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which the poet may learn to write, and the philofopher to reason.

If Prior's poetry be generally confidered, his praise will be that of correctness and industry, 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 his own. I have traced him among the French Epigrammatifts, and have been informed that he poached for prey among obfcure aathors. The Thief and the Cordelier is, I fuppofe, generally confidered as an original production; with how much justice 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 mœftus, 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.
D 3

Sacri

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 diligence has justly placed him amongst the most correct of the English poets; and he was one of the firft that refolutely endeavoured at correctnefs. He never facrifices accuracy to haste, 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 any 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 wickedness, so judgement in the operations of

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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 himfelf fometimes into grandeur by violence of effort, as the lion kindles his fury by the lashes 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 of the Mufe, no infufions of fentiment or felicities of fancy.

His diction, however, is more his own. than that 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 ftudy; the line feldom feems to have been formed at once; the words did not come till they were called, and were then put by constraint into their places, where they do their duty, but do it fullenly. In his greater compofitions

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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 uses Triplets and Alexandrines without fcruple. In his Preface to Solomon he proposes fome improvements, by extending the sense from one couplet to another, with variety of pauses. 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 tọ that of his master, these fpecimens will fhew.

SPENSER.

She flying faft from heaven's hated face,
And from the world that her difcover'd wide,
Fled to the wafteful wilderness apace,

From living eyes her open fhame to hide,
And lurk'd in rocks and caves long unespy'd.

But that fair crew of knights, and Una fair,
Did in that castle afterwards abide,

To rest themselves, and weary powers repair, Where store they found of all, that dainty was and rare.

PRIOR.

To the clofe rock the frighted raven flies, Soon as the rifing eagle cuts the air: The fhaggy wolf unfeen and trembling lies, When the hoarfe roar proclaims the lion near. Ill-ftarr'd did we our forts and lines forfake, To dare our British foes to open fight: Our conqueft we by ftratagem fhould make: Our triumph had been founded in our flight. 'Tis ours, by craft and by furprise to gain: 'Tis theirs, to meet in arms, and battle in the plain.

By this new ftructure of his lines he has avoided difficulties; nor am I fure that he has loft any of the power of pleasing; but he no longer imitates Spenser.

Some of his poems are written without regularity of meafures; for, when he commenced poet, we had not recovered from our Pindarick infatuation; but he probably

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