Quid dicam, fenior cum telum imbelle fine ictu
Invalidus jacit, & defectis viribus æger?

Num quoque tum verfus fegni pariter pede languet :
Sanguis hebet, frigent effœta in corpore vires.
Fortem autem juvenem deceat prorumpere in arces,
Evertiffe domos, præfractaque quadrupedantum
Pectora pectoribus perrumpere, fternere turres
Ingentes, totoque ferum dare funera campo.

'Tis not enough his verfes to complete,
In measure, number, or determin'd feet.
To all, proportion'd terms he must dispense,
And make the found a picture of the sense;
The correspondent words exactly frame,
The look, the features, and the mien the fame,
With rapid feet and wings, without delay,
This swiftly flies, and smoothly skims away:
This blooms with youth and beauty in his face,
And Venus breathes on ev'ry limb a grace;
That, of rude form, his uncouth members fhows,
Looks horrible, and frowns with his rough brows
His monstrous tail, in many a fold and wind,
Voluminous and vaft, curls up behind;

At once the image and the lines

appear

Rude to the eye, and frightful to the ear.

Lo! when the failors fteer the pond'rous fhips,
And plough, with brazen beaks, the foamy deeps,
Incumbent on the main that, roars around,
Beneath the lab'ring oars the waves refound;
The prows wide echoing thro' the dark profound.
To the loud call each distant rock replies;
Toft by the ftorm the tow'ring furges rife ;
While the hoarfe ocean beats the founding fhore,
Dafh'd from the ftrand, the flying waters roar.
Flash at the fhock, and gathering in a heap,
The liquid mountains rife, and over-hang the deep.
But when blue Neptune from his car surveys,
And calms at one regard the raging feas,

}

Stretch'd

Stretch'd like a peaceful lake the deep fubfides,
And the pitch'd veffel o'er the furface glides.
When things are small, the terms should still be fo;
For low words please us when the theme is low.
But when fome giant, horrible and grim,
Enormous in his gait, and vaft in ev'ry limb,
Stalks tow'ring on; the fwelling words muft rife
In just proportion to the monster's fize.

If fome large weight his huge arms strive to shove,
The verse too labours; the throng'd words fcarce move.
When each stiff clod beneath the pond'rous plough
Crumbles and breaks, th' encumber'd lines must flow.
Nor lefs, when pilots catch the friendly gales,

Unfurl their shrouds, and hoift the wide-ftretch'd fails.
But if the poem fuffers from delay,

Let the lines fly precipitate away,

And when the viper iffues from the brake,

Be quick; with ftones, and brands, and fire, attack
His rifing creft, and drive the serpent back.

}

When night defcends, or stunn'd by num'rous ftrokes,
And groaning, to the earth drops the vaft ox;
The line too finks with correspondent found,
Flat with the fteer, and headlong to the ground.
When the wild waves fubfide, and tempefts ceafe,
And hufh the roarings of the fea to peace;
So oft we fee the interrupted strain

Stopp'd in the midft-and with the filent main
Paufe for a space-at last it glides again.
When Priam ftrains his aged arms, to throw
His unavailing jav'line at the foe;

(His blood congeal'd, and ev'ry nerve unftrung)
Then with the theme complies the artful fong;
Like him the folitary numbers flow,
Weak, trembling, melancholy, ftiff, and flow.
Not fo young Pyrrhus, who with rapid force
Beats down embattled armies in his courfe.

}

The raging youth on trembling Ilion falls,

Burns her strong gates, and shakes her lofty walls;
Provokes his flying courfer to the speed,

In full career to charge the warlike fteed:

He piles the field with mountains of the flain;
He pours, he storms, he thunders thro' the plain. PITT.

From the Italian gardens Pope feems to have tranfplanted this flower, the growth of happier climates, into a foil lefs adapted to its nature, and less favour. able to its increase.

Soft is the strain, when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud billows lafh the founding fhore,
The hoarfe rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax ftrives fome rock's vaft weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move flow;
Not fo when swift Camilla scours the plain,

Flies o'er th' unbending corn, and fkims along the main.

From these lines, laboured with great attention, and celebrated by a rival wit, may be judged what can be expected from the moft diligent endeavours after this imagery of found. The verfe intended to reprefent the whisper of the vernal breeze, must be confeffed not much to excel in foftnefs or volubility and the smooth stream runs with a perpetual clafh of jarring confonants. The noife and turbu lence of the torrent is, indeed, diftinctly imaged, for it requires very little skill to make our language rough but in these lines, which mention the effort of Ajax, there is no particular heavinefs, obftruction, or delay. The fwiftness of Camilla is rather contrafted

contrasted than exemplified; why the verfe fhould be lengthened to exprefs fpeed, will not eafily be difcovered. In the dactyls used for that purpose by the ancients, two short syllables were pronounced with fuch rapidity, as to be equal only to one long; they, therefore, naturally exhibit the act of paffing through a long space in a fhort time. But the Alexandrine, by its pause in the midft, is a tardy and stately mea, fure; and the word unbending, one of the moft fluggifh and flow which our language affords, cannot much accelerate its motion.

These rules and thefe examples have taught our prefent criticks to inquire very ftudiously and minutely into founds and cadences. It is, therefore, useful to examine with what skill they have proceeded; what discoveries they have made; and whether any rules can be eftablished which may guide us hereafter in fuch researches.

NUMB. 93. TUESDAY, February 5, 1751.

Experiar quid concedatur in illos

Quorum flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina.

Juv.

More fafely truth to urge her claim presumes,

On names new found alone on books and tombs. '

THERE are few books on which more time is spent by young ftudents, than on treatises which deliver the characters of authors; nor any which oftener deceive the expectation of the reader, or fill his mind with more opinions which the progrefs of his studies and the increase of his knowledge oblige him to refign,

Baillet has introduced his collection of the deci fions of the learned, by an enumeration of the prejudices which mislead the critick, and raise the paffions in rebellion against the judgment. His catalogue, though large, is imperfect; and who can hope to complete it? The beauties of writing have been obferved to be often such as cannot in the present state of human knowledge be evinced by evidence, or drawn out into demonftrations; they are therefore wholly fubject to the imagination, and do not force their effects upon a mind preoccupied by unfavourable fentiments, nor overcome the counter-action of a falfe principle or of stubborn partiality.

To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human

abilities,