And certain laws, by sufferers thought unjust, 60 day; 75 part which Horace took in the civil wars, are among the bappiest instances of his felicitous style: Dura sed emovere loco me tempora grato; Versus ut facerem. Warton, in the spirit of a scholar, observes this apologetical delicacy of throwing the blame on necessity, inexperience, and the whirl of the time. Horace had the high command, of a legion ;--a command equivalent to that of a British majorgeneral, 70 Monroes. Dr. Monroe, physician to Bedlam-hospital. If every wheel of that unwearied mill, still? have me do? 80 But grant I may relapse, for want of grace, Agáin to rhyme; can London be the place? Who there his Muse, or self, or soul attends, 90 In crowds, and courts, law, business, feasts, and friends? My counsel sends to execute a deed : A poet begs me I will hear him read: In Palace-yard at nine you 'll find me there --At ten for certain, sir, in Bloomsbury-square-- 95 Before the lords at twelve my cause comes onThere's a rehearsal, sir, exact at one. 0, but a wit can study in the streets, And raise his mind above the mob he meets.' Not quite so well however as one ought: 100 A hackney-coach may chance to spoil a thought; 6 83 Pindaric lays? Those unfortunate performances find no mercy from the rough gripe of Warburton :- Of our modern lyrics,' he says, 'the English are Pindaric, and the Latin Horatian : the former are, like boiled meats, of different tastes, but all insipid ; the latter, like the same meats potted, but all of one taste.' The reason assigned for this sweeping condemnation is, that 'the English ode-makers only imitate Pindar's ideas; the Latin employ Horace's very words.' And then a nodding beam or pig of lead, 105 And peers give way, exalted as they are, Ev'n to their own s-r-v—nce in a car? Go, lofty poet! and in such a crowd, Sing thy sonorous verse- but not aloud. Alas ! to grottos and to groves we run, 110 To ease and silence, every Muse's son: Blackmore himself, for any grand effort, Would drink and doze at Tooting or Earl's-court. How shall I rhyme in this eternal roar ? How match the bards whom none e'er match'd before? 115 The man, who stretch'd in Isiscalm retreat, To books and study gives seven years complete, See! strew'd with learned dust, his nightcap on, He walks, an object new beneath the sun! The boys flock round him, and the people stare: 120 So stiff, so mute! some statue, you would swear, Stepp'd from its pedestal to take the air ! And here, while town, and court, and city roars, With mobs, and duns, and soldiers at their doors, Shall I, in London, act this idle part ? 125 Composing songs, for fools to get by heart? The Temple late two brother serjeants saw, Who deem'd each other oracles of law : With equal talents, these congenial souls, One lulld the Exchequer, and one stunn'd the Rolls : 130 Each had a gravity would make you split; And shook his head at Murray, as a wit. 140 'Twas, sir, your law,' and, sir, your eloquence,' sense.' Nine, please. In vain bad rhymers all mankind reject; 140 Stephen Duck, one of the familiar burlesques of patronage; a peasant, and a dull writer, but protected by queen Caroline. By Spence's interest he obtained orders, and the living of Byfleet in Surrey. He was drowned at Reading in 1756. His character was that of a decent and honest man; but ignorant, and as destitute of talents as of learning. 153 In vain bad rhymers. The vanity of a Frenchman is always either ferocious or fantastic: Richelieu's was both. We have the amusing anecdote of his authorship, from the Mélanges of Marville; that when he beard of the censure d the 'Tis to small purpose that you hold your tongue; Each praised within, is happy all day long. 156 But how severely with themselves proceed The men, who write such verse as we can read! Their own strict judges, not a word they spare, That wants or force, or light, or weight, or care : Howe'er unwillingly it quits its place, 161 Nay, though at court, perhaps, it may find grace, Such they ’ll degrade; and sometimes, in its stead, In downright charity revive the dead; Mark where a bold expressive phrase appears, 165 Bright through the rubbish of some hundred years; Command old words that long have slept, to wake; Words that wise Bacon or brave Raleigh spake; passed by the French Academy on his tragedy of Europa, his first impulse was indignation ; he tore up the manuscript in a thousand pieces, and flung it about the room : bis next was despair; he flung himself on his bed, and lay there till midnight: his third was returning affection for his offspring; at midnight he rose, summoned his attendants, and spent the rest of the night in picking up the fragments and pasting them together. 167 Old words that long have slept. Harte told Warton, as the result of some conversations with Pope, that they conceived classical English to be comprehended in the principal writers, from Spenser to Pope. Pope here talks of reviving the dialect of Bacon and Raleigh, but he not less feels the value of the vigorous additions which a language may receive from the classics or from foreign tongues. The rigid adherence to the old models, on which Swift prided himself, and the modern propensity to praise the use of the feeble, the low, the dry, and the common-place, are alike fantasies of the hour: they are contradicted by the necessity of things. All inen acquire new words with new knowlege; and all nations must equally acquire new words with their increase of foreign intercourse, their enlarged activity, political and commercial, and their advances in general knowlege. England has thus enriched her |