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Vicesimus Knox.

ELEGANT EXTRACTS?

or useful and Entertaining
PIECES of POETRY,
• Selected for the

IMPROVEMENT of YOUTH,

IN

Speaking Reading, Thinking, Compofing:
and in the

CONDUCT of LIFE;

being similar in Design

to

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THE PREFACE.

INCE Poetry affords young perfons an innocent pleasure, a tafte for it, under certain limitations, fhould be indulged. Why fhould they be forbidden to expatiate, in imagination, over the flowery fields of Arcadia, in Elyfium, in the Ifles of the Bleft, and in the Vale of Tempè? The harmless delight which they derive from Poetry, is furely fufficient to recommend an attention to it, at an age when pleasure is the chief pursuit, even if the sweets of it were not blended with utility.

But if pleasure were the ultimate object of Poetry, there are fome who, in the rigour of auftere wifdom, would maintain that the precious days of youth might be more advantageously employed than in cultivating a taste for it. To obviate their objections, it is neceffary to remind them, that Poetry has ever claimed the power of conveying inftruction in the most effectual manner, by the vehicle of pleasure.

There is reafon to believe that many young perfons of natural genius would have given very little attention to learning of any kind, if they had been introduced to it by books appealing only to their reafon and judgment, and not to their fancy. Through the pleafant paths of Poetry they have been gradually led to the heights of fcience. They have been allured, on firft fetting out, by the beauty of the scene prefented to them, into a delightful land, flowing with milk and honey; where, after having been nourished like the infant from the mother's breaft, they have gradually acquired ftrength enough to relish and digest the folideft food of philofophy.

This opinion feems to be confirmed by actual experience; for the greatest men, in every liberal and honourable profeffion, having given their early years to the charms of Poetry. Many of the most illuftrious worthies in the church and in the state, were allured to the land of learning by the fong of the Mufe; and they would perhaps have never entered it, if their preceptors had forbidden them to lend an ear. Of fo much confequence is Poetry to the general advancement of learning.

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And as to morals, Poetry," in the words of Sir Philip Sydney, " doth not (( only fhew the way, but giveth fo fweet a profpect of the way, as will entice any man to enter into it; nay, the Poet doth, as if your journey fhould be through a fair vineyard, at the very first give you a clufter of grapes, that, "full of that tafte, you may long to pass farther. He beginneth not with ob"fcure definitions, but he cometh to you with words fet in delightful propor"tion, either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well-enchanting skill of "mufic;-and with a tale ;-he cometh unto you with a tale, which holdeth "children from play, and old men from the chimney-corner. Even those hard"hearted evil men, who think virtue a school name, and despise the austere "admonitions of the philofopher, and feel not the inward reafons they stand upon, yet will be contented to be delighted, which is all the good fellow poet seems to promife; and fo fteal to fee the form of goodness, which feen, "they cannot but love, ere themfelves be aware, as if they took a medicine of

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Thus Poetry, by the gentle yet certain method of allurement, leads both to learning and to virtue. I conclude, therefore, that, under a few felf-evident reftrictions, it is properly addreffed to all young minds, in the course of a liberal

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It must be confeffed, at the fame time, that many fenfible men, both in the world and in the schools of philofophy, have objected to it. They have thought that a tafte for it interfered with an attention to what they call the MAIN CHANCE. What poet ever fined for fheriff? fays Oldham. It is feldom feen that any one difcovers mines of gold and filver in Parnaffus, fays Mr. Locke. Such ideas have predominated in the exchange and in the warehouse; and, while they continue to be confined to thofe places, may perhaps, in fome instances, be advantageous. But they ought not to operate on the mind of the gentleman, or the man of a liberal profeflion; and indeed there is no good reason to be given why the mercantile claffes, at leaft of the higher order, fhould not amuse their leifure with any pleasures of polite literature.

That fome object to Poetry as a part of education, is not to be wondered at, when it is confidered that many, from want of natural fenfibility, or from long habits of inattention to every thing but fordid intereft, are totally unfurnished with faculties for the perception of poetical beauty. But fhall we deny the cowflip and violet their vivid colour and fweet fragrance, because the quadruped who feeds in the meadow tramples over them without perceiving either their hues or their odours? Against the oppofers of Poetry, the taste of mankind, from China to Peru, powerfully militates.

Young minds have commonly a taste for Poetry. Unfeduced by the love of money, and unhacknied in the ways of vice, they are indeed delighted with nature and fact, though unembellifhed; becaufe all objects with them have the grace of novelty but they are tranfported with the charms of Poetry, where the funfhine of fancy diffufes over every thing the fine glofs, the rich colouring of beautiful imagery and language. Nature," (to cite Sir Philip Sydney again) "never fet forth the earth in fo rich tapestry as diverfe poets have done, "neither with fo pleafant rivers, fruitful trees, fweet-finelling flowers, nor "whatsoever may make the earth more lovely.-The world is a brazen world "the poets only deliver a GOLDEN; which whoever dillike, the fault is in their judgment, quite out of taste, and not in the fweet food of SWEETLY-UTTERED KNOWLEDGE."

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It will be readily acknowledged, that ideas and precepts of all kinds, whether of morality or fcience, make a deeper impreffion, when inculcated by the vivacity, the painting, the melody of poetical language. And what is thus deeply impreffed will also long remain; for metre and rhyme naturally catch hold of the memory, as the tendrils of the vine cling round the branches of the elm.

Old Orpheus and Linus are recorded in fable to have drawn the minds of favage men to knowledge, and to have polifhed human nature, by Poetry. And are not children in the ftate of nature? And is it not probable that Poetry may be the best inftrument to operate on them, as it was found to be on nations in the favage ftate? Since, according to the mythological wisdom of the antients, Amphion moved stones, and Orpheus brutes, by mufic and verfe, is it not reafonable to believe, that minds which are dull, and even brutally infenfible, may be penetrated, sharpened, foftened, and irradiated, by the warm influence of fine Poetry?

But it is really fuperfluous to expatiate on either the delight or utility of Poetry. The fubject has been exhautted; and, whatever a few men of little tafte and feeling, or of minds entirely fordid and fecular, may object, fuch are the charms of the Goddefs, fuch her powerful influence over the heart of man, that he will never want voluntary votaries at her fhrine. The Author of nature has kindly implanted in man a love of Poetry, to folace him under the

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