its natural dignity, and reduces it from ftrength of thought to happiness of language.

If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be confidered as Wit, which is at once natural and new, that which, though, not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be juft; if it be that, which he that never found it, wonders how he miffed; to wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom rifen. Their thoughts are often new, but feldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they juft; and the reader, far from wondering that he miffed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness of industry they were ever found.

But Wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more rigorously and philofophically confidered as a kind of difcordia concors; a combination of diffimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more. than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ranfacked for illuftrations,

illuftrations, comparisons, and allufions; their learning inftructs, and their fubtilty furprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is feldom pleated.

From this account of their compofitions it will be readily inferred, that they were not fuccessful in representing or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on fomething unexpected and furprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of fentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasure of other minds : they never enquired what, on any occafion, they should have faid or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as Beings looking upon good and evil, impaffive and at leifure; as Epicurean deities making remarks on the actions of men, and the viciffitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of forrow. Their wifh was only to fay what they hoped had been never faid before.

Nor

Nor was the fublime more within their reach than the pathetick; for they never attempted that comprehenfion and expanse of thought which at once fills the whole mind, and of which the first effect is fudden aftonishment, and the fecond rational admiration. Sublimity is produced by aggregation, and littleness by difperfion. Great thoughts are always general, and confift in pofitions not limited by exceptions, and in descriptions not defcending to minutenefs. It is with great propriety that Subtlety, which in its original import means exility of particles, is taken in its metaphorical meaning for nicety of diftinction. Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty could have little hope of greatnefs; for great things cannot have escaped former obfervation. Their attempts

were always analytick; they broke every image into fragments; and could no more represent, by their flender conceits and laboured particularities, the profpects of nature, or the scenes of life, than he, who diffects a fun-beam with a prifm, can exhibit the wide effulgence of a fummer noon.

What they wanted however of the sublime, they endeavoured to fupply by hyperbole; their amplification had no limits; they left not only reason but fancy behind them; and produced combinations of confused magnificence, that not only could not be credited, but could not be imagined.

Yet great labour, directed by great abilities, is never wholly loft: if they frequently threw away their wit upon false conceits, they likewife fometimes ftruck out unexpected truth: if their conceits were farfetched, they were often worth the carriage. To write on their plan, it was at least neceffary to read and think. No man could be born a metaphyfical poet, nor affume the dignity of a writer, by defcriptions copied from defcriptions, by imitations borrowed from imitations, by traditional imagery, and hereditary fimilies, by readinefs of rhyme, and volubility of fyllables.

In perufing the works of this race of authors, the mind is exercised either by recollection or inquiry; either fomething already learned

learned is to be retrieved, or fomething new is to be examined. If their greatness seldom elevates, their acuteness often surprises; if the imagination is not always gratified, at least the powers of reflection and comparison are employed; and in the mass of materials which ingenious abfurdity has thrown together, genuine wit and useful knowledge may be fometimes found, buried perhaps in groffness of expreffion, but useful to those who know their value; and fuch as, when they are expanded to perfpicuity, and polished to elegance, may give luftre to works which have more propriety, though lefs copiousness of fentiment.

This kind of writing, which was, I believe, borrowed from Marino and his followers, had been recommended by the example of Donne, a man of very extenfive and various knowledge; and by Jonfon, whose manner resembled that of Donne more in the ruggednefs of his lines than in the caft of his fentiments.

When their reputation was high, they had undoubtedly more imitators, than time has VOL. I.

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