ashamed to own, that they do not relish and feel the modeft and referved beauties of Raphael. The exact proportion of St. Peter's at Rome, occafions it not to appear fo great as it really is. 'Tis the fame in writing; but, by degrees, we find that Lucan, Martial, Juvenal, Q. Curtius, and Florus, and others of that ftamp, who abound in figures that contribute to the falfe florid, in luxuriant metaphors, in pointed conceits, in lively antitheses, unexpectedly darted forth, are contemptible for the very causes which once excited our admiration. 'Tis then we relish Terence, Cæfar, and Xenophon.

16. Kept drofs for Ducheffes, the world shall know it, To you gave sense, good-humour, and a poet*.

The world shall know it—is an unmeaning expreffion, and a poor expletive, into which our poet was forced by the rhyme t.

Ver. 291.

+. La Rime gêne plus qu'elle n' orne les vers, Elle les charge d'Epithétes; elle rend fouvent la diction forcée, & pleine d' une vaine parure. En allongant les difcours, elle les affoiblit. Souvent on a recours à un vers inutile; pour en amener un bon. FENELON to M. DE LA MOTTE, Lettres, p. óz. A Cambray, 26 Janvier 1719.

Maudit

Maudit foit le premier, dont la verve insensée,
Dans les bornes d'un vers renferma fa pensée,
Et donnant à fes mots une étroite prison,
Voulut avec la rime enchaîner la raifon *.

RHYME alfo could alone be the occafion of the following faulty expreffions; taken too from some of his most finished pieces.

Not Cæfar's Empress would I deign to prove―
If Queenberry to strip there's no compelling→
Rapt into future times the bard begun-
Know all the noise the busy world can keep—
If true, a woful likeness, and if lyes-
Nothing fo true as what you once let fall-
For virtue's felf may too much zeal be bad➡
-can no wants endure-

Nay half in heav'n except what's mighty odd→
can have no flaw-

on fuch a world we fall—

take scandal at a spark

do the knack, and do the feat

And more inftances might be added, if it were not difagreeable to obferve these straws in amber. But if rhyme occafions fuch inconveniences and improprieties in fo exact a writer as our author, what can be

Boileau. Sat. z. v. 53.

expected

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 satiric poems; for pieces where clofeness of expreffion, and smartness of style, are expected; but for fubjects 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, preferable, An epic An epic poem in rhyme appears to be such 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 firft edition, the following bad rhyme :

A cheat! a whore! who starts 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. 2051

the

the travelling through that one long, strait, avenue of firs, that leads from Moscow to Petersburg. I will give the reader Mr. POPE's own opinion on this subject, 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, unlefs it be stiffned with such 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 laft he hit upon the following;

Et transposant 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. Queftions 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 moft harmonious of rhymers has faid- What rhyme adds to fweetness, it takes away from fenfe." DRYDEN.-The rhymes in L'Allegro and Il Penserose are just and correct.

affected

་

.

affected so much in blank verfe, would not
have been supported 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 pauses, and from an in-
termixture of those different feet (iambic
and trochaïc particularly) into which our
language naturally falls, than from the uni-
formity of fimilar terminations. "There
can be no mufic," fays CowLEY,
" with
only one note,"

17. Bleft paper-credit! laft and best supply!
That lends corruption lighter wings to fly!
Gold, imp'd by thee, can compafs 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 shore;
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 moft flowing softness and smoothness; without any marks of this high ftyle, any hard or antiquated words, or harsh inver fions; which are by no means effential to blank verse.

Pregnant