fometimes dull; amonst the best are the Camelion, and the epitaph on John and Joan. Scarely any one of our poets has written fo much, and tranflated fo little: the verfion of Callimachus is fufficiently licentious; the paraphrafe on St. Paul's Exhortation to Charity is eminently beautiful. Alma is written in profeffed imitation of Hudibras, and has at least one accidental refemblance: Hudibras wants a plan, because it is left imperfect; Alma is imperfect, because it seems never to have had a plan. Prior appears not to have proposed to himself any drift or defign, but to have written the cafual dictates of the prefent moment. What Horace faid, when he imitated Lucilius, might be faid of Butler by Prior; his numbers were not smooth or neat. Prior excelled him in verfification; but he was, like Horace, inventore minor; he had not Butler's exuberance of matter and variety of illustration. The fpangles of wit which he could afford, he knew how to polifh; but he wanted the bullion of his mafter. Butler pours out a negligent profufion, certain of the weight, but carelefs of the ftamp. Prior has comparatively little, but with that little he makes a fine fhow. Alma has many admirers, and was the only piece among Prior's works of which Pope faid that he fhould wish to be the author. Solomon is the work to which he entrusted the protection of his name, and which he expected fucceeding ages to regard with veneration. His affection was natural; it had undoubtedly been written with great labour; and who is willing to think that he has beep been labouring in vain? He had infufed into it much knowledge and much thought; had often polished it to elegance, often dignified it with fplendour, and fometimes heightened it to fublimity he perceived in it many excellences, and did not difcover that it wanted that without which all others are of small 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 tediousness 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 discover. We are feldom tirefome to ourselves; 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 source of pleasure. Perhaps no man ever thought a line fuperfluous when he firft wrote it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of invention had fubfided. And even if he fhould controul his defire of immediate renown, and keep his work nine years unpublished, 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 kindness than judgement, or more fear to offend than defire to inftruct. The tediousness of this poem proceeds not from the uniformity of the fubject, for it is fufficiently diverfified, N 2 diverfified, 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 speaker, or the mention of any other agent, unless it be Abra; 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 procefs is not much regarded. Yet the work is far from deferving to be neglected. He that shall peruse it will be able to mark many paffages, to which he may recur for inftruction 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 correctness and industry, rather than of compass of comprehenfion, or activity of fancy. He never made any effort of invention: his greater pieces are only tiffues of common thoughts; and his fmaller, which confift of light images or fingle conceits, are 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 Cordelier is, I fuppofe, generally confidered as an original production; with how much juftice 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. Huc ubi dat fontes carnificina neci, Ille gemens, fi vera mihi folatia præbes, What he has valuable he owes to his diligence and his judgement. His diligence has juftly placed him amongst the most correct of the English poets; and he was one of the first that refolutely endeavoured at correctness. He never facrifices accuracy to hafte, nor indulges himself in contemptuous negligence, or impatient idlenefs: he has no careless lines, or entangled fentiments; his words are nicely felected, and his thoughts fully expanded. If this part of his character fuffers an abatement, it must be from the difproportion of his rhymes, which have not always fufficient confonance, and from the admiffion of broken lines into his Solomon; but perhaps he thought, like Cowley, that hemiftichs ought to be admitted into heroic poetry. He had apparently fuch rectitude of judgement. as fecured him from every thing that approached to the ridiculous or abfurd; but as laws operate in civil agency not to the excitement of virtue, but the repreffion of wickednefs, fo judgement in the operations of intellect can hinder faults, but not produce excellence. Prior is never low, nor very often fublime. It is faid by Longinus of Euripides, that he forces himself fometimes into grandeur by violence of effort, as the lion kindles his fury by the lafhes of his own tail. Whatever Prior obtains above mediocrity feems the effort of struggle and of toil. He has many vigorous but few happy lines; he has every thing by purchase, and nothing by gift; he had no nightly vifitations N 3 vifitations of the Mufe, no infufions of fentiment of felicities of fancy. His diction, however, is more his own than of any among the fucceffors of Dryden; he borrows no lucky turns, or commodious modes of language, from his predeceffors. His phrafes are original, but they are fometimes harfh; as he inherited no elegances, none has he bequeathed. His expreffion has every mark of laborious study; the line feldom seems to have been formed at once; the words did not come till they were called, and were then put by conftraint into their places, where they do their duty, but do it fullenly. In his greater compofitions there may be found more rigid ftateliness than graceful dignity. Of verfification he was not negligent: what he received from Dryden he did not lofe; neither did he increase the difficulty of writing by unneceffary feverity, but ufes Triplets and Alexandrines without. fcruple. In his Preface to Solomon he proposes fome improvements by extending the fenfe from one couplet to another, with variety of paufes. This he has attempted, but without fuccefs; his interrupted lines are unpleafing, and his fenfe as lefs diftinct is lefs ftriking. He has altered the Stanza of Spenfer, as a house is altered by building another in its place of a different form. With how little refemblance he has formed his new Stanza to that of his mafter, these specimens will fhew: SPENSE R. She flying fast from Heaven's hated face, And |