetic qualities, which consist in the thought and not in the mere arrangement of expression, will shine most in the easiest structure of versification. But there is a very inferior. yet not altogether contemptible kind of poet, whose merit consists more in melody of versification, and neatness or even felicity of expression, than in his powers of conception. Such bards will do well to avail themselves of the melody of rhyme.

A learned physician of Dryden's time.