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may have more wit than does 'em good, As bodies perish through excess of blood.

NOTES.

Ver. 298. What oft was thought,] In Dr. Johnson's remarks on these poets, whom, after Dryden, he calls the metaphysical poets, he says, very finely; "Pope's account of wit is undoubtedly erroneous; he depresses it below its natural dignity, and reduces it from strength of thought to happiness of language.

If by a more noble and more adequate conception that be considered as wit, which is at once natural and new, that which, though not obvious, is, upon its first production, acknowledged to be just; if it be that, which he that never found it, wonders how he missed; to wit of this kind the metaphysical poets have seldom risen. Their thoughts are often new, but seldom natural; they are not obvious, but neither are they just; and the reader, far from wondering that he missed them, wonders more frequently by what perverseness they were ever found.

"But wit, abstracted from its effects upon the hearer, may be more vigorously and philosophically considered as a kind of discordia concors; a combination of dissimilar images, or discovery of occult resemblances in things apparently unlike. Of wit, thus defined, they have more than enough. The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtilty surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought, and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

"From this account of their compositions it will be readily inferred, that they were not successful in representing or moving the affections. As they were wholly employed on something unexpected and surprising, they had no regard to that uniformity of sentiment which enables us to conceive and to excite the pains and the pleasures of other minds; they never inquired what, on any occasion, they should have said or done; but wrote rather as beholders than partakers of human nature; as beings looking upon good and evil, impassive and at leisure, as Epicurean deities, making remarks on the actions of men, and the vicissitudes of life, without interest and without emotion. Their courtship was void of fondness, and their lamentation of sorrow. Their wish was only to say what they hoped had never been said before."

305

Others for Language all their care express And value books, as women men, for dress: Their praise is still,-The Style is excellent; The Sense, they humbly take upon content. Words are like leaves; and where they most abound, Much fruit of sense beneath is rarely found: False eloquence, like the prismatic glass, Its gaudy colours spreads on ev'ry place;

NOTES.

310

Ver. 302. modest plainness] Xenophon in Greek, and Cæsar in Latin, are the unrivalled masters of the beautiful simplicity here recommended. We have no English, French, or Italian writer, that can be placed in the same rank with them, for this uncommon excellence.

Ver. 311. False eloquence,] The nauseous affectation of expressing every thing pompously and poetically, is no where more visible than in a poem by Mallet, entitled Amyntor and Theodora. The following instance may be alleged among many others. Amyntor having a pathetic tale to discover, being choked with sorrow, and at a loss for utterance, uses these ornamental and unnatural images.

-O could I steal

From Harmony her softest warbled strain
Of melting air! or Zephyr's vernal voice!
Or Philomela's song, when love dissolves
To liquid blandishments his evening lay,
All nature smiling round."

Voltaire has given a comprehensive rule with respect to every species of composition. "Il ne faut rechercher, ni les pensées, ni les tours, ni les expressions, et que l'art, dans tous les grands ouvrages, est de bien raisonner, sans trop faire d'argument; de bien peindre, sans voiloir tout peindre, d'émouvoir, sans vouloir toujours exciter les passions."

In a word, true eloquence, a just style, consists in the number, the propriety, and the placing of words; is content with a natural and simple beauty; hunts not after foreign figures, disdains far-sought and meretricious ornaments. Just as the strength of an army, says Algarotti, consists in well-disciplined men, not in a number of camels, elephants, scythed chariots,

The face of Nature we no more survey,

All glares alike, without distinction gay :

320

But true Expression, like th' unchanging Sun, 315
Clears and improves whate'er it shines upon,
It gilds all objects, but it alters none.
Expression is the dress of thought, and still
Appears more decent, as more suitable;
A vile conceit in pompous words express'd
Is like a clown in regal purple dress'd:
For diff'rent styles with diff'rent subjects sort,
As sev'ral garbs with country, town, and court.
Some by old words to fame have made pretence,
Ancients in phrase, mere moderns in their sense;

NOTES.

and Asiatic encumbrances. Among many excellences, this is the chief blemish of the Rambler; every object, every subject, is treated with an equal degree of dignity; he never softens and subdues his tints, but paints and adorns every image which he touches, with perpetual pomp, and unremitted splendour.

Ver. 324. Some by old words, &c.] "Abolita et abrogata retinere, insolentiæ cujusdam est, et frivolæ in parvis jactantiæ." Quint. lib. i. c. 6. P.

"Opus est, ut verba a vetustate repetita neque crebra sint, neque manifesta, quia nil est odiosius affectatione, nec utique ab ultimis repetita temporibus. Oratio cujus summa virtus est perspicuitas quam sit vitiosa, si egeat interprete? Ergo ut novorum optima erunt maxime vetera, ita veterum maxime nova." Idem. P.

Quintilian's advice on this subject is as follows: "Cum sint autem verba propria, ficta, translata; propriis dignitatem dat antiquitas. Namque et sanctiorem, et magis admirabilem reddunt orationem, quibus non quilibet fuit usurus: eoque ornamento acerrimi judicii Virgilius unice est usus. Olli enim, et quianam, et mis, et pone, pellucent, et aspergunt illam, quæ etiam in picturis est gratissima, vetustatis inimitabilem arti auctoritatem. Sed utendum modo, nec ex ultimis tenebris repetenda."

"The language of the age (says Mr. Gray, admirably well) is never the language of poetry; except among the French, whose

326

Such labour'd nothings, in so strange a style,
Amaze th' unlearn'd, and make the learned smile.
Unlucky, as Fungoso in the Play,

These sparks with awkward vanity display
What the fine gentleman wore yesterday;
And but so mimic ancient wits at best,
As apes our grandsires, in their doublets drest,
In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold ;
Alike fantastic, if too new, or old :

330

NOTES.

verse, where the thought or image does not support it, differs in nothing from prose. Our poetry, on the contrary, has a language peculiar to itself; to which almost every one that has written, has added something by enriching it with foreign idioms and derivatives: nay, sometimes words of their own compositions or invention. Shakspeare and Milton have been great creators this way and no one more licentious than Pope or Dryden, who perpetually borrow expressions from the former. Let me give you some instances from Dryden, whom every body reckons a great master of our poetical tongue. Full of museful mopings,—unlike the trim of love,-a pleasant beverage,-a roundelay of love, stood silent in his mood,-with knots and knaves deformed, his ireful mood,-in proud array,-his boon was granted,—and disarray and shameful rout,—wayward but wise, -furbished for the field,—the foiled doddered oaks, disherited, -smouldring flames,-retchless of laws,-crones old and ugly, -the beldam at his side, -the grandam hag,-villanize his father's fame.-But they are infinite; and our language not being a settled thing (like the French), has an undoubted right to words of a hundred years old, provided antiquity have not rendered them unintelligible. In truth Shakspeare's language is one of his principal beauties; and he has no less advantage over your Addisons and Rowes in this, than in those great excellences you mention. Every word in him is a picture. Pray put me in the following lines, into the tongue of our modern dramatics."

Ver. 328. Unlucky, as Fungoso, &c.] See Ben. Jonson's Every Man out of his Humour.

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Be not the first by whom the new are try'd, 335 Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

But most by Numbers judge a Poet's song,

340

And smooth or rough, with them, is right or wrong:
In the bright Muse, tho' thousand, charms conspire,
Her voice is all these tuneful fools admire;
Who haunt Parnassus but to please their ear,
Not mend their minds; as some to church repair,
Not for the doctrine, but the music there.
These equal syllables alone require,

Tho' oft the ear the open vowels tire;

While expletives their feeble aid do join;

345

And ten low words oft creep in one dull line : While they ring round the same unvary'd chimes, With sure returns of still expected rhymes;

NOTES.

Ver. 337. But most by Numbers, &c.]

349

"Quis populi sermo est? quis enim? nisi carmine molli
Nunc demum numero fluere, ut per læve severos
Effundat junctura ungues: scit tendere versum.
Non secus ac si oculo rubricam dirigat uno."

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Ver. 345. Tho' oft the ear, &c.] "Fugiemus crebras vocalium concursiones, quæ vastam atque hiantem orationem reddunt." Cic. ad Heren. lib. iv. Vide etiam Quintil. lib. ix. c. 4. P.

"Non tamen (says the sensible Quintilian) id ut crimen ingens expavescendum est; ac nescio negligentia in hoc, an solicitudo: sit major; nimiosque non immerito in hac cura putant omnes Isocratem secutos, præcipueque Theopompum. At Demosthenes et Cicero modice respexerunt ad hanc partem." Quintil. lib. ix. c. 9.

Ver. 347. Ten low words] Our language is thought to be overloaded with monosyllables; Shaftesbury, we are told, limited their number to nine in any sentence; Quintilian condemns too great a concourse of them; etiam monosyllaba, si plura sunt, male continuabuntur; quia necesse est compositio, multis clausulis concisa, subsultet. Inst. lib. ix. c. 4.

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