could raise mean fubjects fo high, fhould still be more elevated on greater themes; that he, that could draw fuch noble ideas from a fhilling, could not fail upon fuch a fubject as the duke of Marlborough, which is capable of heightening even the most low and trifling genius. And, indeed, moft of the great works which have been produced in the world, have been owing lefs to the than the patron. Men of the greatest genius are fometimes lazy, and want a fpur; often modeft, and dare not venture in publick: they certainly know their faults in the worst things; and even their best things they are not fond of, because the idea of what they ought to

poet

be is far above what they are. This

induced me to believe that Virgil defired his work might be burnt, had not the fame Auguftus that defired him to write them, preferved them from deftruction. A fcribling beau may ima

gine a Poet may be induced to write, by the very pleasure he finds in writing; but that is feldom, when people are neceffitated to it. I have known men row, and use very hard labour, for di verfion, which, if they had been tied to, they would have thought themselves very unhappy.

But to return to Blenheim, that work fo much admired by fome, and cenfured by others. I have often wifhed he had

wrote

wrote it in Latin, that he might be out of the reach of the empty criticks, who

would have as little understood his

meaning in that language, as they do his beauties in his own.

Falfe criticks have been the plague of all ages; Milton himself, in a very polite court, has been compared to the rumbling of a wheel-barrow; he had been on the wrong fide, and therefore could not be a good poet. And this, perhaps, may be Mr. Philips's cafe.

But I take generally the ignorance of his readers to be the occafion of their dislike. People that have formed their taite upon the French writers, can have no relifh for Philips: they admire points

and

and turns, and confequently have no judgement of what is great and majeftick: he muft look little in their eyes, when he foars fo high as to be almoft out of their view. I cannot therefore allow any admirer of the French to be a judge of Blenheim, nor any who takes Bouhours for a compleat critick. He generally judges of the ancients by the moderns, and not the moderns by the ancients; he takes thofe paffages of their own authors to be really fublime which come the neareft to it; he often calls that a noble and great thought which is only a pretty and a fine one, and has more inftances of the fublime

out

out of Ovid de Triftibus, than he has out of all Virgil..

I fhall allow, therefore, only those to be judges of Philips, who make the antients, and particularly Virgil, their ftandard.

But, before I enter on this fubject, I fhall confider what is particular in the ftyle of Philips, and examine what ought to be the style of heroick poetry, and next, enquire how far he is come up to that ftyle.

His ftyle is particular; because he lays afide rhyme, and writes in blank verfe, and uses old words, and frequently poftpones the adjective to the fubftantive, and the fubftantive to the