He had apparently such rectitude of judgment as secured him from every thing that approached to the ridiculous or absurd; but as laws operate in civil agency not to the excitement of virtue, but the repression of wickedness, so judgment in the operations of intellect can hinder faults, but not produce excellence. Prior is never low, nor very often sublime. It is said by Longinus of Euripides, that he forces himself sometimes into grandeur by violence of effort, as the lion kindles his fury by the lashes of his own tail. Whatever Prior obtains above mediocrity seems the effort of struggle and of toil. He has many vigourous but few happy lines; he has every thing by purchase, and nothing by gift; he had no nightly visitations of the Muse, no infusions of sentiment or felicities of fancy.

His diction, however, is more his own than of any among the successors of Dryden; he borrows no lucky turns, or commodious modes of language, from his predecessors. His phrases are original, but they are sometimes harsh; as he inherited no elegances, none has he bequeathed. His expression has every mark of laborious study; the line seldom seems 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 sullenly. In his greater compositions there may be found more rigid stateliness than graceful dignity.

Of versification he was not negligent: what he received from Dryden he did not lose; neither did he increase the difficulty of writing by unnecessary severity, but uses triplets and Alexandrines without scruple. In his preface to Solomon he proposes some improvements, by extending the sense from one couplet to another, with variety of pauses. This he has attempted, but without success; his interrupted lines are unpleasing, and his sense, as less distinct, is less striking.

He has altered the stanza of Spenser, as a house is altered by building another in its place of a different form. With how little resemblance he has formed his new stanza to that of his master, these specimens will show:

SPENSER.

She, flying fast from Heaven's hated face,
And from the world that her discover'd wide,
Fled to the wasteful wilderness apace,
From living eyes her open shame 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 close rock the frighted raven flies,

Soon as the rising eagle cuts the air:

The shaggy wolf unseen and trembling lies,
When the hoarse roar proclaims the lion near.
Ill-starr'd did we our forts and lines forsake,
To dare our British foes to open fight:
Our conquest we by stratagem should make;
Our triumph had been founded in our flight.
'Tis ours, by craft and by surprise to gain:

"Tis theirs to meet in arms, and battle in the plain.

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

Some of his poems are written without regularity of measure; for, when hé commenced poet, be had not recovered from our Pindaric infatuation; but he probably lived to be convinced, that the essence of verse is order and consonance,

His numbers are such as mere diligence may attain; they seldom offend the ear, and seldom soothe it; they commonly want airiness, lightness, and facility: what is smooth is not soft. His verses always roll, but they seldom flow.

A survey of the life and writings of Prior may exemplify a sentence which he doubtless understood well, when he read Horace at his uncle's: "The vessel long retains the scent which it first receives." In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occasions and nobler subjects, when habit was overpowered by the necessity of reflection, he wanted not wisdom as a statesman, or elegance as a poet,

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LIONEL,

EARL OF DORSET AND MIDDLESEX.

Ir looks like no great compliment to your lordship, that I prefer your name to this epistle; when, in the preface, I declare the book is published almost against my inclination. But, in all cases, my lord, you have an hereditary right to whatever may be called mine. Many of the following picces were written by the command of your excellent father; and most of the rest, under his protection and patronage.

The particular felicity of your birth, my lord; the natural endowments of your mind, which, without suspicion of flattery, I may tell you, are very great; the good education with which these parts have been improved; and your coming into the world, and seeing men very carly; make us expect from your lordship all the good which our hopes can form in favour of a young nobleman. Tu Marcellus eris-Our eyes and our hearts are turned on you. You must be a judge and master of polite learning; a friend and patron to men of letters and merit; a faithful and able counsellor to your prince; a true patriot to your country; an ornament and honour to the titles you possess; and, in one word, a worthy son to the great earl of Dorset.

It is as impossible to mention that name, without desiring to commend the person, as it is to give him the commendations which his virtues deserved. But I assure myself, the most agreeable compliment I can bring your lordship is to pay a grateful respect to your father's memory: and my own obligations to him were such, that the world must pardon my endeavouring at his character, however I may miscarry in the attempt.

A thousand ornaments and graces met in the composition of this great man, and contributed to make him universally beloved and esteemed. The figure of his body was strong, proportionable, beautiful: and, were his picture well drawn, it must deserve the praise given to the portraits of Raphael; and, at once, create love and respect. While the greatness of his mien informed men, they were approaching the nobleman; the sweetness of it invited them to come nearer to the patron. There was in his look and

gesture something that is more easily conceived than described; that gained upon you in his favour, before he spake one word. His behaviour was easy and courteous to all; but distinguished and adapted to each man in particular, according to his station and quality. His civility was free from the formality of rule, and flowed immediately from his good sense.

Such were the natural faculties and strength of his mind, that he had occasion to borrow very little from education; and he owed those advantages to his own good parts, which others acquire by study and imitation, His wit was abundant, noble, bold. Wit in most writers is like a fountain in a garden, supplied by several streams brought through artful pipes, and playing sometimes agreeably. But the earl of Dorset's was a source rising from the top of a mountain, which forced its own way, and with inexhaustible supplies delighted and enriched, the country through which it passed. This extraordinary genius was accompanied with so true a judgment in all parts of fine learning, that, whatever subject was before him, he discoursed as properly of it, as if the peculiar bent of his study had been applied that way: and he perfected his judgment by reading and digesting the best authors, though he quoted them very seldom.

Contemnebat potius literas, quam nesciebat:

and rather seemed to draw his knowlege from his own stores, than to owe it to any foreign assistance.

The brightness of his parts, the solidity of his judgment, and the candour and generosity of his temper, distinguished him in an age of great politeness, and at a court abounding with men of the finest sense and learning. The most eminent masters, in their several ways, appealed to his determination. Waller thought it an honour to consult him in the softness and harmony of his verse: and Dr. Sprat, in the delicacy and turn of his prose. Dryden determines by him, under the character of Eugenius, as to the laws of dramatic poetry. Butler owed it to him, that the court tasted his Hudibras: Wycherley, that the town liked his Plain Dealer: and the late duke of Buckingham deferred to publish his Rehearsal, till he was sure (as he expressed it) that my lord Dorset would not rehearse upon him again. If we wanted a foreign testimony, La Fontaine and St. Evremond have acknowledged, that he was a perfect master in the beauty and fineness of their language, and of all that they call les belles lettres. Nor was this nicety of his judgment confined only to books and literature; but was the same in statuary, painting, and all other parts of art. Bermini would have taken his opinion upon the beauty and attitude of a figure; and king Charles did not agree with Lely, that my lady Cleveland's picture was finished, till it had the approbation of my lord Buckhurst.

As the judgment which he made of others writings could not be refuted, the manner in which he wrote will hardly ever be equalled. Every one of his

pieces is an ingot of gold, intrinsically and solidly valuable; such as, wrought or beaten thinner, would shine through a whole book of any other author. His thought was always new; and the expression of it so particu larly happy, that every body knew immediately it could only be my lord Dorset's: and yet it was so easy too, that every body was ready to imagine himself capable of writing it. There is a lustre in his verses, like that of the sun in Claude Lorrain's landscapes: it looks natural, and is inimitable. His love-verses have a mixture of delicacy and strength: they convey the wit of Petronius in the softness of Tibullus. His satire indeed is so severely pointed, that in it he appears, what his great friend the earl of Rochester (that other prodigy of the age) says he was,

The best good man, with the worst-natur'd Muse.

Yet, even here, that character may justly be applied to him, which Persius gives of the best writer of this kind that ever lived:

Omne vafer vitium ridenti Flaccus amico

Tangit, & admissus circum præcordia ludit :

And the gentleman had always so much the better of the satirist, that the persons touched did not know where to fix their resentments; and were forced to appear rather ashamed than angry. Yet so far was this great author from valuing himself upon his works, that he cared not what became of them, though every body else did. There are many things of his not extant in writing, which, however, are always repeated: like the verses and sayings of the ancient Druids, they retain an universal veneration, though they are preserved only by memory.

As it is often seen, that those men who are least qualified for business love it most; my lord Dorset's character was, that he certainly understood it, but did not care for it.

Coming very young to the possession of two plentiful estates, and in an age when pleasure was more in fashion than business, he turned his parts rather to books and conversation, than to politics, and what more immediately related to the public. But, whenever the safety of his country demanded his assistance, he readily entered into the most active parts of life; and underwent the greatest dangers, with a constancy of mind which showed, that he had not only read the rules of philosophy, but understood the practice of them.

In the first Dutch war, he went a volunteer under the duke of York: his behaviour, during that campaign, was such as distinguished the Sackville descended from that Hildebrand of the name, who was one of the greatest captains that came into England with the Conqueror. But his making a song the night before the engagement (and it was one of the prettiest that ever was made) carries with it so sedate a presence of mind, and such an