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The chief perfonage, or character, in the Epic is always proportioned to the design of the work, to carry on the narration and the moral. Homer intended to fhew us, in his Iliad, that diffentions amongst great men obstruct the execution of the nobleft enterprizes, and tend to the ruin of a ftate or kingdom. His Achilles therefore is haughty and paffionate, impatient of any restraint by laws, and arrogant in arms. In his Odyffes, the fame Poet endeavours to explain, that the hardest difficulties may be overcome by labour, and our fortune restored after the fevereft afflictions. Ulyffes therefore is valiant, virtuous, and patient. Virgil's defign was to tell us, how, from a small colony established by the Trojans in Italy, the Roman empire rofe; and from what ancient familie's Auguftus (who was his prince and patron) defcended. His hero therefore was to fight his way to the throne, ftill distinguished and protected by the favour of the gods. The Poet to this end takes off from the vices of Achilles, and adds to the virtues of Ulyffes; from both perfecting a character proper for his work in the perfon of Ænas.

As Virgil copied after Homer, other Epic Poets have copied after them both. Taffo's Gierufalemme Liberata is directly Troy Town Sacked; with this dif ference only, that the two chief characters in Homer, which the Latin Poet had joined in one, the Italian has feparated in his Godfrey and Rinaldo: but he makes them both carry on his work with very great fuccefs. Ronfard's Franciade (incomparably good as far as it goes) is again Virgil's Æneis. His Hero

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comes from a foreign country, fettles a colony, and lays the foundation of a future empire. I inftance in thefe, as the greatest Italian and French Poets in the Epic. In our language, Spenfer has not contented himself with this fubmiffive manner of imitation: he launches out into very flowery paths, which still seem to conduct him into one great road. His Fairy Queen (had it been finifhed) must have ended in the account which every Knight was to give of his adventures, and in the accumulated praifes of his heroine Gloriana. The whole would have been an Heroic Poem, but in another caft and figure than any that ever had been written before. Yet it is obfervable, that every Hero (as far as we can judge by the books still remaining) bears his diftinguished character, and reprefents fome particular virtue conducive to the whole defign.

To bring this to our present subject. The pleasures of life do not compenfate the miferies: age fteals upon us unawares; and death, as the only cure of our ills, ought to be expected, but not feared. This inftruction is to be illuftrated by the action of fome great perfon. Who therefore more proper for the bufinefs, than Solomon himself? And why may he not be supposed now to repeat what, we take it for granted, he acted almost three thousand years fince? If, in the fair fituation where this prince was placed, he was acquainted with forrow; if, endowed with the greatest perfections of nature, and poffeffed of all the advantages of external condition, he could not find happiness; the rest of mankind may fafely take the monarch's word for the

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truth of what he afferts. And the author who would perfuade that we should bear the ills of life patiently, merely because Solomon felt the fame, has a better argument than Lucretius had, when, in his imperious way, he at once convinces and commands, that we ought to submit to Death without repining, because Epicurus died.

The whole Poem is a foliloquy: Solomon is the perfon that speaks: he is at once the Hero and the Author; but he tells us very often what others fay to him. Those chiefly introduced are his rabbies and philofophers in the first book; and his women and their attendants in the fecond: with these the facred history mentions him to have converfed; as likewife with the Angel brought down in the third book, to help him out of his difficulties, or at least to teach him how to overcome them.

"Nec Deus interfit nifi dignus vindice nodus-"

I prefume this poetical liberty may be very juftly allowed me on fo folemn an occafion.

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In my defcription I have endeavoured to keep to the notions and manners of the Jewish nation at the time when Solomon lived: and, where I allude to the customs of the Greeks, I believe I may be juftified by the stricteft chronology; though a Poet is not obliged to the rules that confine an Hiftorian. Virgil has anticipated two hundred years; or the Trojan Hero and Carthaginian Queen could not have been brought together and without the fame anachronism feveral of

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the finest parts of his Æneis must have been omitted. Our countryman Milton goes yet further. He takes up many of his material images fome thousands of years after the fall of man: nor could he otherwife have written, or we read, one of the fublimeft pieces of invention that was ever yet produced. This likewise takes off the objection, that some names of countries, terms of art, and notions in natural philosophy, are otherwife expreffed than can be warranted by the geography or aftronomy of Solomon's time. Poets are allowed the fame liberty in their descriptions and comparisons, as painters in their draperies and ornaments their perfonages may be dreffed, not exactly in the fame habits which they wore, but in fuch as make them appear moft graceful. In this cafe probability must atone for the want of truth. This liberty has indeed been abused by eminent masters in either fcience. Raphael and Taffo have fhewn their difcretion, where Paul Veronefe and Ariofto are to answer for their extravagances. It is the excefs, not the thing itself, that is blameable.

I would fay one word of the measure in which this and most Poems of the age are written. Heroic with continued rhyme, as Donne and his contemporaries ufed it, carrying the sense of one verse most commonly into another, was found too diffolute and wild, and came very often too near profe. As Davenant and Waller corrected, and Dryden perfected it; it is too confined: it cuts off the fenfe at the end of every first line, which must always rhyme to the next following;

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and confequently produces too frequent an identity in the found, and brings every couplet to the point of an epigram. It is indeed too broken and weak, to convey the fentiments and represent the images proper for Epic. And, as it tires the writer while he compofes, it must do the fame to the reader while he repeats; efpecially in a Poem of any confiderable length.

If ftriking out into Blank Verfe, as Milton did (and in this kind Mr. Philips, had he lived, would have excelled); or running the thought into Alternate and Stanza, which allows a greater variety, and ftill preferves the dignity of the verse, as Spenfer and Fairfax have done; if either of thefe, I fay, be a proper remedy for my poetical complaint, or if any other may be found, I dare not determine: I am only enquiring in order to be better informed'; without prefuming to direct the judgement of others. And, while I am fpeaking of the verse itself, I give all just praise to many of my friends now living; who have in Epic carried the harmony of their numbers as far as the nature of this measure will permit. But, once more : he, that writes in rhymes, dances in fetters; and, as his chain is more extended, he may certainly take larger steps.

I need make no apology for the fhort digreffive panegyric upon Great Britain, in the Firft Book. I am glad to have it obferved, that there appears throughout all my verfes a zeal for the honour of my country: and I had rather be thought a good Englishman, than the best Poet, or the greatest Scholar, that ever wrote.

VOL. II.

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