velty is the great fource of pleasure. Perhaps no man ever thought a line fuperfluous when he first wrote it, or contracted his work till his ebullitions of invention had fubfided. And even if he should controul his defire of immediate renown, and keep his work nine years unpublished, he will be ftill the author, and still in danger of deceiving himself: and if he confults his friends, he will probably find men who have more kindness than judgment, 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, 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, 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 foreseen, 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 recur for inftruction or delight; many from 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 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 smaller, which confist 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 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 Melan thon: De Sacerdote Furem confolante. Quidam facrificus furem camitatus euntem Ne fis mæftus, ait; fummi conviva Tonantis VOL. III. D Ille Ille gemens, fi vera mihi folatia præbes, What he has valuable he owes to his diligence and his judgment. 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 correctnefs. He never facrifices accuracy to hafte, nor indulges himfelf in contemptuous negligence, or impatient idleness; 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 judgment 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 wicked nefs, ness, so judgment 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 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 seems 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 phrases are original, but they are sometimes harsh; 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 there may be found more rigid stateliness 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 severity, 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 unpleasing, and his fenfe as lefs diftinct 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 specimens will shew: SPENSER. She flying faft from heaven's hated face, From living eyes her open fhame to hide, To reft themselves, and weary powers repair, and rare. |