f

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now perused only by young ftudents, who read merely that they may learn to write; and of the Carmen Seculare, I cannot but fufpect that I might praise or cenfure it by caprice, without danger of detection; for who can be supposed to have laboured through it? Yet the time has been when this neglected work was so popular, that it was tranflated into Latin by no common master.

His Poem on the battle of Ramillies is neceffarily tedious by the form of the ftanza: an uniform mass of ten lines, thirty-five times repeated, inconfequential and flightly connected, must weary both the ear and the understanding. His imitation of Spenfer, which consists principally in I ween and I weet, without exclusion of later modes of speech, makes his poem neither ancient nor modern. His mention of Mars and Bellona, and his comparison of Marlborough to the Eagle that bears the thunder of Jupiter, are all puerile and unaffecting; and yet more despicable is the long tale told by Lewis in his despair, of Brute and Troynovante, and the teeth of Cadmus, with his fimilies of the raven and eagle, and wolf

and

and lion. By the help of fuch easy fictions, and vulgar topicks, without acquaintance with life, and without knowledge of art or nature, a poem of any length, cold and lifeless like this, may be easily written on any subject.

is

In his Epilogues to Phædra and to Lucius, he very happily facetious; but into the Prologue before the Queen, the pedant has found his way, with Minerva, Perfeus, and Andro

meda.

His Epigrams and lighter pieces are, like thofe of others, fometimes elegant, fometimes trifling, and fometimes dull; among the best are the Camelion, and the epitaph on John and Joan.

Scarcely any one of our poets has written fo much, and tranflated fo little: the version 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 VOL. III.

D

is

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 present 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 illuftration. The spangles of wit which he could afford, he knew how to polish; but he wanted the bullion of his mafter. Butler pours out a negligent profufion, certain of the weight, but careless of the ftamp. Prior has comparatively little, but with that little he makes a fine fhew. Alma has many admirers, and was the only piece among Prior's works of which Pope faid that he should 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

who is willing to think that he has been labouring in vain? He had infufed into it much knowledge and much thought; had often polished it to elegance, often dignified it with splendour, and sometimes heightened it to sublimity: he perceived in it many excellencies, and did not discover that it wanted that without which all others are of small avail, the power of engaging attention and alluring curiofity.

Tediousness is the most 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 second; as bodies forced into motion, contrary to their tendency, pass more and more flowly through every fucceffive interval of space.

We

Unhappily this pernicious failure is that which an author is least able to discover. 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. Per

haps no man ever thought a line fuperfluous when he first wrote it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of invention had fubfided. 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 tedioufnefs of this poem proceeds not from the uniformity of the fubject, for it is fufficiently 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 fpeaker, or the mention of any other agent, unlefs 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 shall peruse it will be able to mark many paffages, to which he may recur for inftruction or delight; many from