ment can see several poets still among the English, some of whom equal if not surpass their predecessors. The ignorant term that alone poetry which is couched in a certain number of syllables in every line, where a vapid thought is drawn out into a number of verses of equal length, and perhaps pointed with rhymes at the end. But glowing sentiment, striking imagery, concise expression, natural description, and modulated periods are full sufficient entirely to fill up my idea of this art, and make way to every passion.

If my idea of poetry therefore be just, the English are not at present so destitute of poetical merit as they seem to imagine. I can see several poets in disguise among them; men furnished with that strength of soul, sublimity of sentiment, and grandeur of expression, which constitutes the character. Many of the writers of their modern odes, sonnets, tragedies, or rebusses, it is true, deserve not the name, though they have done nothing but clink rhymes and measure syllables for years together; their Johnsons and Smolletts are truly poets; though for aught I know they never made a single verse in their whole lives.)

In every incipient language the poet and the prose writer are very distinct in their qualifications: the poet ever proceeds first, treading unbeaten paths, enriching his native funds, and employed in new adventures. The other follows with more cautious steps, and though slow in his motions, treasures up every useful or pleasing discovery. But when once all the extent and the force of the language is known, the poet then seems to rest from his labour, and is at length overtaken by his assiduous pursuer. Both characters are then blended into one, the historian and orator catch all the poet's fire, and leave him no real mark of distinction except the iteration of numbers regularly returning. Thus in the decline of antient European learning, Seneca, though he

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wrote in prose, is as much a poet as Lucan, and Longinus, though but a critic, more sublime than Apollonius.

(From this then it appears that poetry is not discontinued, but altered among the English at present; the outward form seems different from what it was, but poetry still continues internally the same; the only question remains whether the metric feet used by the good writers of the last age, or the prosaic numbers employed by the good writers of this, be preferable. And here the practice of the last age appears to me superior; they submitted to the restraint of numbers and similar sounds; and this restraint, instead of diminishing, augmented the force of their sentiment and style. Fancy restrained may be compared to a fountain which plays highest by diminishing the aperture. Of the truth of this maxim in every language, every fine writer is perfectly sensible from his own experience, and yet to explain the reason would be perhaps as difficult as to make a frigid genius profit by the discovery.

There is still another reason in favour of the practice of the last age, to be drawn from the variety of modulation. The musical period in prose is confined to a very few changes; the numbers in verse are capable of infinite variation. I speak not now from the practise modern verse-writers, few of whom have any idea of musical variety, but run on in the same monotonous flow through the whole poem, but rather from the example of their former poets, who were tolerable masters of this variety, and also from a capacity in the language of still admitting various unanticipated music.

Several rules have been drawn up for varying the poetic measure, and critics have elaborately talked of accents and syllables, but good sense and a fine ear, which rules can never teach, are what alone can

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in such a case determine. The rapturous flowings of joy, or the interruptions of indignation require accents placed entirely different, and a structure consonant to the emotions they would express. Changing passions, and numbers changing with those passions, make the whole secret of Western as well as Eastern poetry. In a word, the great faults of the modern professed English poets are, that they seem to want numbers which should vary with the passion, and are more employed in describ ing to the imagination than striking at the heart.

LETTER XL.

FROM THE SAME.

SOME time since I sent thee, oh holy disciple of Confucius, an account of the grand abbey or mausoleum of the kings and heroes of this nation. I have since been introduced to a temple not so antient, but far superior in beauty and magnificence. In this, which is the most considerable of the empire, there are no pompous inscriptions, no flattery paid the dead, but all is elegant and awfully simple. There are however a few rags hung round the walls, which have at a vast expence been taken from the enemy in the present war. The silk of which they are composed when new, might be valued at half a string of copper money in China; yet this wise people fitted out a fleet and an army in order to seize them; though now grown old, and scarcely capable of being patched up into an handkerchief. By this conquest the English are said to have gained, and the French to have lost, much honour. Is the honour

honour of European nations placed only in tattered silk?

In this temple I was permitted to remain during the whole service; and where you not already acquanted with the religion of the English, you might, from my description, be inclined to believe them as grossly idolatrous as the disiples of Lao. The idol which they seem to address, strides like a colossus over the door of the inner temple, which here, as with the Jews, is esteemed the most sacred part of the building. Its oracles are delivered in an hundred various tones, which seem to inspire the worshippers with enthusiasm and awe: an old woman who appeared to be the priestess, was employed in various attitudes, as she felt the inspiration. When it began to speak, all the people remained fixed in silent attention nodding assent, looking approbation, appearing highly edified by those sounds, which to a stranger might seem in'articulate and unmeaning.

When the idol had done speaking, and the priestess had locked up its lungs with a key, observing almost all the company leaving the temple, I concluded the service was over, and taking my hat, was going to walk away with the croud, when I was stopt by the man in black, who assured me that the ceremony had scarcely yet begun! What, cried I, do I not see almost the whole body of the worshippers leaving the church? Would you persuade me that such numbers who profess religion and morality would in this shameless manner quit the temple before the service was concluded? you surely mistake: not even the Kalmouks would be guilty of such an indecency, though all the object of their worship was but a joint stool. My friend seemed to blush for his countrymen, assuring me that those whom I saw running away, were only a parcel of musical blockheads, whose passion was merely

merely for sounds, and whose heads are as empty as a fiddle-case; those who remain behind, says he are the true Religious; they make use of music to warm their hearts, and to lift them to a proper pitch of rapture; examine their behavior, and you will confess there are some among us who practice true devotion.

I now looked round me as he directed, but saw nothing of that fervent devotion which he had promised; one of the worshippers appeared to be ogling the company through a glass: another was fervent not in addresses to Heaven, but to his mistress; a third whispered, a fourth took snuff, and the priest himself, in a drowsy tone, read over the duties of the day.

Bless my eyes, cried I, as I happened to look towards the door, what do I see; one of the worshippers fallen fast asleep, and actually sunk down on his cushion; he is now enjoying the benefit of a trance, or does he receive the influence of some mysterious vision! Alas! alas! replied my companion, no such thing; he has only had the misfortune of eating too hearty a dinner, and finds it impossible to keep his eyes open. Turning to another part of the temple, I perceived a young lady just in the same circumstances and attitude; strange, cried I, can she too have over-eaten herself? O fie! replied my friend, you now grow censorious. She grow drowsy from eating toomuch; that would be profanation! She only sleeps now from having sat up all night at a brag party. Turn me where I will then, says I, I can perceive no single symptom of devotion among the worshippers, except from that old woman in the corner, who sits groaning behind the long sticks of a mourning fan; she indeed seems greatly edified with what she hears. Aye, replied my friend, I knew we should find some to catch you; I know her; that is the deaf lady who lives in the cloisters.

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