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Unhappy flave, and pupil to a bell!

Which his hour's work as well as hours does tell :
Unhappy till the laft, the kind releasing knell.

His heroick lines are often formed of monofyllables; but yet they are fometimes fweet and fo

norous.

He fays of the Meffiah,

Round the whole earth his dreaded name shall sound, And reach to worlds that must not yet be found.

In another place, of David,

Yet bid him go fecurely,
'Tis Saul that is his foe,

when he fends ;

and we his friends.

The man who has his God, no aid can lack;

And we who lid him go,

will bring him back.

Yet amidst his negligence he fometimes attempted an improved and fcientific verfification; of which it will be best to give his own account fubjoined to this line:

Nor can the glory contain itself in th' endless space.

"I am forry that it is neceffary to admonish the "moft part of readers, that it is not by negligence "that this verfe is fo loofe, long, and, as it were, "vaft; it is to paint in the number the nature of "the thing which it defcribes, which I would "have obferved in divers other places of this "poem, that elfe will pafs for very carelefs verfes: "as before,

And over-runs the neighb'ring fields with violent course. "In the fecond book;

Down a precipice deep, down he cafts them all.

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‹‹ —And,

And fell a-down his fhoulders with loofe care.

"In the third,

Brafs was his helmet, his boots brafs, and o'er
His breaft a thick plate of strong brass he wore.
In the fourth,

Like fome fair pine o'er-looking all th' ignobler wood. "And,

Some from the Rocks caft themfelves down headlong.

"And many more but it is enough to instance "in a few. The thing is, that the difpofition of "words and numbers fhould be fuch, as that, out "of the order and found of them, the things them"felves may be reprefented.. This the Greeks

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were not fo accurate as to bind themselves to; "neither have our English poets obferved it, for aught I can find. The Latins (qui Mufas colunt feveriores) fometimes did it; and their prince, "Virgil, always; in whom the examples are in"numerable, and taken notice. of by all judicious "men, fo that it is fuperfluous to collect them."

I know not whether he has, in many of thefe inftances, attained the reprefentation or resemblance that he purposes. Verfe can imitate only found and motion. A boundless verfe, a headlong verfe, and a verfe of brass or of Arong braf, feem to comprife very incongruous and unfociable ideas. What there is peculiar in the found of the line expreffing loofe care, I cannot difcover; nor why the pine is taller in an Alexandrine than in ten fyllables.

But,

But, not to defraud him of his due praife, he has given one example of reprefentative verfification, which perhaps no other English line can cqual;

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wife:

He, who defers this work from day to day,
Does on a river's bank expecting ftay

Till the whole ftream that ftopp'd him fhall be gone,
Which runs, and, as it runs, for ever shall run on.

Cowley was, I believe, the first poet that mingled Alexandrines at pleafure with the common heroick of ten fyllables; and from him Dryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He confidered the verfe of twelve fylJables as elevated and majestick, and has therefore deviated into that meafure when he fuppofes the voice heard of the Supreme Being

The author of the Davideis is commended by Dryden for having written it in couplets, because he discovered that any ftaff was too lyrical for an heroick poem; but this feems to have been known before by May and Sandys, the tranflators of the Pharfalia and the Metamorphofes.

In the Davideis are fome hemiftichs, or verfes Jeft imperfect by the author, in imitation of Virgil, whom he fuppofes not to have intended to complete them: that this opinion is erroneous, may be probably concluded, because this truncation is imitated by no fubfequent Roman poet; because Virgil himself filled up one broken line in the heat of recitation; because in one the fenfe is now unfinished; and because all that can be done by a broken verfe, a line interfected by a cafura, and a full flop, will equally effect.

Of

Of triplets in his Davideis he makes no ufe, and perhaps did not at first think them allowable; but he appears afterwards to have changed his mind, for, in the verfes on the government of Cromwell, he inferts them liberally with great happiness.

After fo much criticifin on his Poems, the Effays which accompany them must not be forgotten. What is faid by Sprat of his converfation, that no man could draw from it any fufpicion of his excellence in poetry, may be applied to thefe compofitions. No author ever kept his verfe and his profe at a greater diftance from each other. His thoughts are natural, and his ftyle has a fmooth and placid equability, which has never. yet obtained its due commendation. Nothing is far-fought, or hardlaboured; but all is eafy without feeblenefs, and familiar without groffness.

It has been obferved by Felton, in his Effay on the Clafficks, that Cowley was beloved by every Mufe that he courted; and that he has rivalled the Ancients in every kind of poetry but tragedy.

It may be affirmed, without any encomiaftick fervour, that he brought to his poetick labours a mind replete with learning, and that his pages are embellished with all the ornaments which books could fupply; that he was the firft who imparted to English numbers the enthufiafm of the greater ode, and the gaiety of the lefs; that he was equally qualified for fpritely fallies, and for lofty flights; that he was among thofe who freed tranflation from fervility, and, inftead of following his author at a distance, walked by his fide; and that, if he left verfification yet improveable, he left likewife from time to time fuch fpecimens of excellence as enabled fucceeding poets to improve it.

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DENHA M.

OF

F Sir JOHN DENHAM very little is known but what is related of him by Wood, or by himfelf.

He was born at Dublin in 1615; the only fon of Sir John Denham, of Little Horfely, in Effex, then chief baron of the Exchequer in Ireland, and of Eleanor, daughter of Sir Garret More, baron of Mellefont.

Two years afterwards, his father, being made one of the barons of the Exchequer in England, brought him away from his native country, and educated him in London.

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In 1631 he was fent to Oxford, where he was confidered as a dreaming young man, given more to dice and cards than ftudy;" and therefore gave no prognofticks of his future eminence; nor was fufpected to conceal, under fluggishness and laxity, a genius born to improve the literature of his country.

When he was, three years afterwards, removed to Lincoln's Inn, he profecuted the common law with fufficient appearance of application; yet did not lofe his propenfity to cards and dice; but was very often plundered by gamefters.

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