❝of the thing which it defcribes, which

"I would have obferved in divers other

"places of this

poem, that else will pafs

for very careless verses: as before,

And over-runs the neighb'ring fields with

violent course.

"In the fecond book;

Down a precipice deep, down he cafts them

Brafs was his helmet, his boots brafs, and

o'er

His breast a thick plate of brass he wore.

In the fourth,

Like some fair pine d'er-looking all th' ignobler wood.

«And,

Some from the rocks caft themselves down beadlong.

"And many more: but it is enough to "inftance in a few. The thing is, that "the difpofition of words and numbers "should be fuch, as that, out of the or"der and found of them, the things "themselves may be reprefented. This "the Greeks were not fo accurate as to " bind themfelves to; neither have our "English poets obferved it, for aught I

66

can find. The Latins (qui mufas volunt feveriores) fometimes did it, and their "prince, Virgil, always: in whom the

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examples are innumerable, and taken "notice of by all judicious men, fo that "it is fuperfluous to collect them."

I know not whether he has, in many of these inftances, attained the reprefentation or resemblance that he purposes. Verfe can imitate only found and motion. A boundless verfe, a headlong verfe, and a verse of brass or of ftrong brass, feem to comprise very incongruous and unfociable ideas. What there is peculiar in the found of the line expreffing loofe care, I cannot difcover; nor why the pine is taller in an Alexandrine than in ten fyllables.

But, not to defraud him of his due praise, he has given one example of re

pre

presentative verfification, which perhaps no other English line can equal :

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wife. He who defers this work from day to day,

Does on a river's bank expecting ftay Till the whole stream that ftopp'd him

fhall be gone,

Which runs, and as it runs, for ever fball

run on.

Cowley was, I believe, the firft poet that mingled Alexandrines at pleafure with the common heroick of ten fyllables, and from him Dryden borrowed the practice, whether ornamental or licentious. He confidered the verfe of twelve fyllables as elevated and majeftick, and has therefore deviated into that

M

'Twixt his right ribs deep pierc'd the furious blade,

And open'd wide thofe fecret veffels

where

Life's light goes out, when firft they let in air.

But he has allufions vulgar as well as learned. In a vifionary fucceffion of kings:

Joas at firft does bright and glorious

show,

In life's fresh morn his fame does early

crow.

Defcribing an undifciplined army, after having faid with elegance,

His forces feem'd no army, but a crowd Heartless, unarm'd, diforderly, and

loud;

he