which the poet may learn to write, and the philosopher to reason. If Prior's poetry be generally confsidered, 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 were all tiffues of fentiment; and his smaller, which confist of light images or fingle conceits, were not always his own. I have traced him among the French Epigrammatists, 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 Ne fis mæftus, ait; fummi conviva Tonantis Sacri Sacrificus contra; mihi non convivia fas eft 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 hafte, nor indulges himself in contemptuous negligence, or impatient idleness; he has no careless lines, or entangled fentiments; his words are nicely selected, 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, 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 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 feems the effort of ftruggle 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 Muse, 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 phrases 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 feems to have been formed at the words did not come till they were once; called, and were then put by conftraint into their places, where they do their duty, but do it fullenly. In his greater compofitions D 4 there 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 scruple, 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 unpleasing, and his sense as less distinct is less striking. 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 resemblance he has formed his new Stanza to that of his master, these fpecimens will fhew, SPENSER. She flying faft from heaven's hated face, From living eyes her open fhame to hide, But that fair crew of knights, and Una fair, 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 rifing eagle cuts the air: The shaggy 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 Britifh foes to open fight: Our conqueft we by ftratagem 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 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 Spenfer. Some of his poems are written without regularity of measures; for, when he commenced poet, we had not recovered from our Pindarick infatuation; but he probably |