In our own country a man seldom sets up for a poet, without attacking the reputation of all his brothers in the art. The ignorance of the moderns, the scribblers of the age, the decay of poetry, are the topics of detraction with which he makes his entrance into the world: but how much more noble is the fame that is built on candor and ingenuity, according to those beautiful lines of Sir John Denham, in his poem on Fletcher's works!

But whither am I stray'd? I need not raise
Trophies to thee from other mens dispraise;
Nor is thy fame on lesser ruins built,
Nor needs thy juster title the foul guilt

Of eastern kings, who, to secure their reign,

Must have their brothers, sons, and kindred slain.

I am sorry to find that an author, who is very justly esteemed among the best judges, has admitted some strokes of this nature into a very fine poem; I mean 'The Art of Criticism,' which was published some months since, and is a master-piece in its kind. The observations follow one another like those in Horace's Art of Poetry, without that methodical regularity which would have been requisite in a prose author. They are some of them uncommon, but such as the reader must assent to, when he sees them explained with that elegance and perspicuity in which they are delivered. As for those which are the most known, and the most received, they are placed in so beautiful a light, and illustrated with such apt allusions, that they have in them all the graces of novelty, and make the reader, who was before acquainted with them, still more convinced of their truth and solidity. And here give me leave to mention what Monsieur Boileau has so very well enlarged upon in the preface to his works, that wit and fine writing do not consist so much in advancing things that are new, as in giving things that are known an agreeable turn. It is im

possible for us, who live in the latter ages of the world, to make observations in criticism, morality, or in any art or science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us, but to represent the common sense of mankind in more strong, more beautiful, or more uncommon lights. If a reader examines Horace's Art of Poetry, he will find but very few precepts in it, which he may not meet with in Aristotle, and which were not commonly known by all the poets of the Augustan age. His way of expressing and applying them, not his invention of them, is what we are chiefly to admire.

For this reason I think there is nothing in the world so tiresome as the works of those critics, who write in a positive dogmatic way, without either language, genius, or imagination. If the reader would see how the best of the Latin critics writ, he may find their manner very beautifully described in the characters of Horace, Petronius, Quintilian, and Longinus, as they are drawn in the essay of which I am now speaking.

Since I have mentioned Longinus, who in his reflections has given us the same kind of sublime which he observes in the several passages that occasioned them, I cannot but take notice, that our English author has, after the same manner, exemplified several of his precepts in the very precepts themselves. I shall produce two or three instances of this kind. Speaking of the insipid smoothness which some readers are so much in love with, he has the following verses:

These equal syllables alone require,
Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire,
While expletives their feeble aid do join,

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line.

The gaping of the vowels in the second line, the expletive do in the third, and the ten monosyllables

in the fourth, gives a beauty to this passage, that would have been very much admired in an ancient poet. The reader may observe the following lines in the same view.

A needless Alexandrine ends the song,

That like a wounded snake drags its slow length along.

And afterwards,

"Tis not enough no harshness gives offence,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense.
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows;
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar.
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow:

Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,

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

The beautiful Distich upon Ajar in the foregoing lines, puts me in mind of a description in Homer's Odyssey. It is where Sisyphus is represented lifting his stone up the hill, which is no sooner carried to the top of it, but it immediately tumbles to the bottom. This double motion of the stone is admirably described in the numbers of these verses; as in the four first it is heaved up by several fpondees intermixed with proper breathing-places, and at last trundles down in a continued line of Dactyles.

Καί μέν Σίσυφον ἐισεῖδον, κρατὲς ἀλγὲ ἔΧονία,
Λᾶαν βαςάζονα πελώριον ἀμφοτέρησιν.
Ητοι ὁ μὲν, σκηριπτόμενος χερσίν τε ποσίν τε,
Λᾶαν ἄνω ώθεσκε ποτὶ λόφον, ἀλλ ̓ ὅτε μέλλοι
*Ακρον ὑπερβαλέειν, τότ ̓ ἀποςρέψασκε κραταιές
Αὖτις, ἔπειλα πέδονδε κυλινδείο λᾶας ἀναιδής.

It would be endless to quote verses out of Virgil which have this particular kind of beauty in the numbers; but I may take an occasion in a future

paper to shew several of them which have escaped the observation of others.

I cannot conclude this paper without taking notice, that we have three poems in our tongue, which are of the same nature, and each of them a masterpiece in its kind; the Essay on Translated Verse, the Essay on the Art of Poetry, and the Essay upon Criticism.

No. 255. SATURDAY, DECEMBER 22.

Laudis amore tumes? sunt certa piacula quæ te
Ter pure lecto poterunt recreare libello.

HOR.

THE Soul, considered abstractedly from its passions, is of a remiss and sedentary nature, slow in its resolves, and languishing in its executions. The use therefore of the passions is to stir up and put it upon action, to awaken the understanding, to enforce the will, and to make the whole man more vigorous and attentive in the prosecution of his designs. As this is the end of the passions in general, so it is particularly of ambition, which pushes the soul to such actions as are apt to procure honour and reputation to the actor. But if we carry our reflections higher, we may discover further ends of Providence in implanting this passion in mankind.

It was necessary for the world, that arts should be invented and improved, books written, and transmitted to posterity, nations conquered and civilized: now, since the proper and genuine motives to these and the like great actions, would only influence virtuous minds, there would be but small improvements in the world, were there not some common principle of action working equally with all men; and such a principle is ambition, or a desire of fame, by which great endowments are not suffered to lie idle, and useless to the public, and many vi

VOL. II.

E

cious men over-reached, as it were, and engaged, contrary to their natural inclination, in a glorious and laudable course of action. For we may further observe, that men of the greatest abilities are most fired with ambition: and that, on the contrary, mean and narrow minds are the least actuated by it; whether it be that a man's sense of his own incapacities makes him despair of coming at fame, or that he has not enough range of thought to look out for any good which does not more immediately relate to his interest or convenience; or that Providence, in the very frame of his soul, would not subject him to such a passion as would be useless to the world, and a torment to himself.

Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit.

How few are there who are furnished with abilities sufficient to recommend their actions to the admiration of the world, and to distinguish themselves from the rest of mankind! Providence for the most part sets us upon a level, and observes a kind of proportion in its dispensations towards us. If it renders us perfect in one accomplishment, it generally leaves us defective in another, and seems careful rather of preserving every person from being mean and deficient in his qualifications, than of making any single one eminent or extraordinary.

And among those who are the most richly endowed by nature, and accomplished by their own industry, how few are there whose virtues are not obscured by the ignorance, prejudice, or envy, of their beholders! Some men cannot discern between a noble and a mean action. Others are apt to attribute them to some false end or intention; and others purposely misrepresent, or put a wrong interpretation on them.