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feathered parishioners; the woods wild burgeffes; the living fhips with feathered fails; the winged travellers of the sky, that in their leafy cages do mufick with their horny bautboys make. Fine language to improve the ftyle of youth; or rather, to make them as great coxcombs in fpeeeh, as affectation or fashion ever made in drefs!

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This error of the laft author was avoided by the next compiler, Mr. Bysshe, who, however, pursues the general defign of the former's Parnaffus, and therefore calls his work, THE ART OF ENGLISH POETRY. This is alfo divided into three parts, of which two are Rules for making verfes, and a dictionary of rhymes, which he terms, The mechanick tools of a poet. His having furnished so many weak heads with thofe tools, has certainly given more temptations of verfifying to fuch, as, in spite of nature, bave mistaken their fondness to rhyme, or neceffity of writing, for a true genius of poetry, and lawful call of Apollo, than, he tells us, he should be willing to have • laid to his charge. I fhall not object to fome mistakes he has made concerning the compofition, or, as he calls it, the cadence of our verfe; nor to others, concerning the antiquity of fome kinds of it, becaufe they have been obferved already. But it may

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*London, 8ve, 1703. and 2 vol. 12m9.

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be faid of the third, and much greater part of this work, which, he calls, A Collection of the most natural and fublime Thoughts in the beft English Poets, that, though it is in general a better collection than had appeared before, a great part of it does not confift of the thoughts of English, but of the Greek and Roman poets translations in every body's hands. Befides which, whole topicks contain only trite fabulous defcriptions, extracted from the mythology of the ancients, which are ftill more abundant in the larger collections he afterwards published of the fame kind. Things of that nature may be proper to teach youth what is called learning at school; but the maxims, fentiments, and reflections best adapted to form the manners, direct the conduct, and enlarge the minds of men, though they could not entirely efcape our author's plan, are far from being the principal objects of it. And, indeed, the manners and fentiments of his readers are not properly the objects of his refearch, but their improvement in the art he pretends to teach; which makes him folely intent on flights of imagination, flowing numbers, "eafy diction, and happiness of colouring. Hence, when he fays our beft English poets, he means only the modern; for, fays he, • Though

* The British Parnaffus, 4 vol. 12mo.

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Though Spenfer, and fome other of the ancients, have not been excelled, nor, perhaps, equalled by their fucceffors, in juftness of defcription,or propriety and greatness of thought; yet their language is now become fo obfolete, • that most readers, of our age, have no ear for them: And therefore Shakespear himfelf is fo rarely cited in this collection. This is but an indifferent compliment to the readers of our age, and feems, in making them facrifice dignity of wit, and energy of fenfe to found and colour, to be placing them upon a level with fome of our modern fine ladies, who estimate their admirers by their drefs and equipage, and not their merit and understanding.

Mr. Gildon thought his predeceffor's defects fufficient reafons for attempting to give us a more exalted taste of our poets in a piece, which he calls, * THE COMPLEAT ART OF POETRY; and, indeed, if I may be allowed to play upon a word, it is but a taste, and much too fmall an one to answer the title he gives it. His whole work is comprized in two fmall volumes, of which one confifts almost entirely of critical difcourfes on the feveral fpecies of poetry, and rules for compofing them. The reft is a collection of paffages from poets, in which he tells us, as his ends were different

2 Vol. 120, 1718.

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ferent, he has pursued a different method from the preceding author, whofe view was only to teach the ftructure of the feveral kinds of verse, and to give a catalogue of rhymes, poetical figures, epithets, and fynonymous words and phrafes. But "the defign of my collection, fays he, is to give the reader the great images that are to be found in our poets, who are truly great, as well as their topicks and moral eflections. Wherefore he informs us, he has been pretty large in his citations from Spenfer, whom the other has rejected; and feems to think that he has gone through Shakespear, that the fame author almost entirely excludes. Accordingly, at the end of his first volume, he gives us a collection, which he calls Shakefperiana, but it confifts of lefs than fixty pages; though, to have extracted only a part of the fublime images and fentiments of that divine and incomparable poet, would have filled a . much larger volume than one, or perhaps both, of Mr. Gildon's. He owns, he might have been much more extenfive; but thinks what he has cited, fufficiently demonftrates the bad judgment of thofe who reject Shakespear for his obfolete language. In the other volume, which is an alphabetical extract, Spenfer's images are introduced with fome extent. The reft of it is but a

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flight collection, confifting of odd and ticular topicks, often with only one or two paffages in them, and but few of the mo ral reflections he promifed. What is worst, he often repeats Byshe's quotations, and gives us few heads, or authors of confequence (except the two we have mentioned) which had efcaped that compiler. And, indeed, he was not very extensively read in our poets, had not a fufficient number of them ancient or modern, and was not induftrious enough in extracting from those he had; which, perhaps, might proceed in some measure from the limits prefcribed to his work. Whatever fuccefs this book may have had we cannot fay; but there has fince appeared two collections of the fame kind, which, as the compilers of them have thought fit to conceal their names, we shall leave to the judgment of the publick.

From this view of the authors who have collected the thoughts of our poets under heads, it evidently appears, that their works have generally been very imperfect and defective; and, at the fame time, that a far greater number, of no lefs merit, have been wholly neglected, either through want of judgment, or defign. Hence we have long wanted a compiler, or reader-general for mankind, to digeft whatever was moft exquifite (the flowers) in our poets, into the

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