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He blames Pope for being profaic in morals, and here he cenfures Mallet for ufing figures in narration.-But to go on with our Author and his citations.

Where'er you find the cooling western breeze,
In the next line it whiftles through the trees.

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Unvaried rhymes,' fays he, highly difguft readers of a good * ear.' If the rhymes are good the ear cannot be offended. The mind, indeed, may, as by the firft rhyme the fecond may be gueffed, by which the compofition lofes the charm of novelty.

• We have not,' he adds, many compofitions where new ⚫ and uncommon rhymes are introduced.' He has, however, mentioned fome poets who have been ftudious of this beauty, Parnelle, Pitt's Vida, Weft's Pindar, Thomson's Caftle of Indolence, and the author of an Ode on Summer. Thefe new rhymes, however, do no great honour to their in

ventors.

When fpeaking of the lines meant as inftances of adapting the found to the fenfe, the Critic might have fhewn that they are taken from Vida, lib. IIId. The Italian poet, however, in his exemplifications, is not chargeable with the fault justly imputed by the Rambler to thofe of Pope.

Our Critic remarks on the following lines,

Now they who reach Parnaffus' lofty crown,
Employ their pains to fpurn fome others down.

That the arts ufed by Addifon to fupprefs the rifing merit of Pope, which are now fully laid open, give one pain to behold, to what mean artifices envy and malignity will compel a gentleman and a genius to defcend. It is certain, that Addifon difcouraged Pope from inferting the machinery in the Rape of the Lock; that he privately infinuated that Pope was a Tory and a Jacobite, and had a hand in writing the Examiners; that Addifon himself tranflated the first book of Homer, publifhed under Tickel's name; and that he fecretly encouraged Gildon to abuse Pope, in a virulent pamphlet, for which Addifon paid Gildon ten guineas.'

As we cannot fuppofe this Author would publifh thefe things against a man of Mr. Addison's character, without fufficient proofs of their certainty, fo ought he, in juftice, to have fubjoined them to the accufation. If Addison was guilty of these bafeneffes, his moral writings ought only to make him the more deteftable.

The common opinion,' fays our Critic, that the reign of Charles the fecond was the Auguftan age in England, is • exceffively

exceffively falfe. A just taste was by no means yet formed. • What was called Sheer-Wit, was alone ftudied and applauded. Rochefter is said to have had no idea of better poetry. than Cowley's. The King was perpetually quoting Hudibras. The neglect of fuch a poem as the Paradise Lost, ⚫ will for ever remain a monument of the bad taste that prevailed. It may be added, that the progrefs of philological learning, and of what is called the Belle Lettres, was, perhaps, obftructed by the inftitution of the Royal Society, ⚫ which turned the thoughts of men of genius to phyfical enquiries. Our ftile in profe was but beginning to be polished; • altho' the diction of Hobbs is fufficiently pure: which philofopher, and not the florid Sprat, was the claffic of that age.'

If Cowley had not wrote Effays, Dryden Prefaces, Clarendon his Controverfial Pieces and his Hiftory, we should, perhaps, have agreed with our Author. There were, however, fome profe compofitions in the time of Charles the firft, which, for a manly flow of diction, and a rotunditas fententiarium, have not yet been furpaffed.

We come next to this Writer's comment on the following couplet.

With mean complacence ne'er betray your trust,
Nor be fo civil as to be unjust.

Our poet,' fays he, practifed this excellent precept in his conduct to Wycherly, whofe pieces he corrected with equal freedom and judgment. But Wycherly, who had C a bad heart, and an infufferable fhare of vanity, and who was one of the profeffed wits of the laft mentioned age, < was foon difgufted at this candour of Pope's, infomuch that ⚫ he came to an open and ungenerous rupture with him.'

Does not the Critic here make rather too free with the hearts of other men? It is, however, evident, that Pope, who must have known W. better than Mr. ****** could poffibly do, thought differently of that spirited and witty comic writer; for, in one of his Letters, written after Wycherly's death, he bears exprefs teftimony to the probity of his departed friend. But to return:

Horace fill charms with graceful negligence,
And without method talks us into fenfe.

After agreeing with Mr. Hurd,* that the Epiftle to the Pifo's

* Although we think that this excellent Commentator has fhewn the connexion of the feveral parts of that poem, is not Horace ftill blameable for having wrapt it up in fuch a manner that the perfpiCacity of fo many ages was not fufficient to develope it?

is ftrictly methodical, and not a compleat Art of Poetry, but folely confined to the state and defects of the Roman drama, our Author thus proceeds. It feems also to be another common mistake, that one of Horace's characteristics is the fublime; of which, indeed, he has given a very few strokes, ⚫ and thofe taken from Pindar, and, probably, from Alcæus. • His excellence lay in exquifite obfervations on human life, and in touching the foibles of mankind with a delicate urbanity. It is eafy to perceive this moral turn in all his ⚫ compofitions. The writer of the Epiftles is difcerned in the Odes. Elegance, not Sublimity, was his grand charac❝teristic.'

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How frugal is our Critic of his praife? Horace undoubtedly poffeffed elegance in a very eminent degree, and many of his Odes are moral and fatyric; but can no poet who draws images from familiar life, and makes remarks that come home to mens bufinefs and bofoms, be fublime? What then must become of Pindar, whofe Odes abound with ethic fentences?But why muft Horace have borrowed his very few Arokes of the fublime from Pindar and Alcæus? How far the Roman borrowed from the Lesbian poet, whom he regarded with a fingular reverence, as the Critic cannot determine, fo was there no occafion for the infinuation. The old Scholiafts mention but one or two lines † which Horace tranflated from Alcæus ; and had there been more, thofe gentlemen, who were suffici. en ly fond of fhewing their reading, would not have failed to have quoted them. Befides, as the hatred of tyranny was the characteristical excellence of Alcæus, could the courtier of Auguftus imitate him in that? And as to his love and focial compofition, delicacy, not fublimity, feems to be their perfection. We, indeed, know that Horace has made freer with the Theban bard. Yet how many imitations have Critics, 'after all their search, been able to find in the Roman Lyrist? not above half a dozen paffages;* and we will venture to affirm, that they have not changed conditions for the worse, and that the Pindarum quifquis Studet æmulari, not only fhews that Horace could be as fublime as Pindar, when he chose it, but throws the ballance of literary obligation on Horace's fide.

But left that Ode fhould not equally ftrike our ingenious Critic, he is defired to confider the following Odes, and then to declare if there are any in Pindar fuperior to them, viz. Odes 15, 35, 37, of the first book; Odes i, 13 (which the

+ Ode xviii. Lib. 1.

* Ode xii. lib. 1. is the most remarkable imitation.

Critic thinks the best in Horace) and 19, of the second book; and especially Ode 1, 3, 4, the Character of Regulus in the 5th, and the 25th of the third book; Ode 4, 9, and 14 of the fourth book, not to mention fome of the Epodes.

Indeed Horace, in his Satyres and Epiftles, modeftly dif claims not only all title to fublimity, but even to poetry; and in his Odes often fays, that his Mufe was not fuited to fubjects of grandeur, but fung

Convivia et prælia virginum,

Sectis in juvenes unguibus acrium,
Non præter folitum levis.

Yet can we by no means agree with him.
To go on:

In grave Quintilian's copious work we find,

The jufteft rules and clearest method join'd.

To recommend Quintilian, fays the Critic, very juftly, barely for his method, and to infift merely on this excellence, is below the merit of one of the most rational and elegant of Roman writers. As no author ever adorned a fcientifical treatise with fo many beautiful metaphors, he afforded matter for a more appropriated and poetical character.

Art. 42. After praifing the abrupt address to Longinus,* he adds, the taste and fenfibility of Longinus were exquifite, but his obfervations were too general, and his method too loofe. The precision of the true philofophical critic is loft in the declamation of the florid rhetorician.

Art. 43.

From the fame foes, at laft, both felt their doom,
And the fame age faw learning fall and Rome.

Our author remarks, that tho' it was the opinion of Longinus, Shaftsbury, and Addifon, that arbitrary governments are pernicious to the fine arts as well as to the sciences; yet modern History has afforded an example to the contrary. Painting, fculpture, and mufic have been seen to arrive at a high perfection in Rome, notwithstanding the fuperftition and flavery that reign there: nay, that fuperftition itself has been highly productive of thefe fine arts: for with what enthusiasm must a popish painter work for an altar-piece?—That the fine arts, in fhort, are naturally attendant upon power and luxury. But the fciences require unlimited freedom to raise them to their full vigour and growth. In a monarchy there may be poThee, bold Longinus, all the Nine infpire, And bless their Critic with the poet's fire.

As Mr. Hurd had obferved before him.

ets,

ets, painters, and musicians; but orators, hiftorians, and philofophers can exist in a republic alone. He proceeds.

A fecond deluge learning thus o'er-run,

And the Monks finish'd what the Goths begun.

Every custom and opinion that can degrade humanity, was to be found,' fays the Effayift, in the times here alluded to. The moft cruel tyranny, and the groffeft fuperftition reigned without controul. Men feemed to have loft not only the light of learning, but of their common reasoning. Duels, Divinations, the Ordeal, and all the oppreffive cultoms of the feudal laws, were univerfally practifed: Witchcraft, Poffeffions, Revelations, and Aftrology, were gene< rally believed. The clergy were fo ignorant, that in some of the moft folemn acts of Council, fuch words as thefe, as my Lord Bishop cannot write himself, at his request I have fubfcribed. They were at that time fo profligate, as to publish abfolutions for any one who had killed his father, mother, fifter, or wife, or had committed the most enormous pol•lutions.'

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This juft and animated picture evidently fhews, that fuperftition and tyranny are, in their natural tendency, not only deftractive of the fciences, but of the arts of beauty. And if Taffo and Raphael flourished in arbitrary governments, their fuccefs was owing to the fmiles of the court. What poets, painters, or muficians has eastern defpotism produced?

But, however, let us not load the clergy of the middle èentaries with more odium than they deferve. What learning was then known in Europe, they, and they only, pofleffed. At length Erafmus, that great injur'd name, (The glory of the priesthood, and the shame) Stemm'd the wild torrent of a barbarous age, And drove thofe holy Vandals off the flage.

Our Critic wishes Mr. Pope had drawn a fuller portrait of this wonderful man, of whom, according to our Author, he appears to have been fo fond, as to declare in his Letters, that he had fome defign of writing his life in Latin.*

This is not ftrictly true. Some lines in the Effay on Criticifin, and particularly thefe relating to Erafmus, having difpleafed many bigotted Catholics, Pope fays, in one of his Letters to the Honourable J. C. that if they did not fuffer the mention of Erafmus to pafs unregarded, he fhould be forced to do that for his reputation which he would never do for his own; that is, to vindicate fo great a light of his Church from the malice of palt times, and the igno

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