England, but to fheath the sword he had drawn at the Pope's own inftigation: Now it had already, coft Philip eighty thousand pound in preparations.' After the detail of King John's abject fubmiffion to the Pope's legate: Now John was hated and despised before." But, perhaps, the ftrongett of all may be taken from the Scripture, (conclufion of a chapter in St. John)" Now Barabbas was a robber.' LXVIII. A poet hurts himself by writing profe; as a race-horfe hurts his motions by condefcending to draw in a team. LXIX. The fuperior politenefs of the French is in nothing more difcernible than in the phrafes ufed by them and us to express an affair being in agitation. The former fays, Sur la tapis; the latter, Upon the anvil. Does it not fhew alfo the fincerity and ferious face with which we enter upon, bufinefs, and the negligent and jaunty air with which they perform even the most important? LXX. There are two qualities adherent to the most ingenious authors: I do not mean without exception. A decent pride that will admit of no fervility, and a heepish bafhfulnefs that keeps their worth concealed; the fuperbia quafita 'meritis, and the malus pudor,' of Horace. The one will not fuffer them to make advances to the great; the other difguifes that merit for which the great would feek out them. Add to thefe the frequent indolence of fpeculative tempers. LXXI. A poetical genius feems the most elegant of youthful accomplishments; but it is entirely a youthful one. Flights of fancy, gaiety of behaviour, fprightlinefs of drefs, and a blooming afpect, confpire very amicably to their mutual embellifhinent; but the poetic talent has no more to do with age, than it would avail his Grace of Canterbury to have a knack at country dances, or a genius for a catch. LXXII. The moft obfequious Mufes, like the If you write an original piece, you wonder no one ever thought of the best. of fubjects before you; if a tranflation, of the best authors. LXXIV. felves greatly upon their power The antient poets, feem to value themof perpetuating the fame of their cotemporaries. Indeed the circumftance that has fixed their language, has been the only means of verifying fome of their vainglorious prophecies. Otherwife, the hiftorians appear more equal to the task of conferring immortality. An hiftory will live, though written ever fo indifferently, and is generally lefs fufpected, than the rhetoric of the Mufes. We want a word to express the Hopes or Hofpita of the ancients; among them, perhaps, the most refpectable of * Miffionaries clap a tail to every Indian nation that dislikes them. all In the fame manner, it is fuperfluous to purfue inferior degrees of fame. One truly fplendid action, or one wellfinished compofition, includes more than all the refults from more trivial perform ances. I mean this for perfons who make fame their only motive. Very few fentiments are proper to be put in a perfon's mouth, during the filt attack of grief. Every thing difgufts, but mere fimplicity; the fcriptural writers deferibe their heroes ufing only fome fuch phrafe as this: Alas! my brother! O Abfalom, my fon! my fon!' &c. The lamentation of Saul over Jonathan is more diffufe, but at the fame time entirely fimple. Angling is literally defcribed by Mar tial -Tremula pifcem deducere fetá. From Ictum fœdus feems to come the English phrafe and cufton of striking a bargain. I like Ovid's Amours better than his Epiftles, There feems a greater variety of natural thoughts: whereas, when one has read the subject of one of his epiftles, one foreftes what it will produce in writer of his imagination. The plan of his Elegies, for the most part well defigned. The answers of Sabinus, nothing. Neceffity may be the mother of lucrative invention; but is the death of poetical. If a perfon fufpects his phrafe to be fomewhat too familiar and abject, it were proper he fhould accustom himself to compofe in blank verfe: but let him be much upon his guard against Antient Piftol's phrafeology. Providence feeins altogether impartial in the difpenfation which beltows riches upon one and a contempt of riches upon another. Respect is the general end for which riches, power, place, title, and fame, are implicitly defired. When one is poffeffed of the end, through any one of thefe means, is it not wholly unphilofophical to covet the remainder? Lord Shaftesbury, in the genteel management of fome familiar ideas, feems to have no equal. He discovers an éloignment from vulgar phrafes much becoming a perfon of quality. His sketches fhould be ftudied, like thofe of Raphael. His Enquiry is one of the fhortelt and clearett lyftems of morality, The question is, whether you diltinguifh me, because you have better fenfe than other people; or whether you feem to have better fenfe than other people, because you diftinguish me. One feels the fame kind of difguft in reading Roman history, which one does in novels, or even epic poetry. We too eafily forefee to whom the victory will fall. The hero, the knight-errant, and the Roman, are too feldom overcome. The elegance and dignity of the Romans is in nothing more confpicuous than in their anfwers to ambaffadors. There is an important omiffion in most of our grammar-fchools, through which what we read, either of fabulous or real history, leaves either faint or confufed impreflions. I mean the neglect of old geographic maps. Were maps of antient Greece, Sicily, Italy, &c. in ufe there, the knowledge we there acquire would not want to be renewed afterwards, as is now generally the case. A perfon of a pedantic turn will spend five years in tranflating, and contending for the beauties of a worfe poem than he might write in five weeks himself. There feem feem to be authors who wish to facrifice their whole character of genius to that of learning. Boileau has endeavoured to prove, in one of his admirable fatires, that man has no manner of pretence to prefer his faculties before thofe of the brute creation. Oldham has tranflated him: my Lord Rochefter has imitated him: and even Mr. Pope declares That, reason raise o'er instinct how you can, In this 'tis God directs; in that 'tis man. Indeed, the Effay on Man abounds with illustrations of this maxim; and it is amazing to find how many plaufible reafons may be urged to fupport it. It feems evident that our itch of reafoning, and fpirit of curiofity, precludes more happiness than it can poffibly advance. What numbers of difeafes are entirely artificial things, far from the ability of a brute to contrive We difrelish and deny ourfelves cheap and natural gratifications, through fpe. culative, prefciences and doubts about the future. We cannot difcover the defigus of our Creator. We fhould learn then of brutes to be eafy under our ignorance, and happy in those objects that feem intended, obviously, for our happinels: not overlook the flowers of the garden, and foolishly perplex ourselves with the intricacies of the labyrinth. I wish but two editions of all books whatfoever. One of the fimple text, published by a fociety of able hands: another with the various readings, and remarks of the ableft commentators. To endeavour, all one's days, to fortify our minds with learning and philo. fophy, is to spend so much in armour that one has nothing left to defend. If one would think with philofophers, one must converfe but little with the vulgar. Thefe, by their very number, will force a perfon into a fondnels for appearance, a love of money, a desire of power; and other plebeian paffions: objects which they admire, because they have no fhare in, and have not learning to fupply the place of experience. deities. The puerile attention to chickens feeding in a morning-And then a piece of gravity: Parva funt hæc, fed parva ifta non contemnenda; majores noftri maximam hanc rem fecerunt. It appears from the Roman hiftorians, that the Romans had a particular veneration for the fortunate. Their epithet 'Felix' feems ever to imply a favourite of the gods. I am miftaken, or modern Rome has generally acted in an oppofite manner. Numbers amongst them have been canonized upon the tingle merit of misfortunes. How different appears antient and modern dialogue, on account of fuperficial fubjects upon which we now generally converfe Add to this, the ceremonial of modern times, and the number of titles with which fome kings clog and encumber converfation. The celebrated boldness of an eaftern metaphor is, I believe, fometimes allowed it for the inconfiderable fimilitude it bears to it's fubject. The style of letters, perhaps, fhould not rife higher than the Ityle of refined converfation. Love verfes written without real påsfion, are often the most nauseous of all conceits. Those written from the heart will ever bring to mind that delightful featon of youth, and poetry, and love. Virgil gives one fuch exceffive pleafure in his writings, beyond any other writer, by uniting the most perfect har. mony of metre, with the most pleasing ideas or images: Qualem virgineo demeffum pollice florem; And Argentum Pariafve lapis With a thousand better inftances. Nothing tends fo much to producė drunkenness, or even madness, as the frequent ufe of parentheses in converfa tion. Few greater images of impatience, than a general feeing his brave army overmatched and cut to pieces, and looking out continually to fee his ally approach with forces to his affistance. See Shakefpeare. Livy, the most elegant and principal of the Roman hiftorians, was, perhaps, as fuperftitious as the most unlearned plebeian. We fee, he never is deftitute of appearances, accurately defcribed and lolemnly allerted, to fupport particular events by the interpofition of exploded Bring up his pow'rs-but he did look in vain When my dear Percy, when my heart's dear Harry, Caft many a northward look to fee his father G 2 ESSAY ESSAY XXVII. BOOKS, &c. IMILES, drawn from odd circum ly imagined in the judgment we pafs Saates and effects frangely acciden- upon writing and writers, as a proof around, And fee plebeian fpirits range below. There is a fort of mafonry in poetry, wherein the pause represents the joints of building; which ought in every line and courfe to have their difpofition varied. The difference betwixt a witty writer and a writer of taste is chiefly this. The former is negligent what ideas he introduces, fo he joins them furprisingly. The latter is principally careful what images he introduces, and Rudies fimplicity rather than furprize in his manner of introduction. It may in fome measure account for the difference of taste in the reading of books, to confider the difference of our ears for mufic. One is not pleafed without a perfect melody of ftyle, be the fenfe what it will: another, of no ear for mufic, gives to fenfe it's full weight without any deduction on account of harthnefs. Harmony of period and melody of ftyle have greater weight than is general of this, let us reflect, what texts of, Scripture, what lines in poetry, or what periods we moft remember and quote, either in verfe or profe, and we shall find them to be only musical ones. I wonder the antient mythology never fhews Apollo enamoured of Venus; confidering the remarkable deference that wit has paid to beauty in all ages. The Orientals act more confonantly, when they fuppofe the nightingale enamoured of the rofe; the most harmonious bird of the fairest and most delightful flower. Hope is a flatterer: but the moft up. right of all parafites; for the frequents the poor man's hut, as well as the palace of his fupcrior. What is termed humour in profe, I conceive, would be confidered as burlefque in poetry: of which inftances may be given. Perhaps, burlefque may be divided into fuch as turns chiefy upon the thought, and such as depends more upon kind, confifting in thoughts ridiculously the expreffion; or we may add a third dreffed in language much above or below their dignity. The Splendid Shilling of Mr. Phillips, and the Hudibras of Butler, are the most obvious inftances. Butler, however, depended much upon the ludicrous effect of his double rhimes. In other refpects, to declare my own fentiments, he is rather a witty writer than a humorous one. Scenes below verfe, merely verfified, lay claim to a degree of humour. Swift in poetry deferves a place somewhere betwixt Butler and Horace. He has the wit of the former, and the graceful negligence which we find in the lat ter's epiftles and fatires. I believe, few people difcover lefs humour in Don general fameness of adventure, whereby Quixote than myself. For befide the it is eafy to forefee what he will do on moft occafions, it is not fo eafy to raise a laugh from the wild atchievements of a madman. The natural paffion in that cafe is pity, with fonie fmall portion of |