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not difcover that it wanted that without which all others are of fmall avail, the power of engaging attention and alluring curiofity.

Tediousness is the moft fatal of all faults; negligences or errors are fingle and local, but tedioufnefs pervades the whole; other faults are cenfured and forgotten, but the power of tediousness propagates itself. He that is weary the first hour, is more weary the fecond; as bodies forced into motion, contrary to their tendency, pafs more and more flowly through every fucceffive interval of space.

Unhappily this pernicious failure is that which an author is leaft able to difcover. We are feldom tiresome to our

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felves; and the act of compofition fills and delights the mind with change of language and fucceffion of images; every couplet when produced is new, and novelty is the great fource of pleafure. Perhaps no man ever thought a line fuperfluous when he firft wrote it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of invention had fubfided. fhould controul his defire of immediate renown, and keep his work nine years unpublifhed, he will be ftill the author, and ftill in danger of deceiving himself; and if he confults his friends, he will probably find men who have more kindnefs than judgement, or more fear to offend than defire to inftruct.

If he

The tedioufnefs of this poem pros ceeds not from the uniformity of the fubject, for it is fufficiently diversified, but from the continued tenour of the narration; in which Solomon relates the fucceffive viciffitudes of his own mind, without the intervention of any other fpeaker, or the mention of any other agent, unless it be Abra; and the reader is only to learn what he thought, and to be told that he thought wrong. The event of every experiment is forefeen, and therefore the process is not much regarded.

Yet the work is far from deferving to be neglected. He that fhall perufe it will be able to mark many paffages, to which he may recur for inftruction

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or delight; many from which the poet

may learn to write, and the philofopher to reafon.

If Prior's poetry be generally confidered, his praise will be that of correctnefs and induftry, rather than of compafs of comprehenfion, or activity of fancy. He never made any effort of invention his greater pieces were all tiffues of fentiment; and his fmaller, which confift of light images or fingle conceits, were not always his own. I have traced him among the French Epigrammatifts, and have been informed that he poached for prey among obfcure authors. The Thief and the Cordelier is, I fuppofe, generally confidered as an original production; with how much jus

tice this Epigram may tell, which was written by Georgius Sabinus, a poet now: little known or read, though once the friend of Luther and Melancthon ::

De Sacerdote furem confolante.

Quidam facrificus furem comitatus euntem
Huc ubi dat fontes carnificina neci.

Ne fis moeftus, ait; fummi conviva Tonantis
Jam cum cœlitibus (fi modo credis) eris.
Ille gemens, fi vera mihi folatia præbes,

Hofpes apud fuperos fis meus oro, refert.
Sacrificus contra; mihi non convivia fas eft
Ducere, jejunans hac edo luce nihil.

What he has valuable he owes to his

diligence and his judgement.

His dili

gence has justly placed him amongst the moft correct of the English poets; and

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