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expected from inferior versifiers *? It is not my intention to enter into a trite and tedious difcuffion of the feveral merits of rhyme and blank verfe, Perhaps rhyme may be propereft for shorter pieces; for lyric, elegiac, and fatiric poems; for pieces where closeness of expreffion, and smartness of style, are expected; but for subjects of a higher order, where any enthusiasm or emotion is to be expreffed, or for poems of a greater length, blank verfe is undoubtedly preferable. An epic poem in rhyme appears to be fuch a fort of thing, as the Æneid would have been if it had been written, like Ovid's Fafti, in hexameter and pentameter verfes; and the reading it would have been as tedious as

* Our author told Mr. HARTE, that, in order to dif guife his being the author of the fecond epiftle of the Effay on Man, he made, in the first edition, the following bad rhyme :

A cheat a whore! who ftarts not at the name,

In all the inns of court, or Drury-Lane* ?

And HARTE remembered to have often heard it urged, in enquiries about the author, whilft he was unknown, that it was impoffible it could be PoPE's, on account of this very paffage. POPE inferted many good lines in Harte's Effay on Reason.

* V. 205,

the

the travelling through that one long, strait, avenue of firs, that leads from Moscow to Peterburg. I will give the reader Mr. POPE's own opinion on this fubject, and in his own words, as delivered to Mr. Spence. "I have nothing to fay for rhyme *; but that I doubt if a poem can fupport itself without it in our language, unless it be ftiffned with fuch strange words, as are likely to deftroy our language itself, The high ftyle that is

*Boileau, whofe practice it was to make the fecond line of a couplet before the firft, having written (in his fecond fatire) this line,

Dans mes vers recoufus mettre en pieces Malherbe, it was thought impoffible by La Fontaine and Moliere, and other critical friends, for him to find a proper rhyme for the word Malherbe at last he hit upon the following;

Et tranfpofant cent fois & le nom & le verbe. Upon fhewing which line to La Fontaine, he cried out→

Ah! how happy have you been, my friend! I would give the very best of all my Tales to have made fuch a difcovery." So important in the eyes of French poets is a lucky rhyme! Voltaire gives us the following anecdote. Questions fur l'Encycloped. Partie 5, 255 page. "Je me fouviendrai toûjours que je demandai au célébre POPE, pourquoi Milton n'avait pas rimé fon Paradis perdu; & qu'il me répondit, Because he could not; parce qu'il ne le pouvait pas.". -But the most harmonious of rhymers has faid- What rhyme adds to fweetness, it takes away from fenfe." DRYDEN.-The rhymes in L'Allegro and Il Penferofo are juft and correct.

affected

affected fo much in blank verfe, would not have been fupported even in Milton, had not his subject turned fo much on such Strange and out of the world things as it does*."-May we not, however, venture to obferve, that more of that true harmony which will best support a poem, will result from a variety of paufes, and from an intermixture of those different feet (iambic and trochaïc particularly) into which our language naturally falls, than from the uniformity of fimilar terminations. "There can be no mufic," fays COWLEY, with only one note."

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17. Bleft paper-credit! laft and beft supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
Gold, imp'd by thee, can compass hardest things,
Can pocket States, can fetch or carry Kings;
A fingle leaf fhall waft an army o'er,
Or fhip off Senates to a diftant fhore;
A leaf, like Sybils', fcatter to and fro

Our fates and fortunes, as the winds fhall blow;

* But there are many paffages in Milton of the most flowing foftness and smoothness; without any marks of this high style, any hard or antiquated words, or harsh inverfions; which are by no means effential to blank verse.

Pregnant

Pregnant with thousandsflits the scrap unfeen,
And filent fells a King, or buys a Queen †.

"NOT one of my works" (faid POPE to Mr. Spence) was more laboured than my epiftle on the Ufe of Riches." It does indeed abound in knowledge of life, and in the jufteft fatire. The lines above

quoted have also the additional merit of touching on a fubject that never occurred to former satirifts. And though it was difficult to say any thing new about avarice, "a vice that has been fo pelted (fays CowLEY) with good fentences," yet has our author done it fo fuccefsfully, that this epiftle, together with Lord BACON's thirtythird Eay, contains almost all that can be faid on the ufe and abufe of riches, and the abfurd extremes of avarice and profufion. But our poet has enlivened his precepts with fo many various characters, pictures, and images, as may entitle him. to claim the preference over all that have.

*The word flits heightens the fatire, by giving us the ftrong idea of an obfcene and ill-omened bird.

+ Of the ufe of Riches, v. 39.

treated

treated on this tempting fubject, down from the time of the Plutus of Aristophanes. That very lively and amiable old nobleman, the late Lord BATHURST, told me, "that he was much furprized to fee what he had with repeated pleasure so often read as an epiftle addreffed to himself, in this edition. converted into a dialogue; in which," faid he, "I perceive I really make but a fhabby and indifferent figure, and contribute very little to the fpirit of the dialogue, if it must be a dialogue; and I hope I had generally more to fay for myself in the many charming conversations I used to hold with POPE and Swift, and my old poetical friends."

18. A Statefman's flumbers how this speech would spoil! "Sir, Spain has fent a thousand jars of oil; Huge bales of British cloth blockade the door; A hundred oxen at your levee roar *"

NOTHING can exceed this ridicule of the many inconveniences that would have encumbered villainy, by bribing and by pay- ́ ing in kind. The following examples

* Ver. 55.

carry

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