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that he was never at leisure for conversation, be- [titious part which he began to play before it because he had "always some poetical scheme in his came him. When he was only twenty-five years head." It was punctually required that his writ- old, he related that "a glut of study and retirement ing box should be set upon his bed before he rose; had thrown him on the world," and that there was and Lord Oxford's domestic related, that, in the danger lest "a glut of the world should throw him dreadful winter of 1740, she was called from her back upon study and retirement." To this Swift bed by him four times in one night, to supply him answered, with great propriety, that Pope had not with paper, lest he should lose a thought. yet acted or suffered enough in the world, to have

He pretends insensibility to censure and criti- become weary of it. And, indeed, it must have cism, though it was observed by all who knew him been some very powerful reason that can drive back that every pamphlet disturbed his quiet, that his to solitude him who has once enjoyed the pleasures extreme irritability laid him open to perpetual of society. vexation; but he wishes to despise his critics, and In the letters both of Swift and Pope there ap. therefore hoped that he did despise them. pears such narrowness of mind, as makes them in As he happened to live in two reigns when the sensible of any excellence that has not some affinity Court paid little attention to poetry, he nursed in with their own, and confines their esteem and aphis mind a foolish disesteem of Kings, and proclaims probation to so small a number, that whoever should that he never sees courts." Yet a little regard form his opinion of their age from their representashown him by the prince of Wales melted his ob- tion, would suppose them to have lived among ignoduracy; and he had not much to say when he was rance and barbarity, unable to find among their asked by his Royal Highness, "How he could love contemporaries either virtue or intelligence, and a Prince while he disliked Kings?" persecuted by those that could not understand them. He very frequently professes his contempt of the When Pope murmurs at the world, when he proworld, and represents himself as looking on man- fesses contempt of fame, when he speaks of riches kind sometimes with gay indifference, as on emmets and poverty, of success and disappointment, with of a hillock, below his serious attention; and some-negligent indifference, he certainly does not express times with gloomy indignation, as on monsters more his habitual and settled resentments, but either worthy of hatred than of pity. These were dis-wilfully disguises his own character, or, what is positions apparently counterfeited. How could he more likely, invests himself with temporory qualidespise those whom he lived by pleasing, and on ties, and sallies out in the colours of the present whose approbation his esteem of himself was super-moment. His hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, structed? Why should he hate those to whose fa- acted strongly upon his mind; and, if he differed vour he owed his honour and his ease? Of things from others, it was not by carelessness; he was that terminate in human life, the world is the pro-irritable and resentful; his malignity to Phillips, per judge; to despise its sentence, if it were possi-whom he had first made ridiculous, and then hated ble, is not just; and if it were just, is not possible. for being angry, continued too long. Of his vain Pope was far enough from this unreasonable temper: desire to make Bentley* contemptible, I never he was sufficiently a fool to Fame, and his fault was, heard any adequate reason. He was sometimes that he pretended to neglect it. His levity and his wanton in his attacks; and, before Chandos, Lady sullenness were only in his Letters; he passed Wortley, and Hill, was mean in his retreat. through common life sometimes vexed, and sometimes pleased with the natural emotions of common

men.

The virtues which seem to have had most of his affection were liberality and fidelity of friendship, in which it does not appear that he was any other His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be than he describes himself. His fortune did not sufreal; no man thinks much of that which he despises; fer his charity to be splendid and conspicuous; but and as falsehood is always in danger of inconsis- he assisted Dodsley with a hundred pounds, that tency, he makes it his boast at another time that he lives among them.

he might open a shop; and, of the subscription of forty pounds a year that he raised for Savage, It is evident that his own importance swells often twenty, were paid by himself. He was accused in his mind. He is afraid of writing, lest the clerks of loving money; but his love was eagerness to gain, of the Post-office should know his secrets; he has not solicitude to keep it.

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many enemies; he considers himself as surrounded In the duties of friendship he was zealous and by universal jealousy: "after many deaths, and constant; his early maturity of mind commonly many dispersions, two or three of us," says he, united him with men older than himself, and theremay still be brought together, not to plot, but to fore, without attaining any considerable length of divert ourselves, and the world too, if it pleases;" life, he saw many companions of his youth sink and they can live together, and "show what friends into the grave; but it does not appear that he lost a wits may be, in spite of all the fools in the world." single friend by coldness or by injury; those who All this while it was likely that the clerks did not loved him once, continued their kindness. His know his hand: he certainly had no more enemies ungrateful mention of Allen in his will, was the than a public character like his inevitably excites; effect of his adherence to one whom he had known and with what degree of friendship the wits might much longer, and whom he naturally loved with live, very few were so much fools as ever to in- greater fondness. His violation of the trust require. posed in him by Bolingbroke could have no motive inconsistent with the warmest affection; he either thought the action so near to indifferent, that he

Some part of this pretended discontent he learned from Swift, and expresses it, I think, most frequently in his correspondence with him. Swift's resentment was unreasonable, but it was sincere; *See Richard Cumberland's Memoirs of his own Life, Pope's was the mere mimickry of his friend, a fic-for an able Defence of Bentley.

forgot it; or so laudable that he expected his friend does not increase them; it collects few materials for to approve it. its own operations, and preserves safety, but never

It was reported, with such confidence as almost gains supremacy. Pope had likewise genius; a to enforce belief, that in the papers intrusted to his mind active, ambitious, and adventurous, always inexecutors was found a defamatory Life of Swift, vestigating, always aspiring; in its widest searches which he had prepared as an instrument of ven- still longing to go forward, in its highest flights still geance, to be used if any provocation should be ever wishing to be higher; always imagining something given. About this I inquired of the Earl of March-greater than it knows, always endeavouring more mont, who assured me that no such piece was than it can do.

among his remains. To assist these powers, he is said to have had The religion in which he lived and died was that great strength and exactness of memory. That of the Church of Rome, to which, in his correspon- which he had heard or read was not easily lost; dence with Racine, he professes himself a sincere and he had before him not only what his own meadherent. That he was not scrupulously pious in ditations suggested, but what he had found in other some part of his life, is known by many idle and writers that might be accommodated to his present indecent applications of sentences taken from the purpose. Scriptures; a mode of merriment which a good man These benefits of nature he improved by incesdreads for its profaneness: and a witty man dis-sant and unwearied diligence; he had recourse to dains for its easiness and vulgarity. But to what-every source of intelligence, and lost no opportuniever levities he has been betrayed, it does not ap-ty of information; he consulted the living as well pear that his principles were ever corrupted, or as the dead; he read his compositions to his friends, that he ever lost his belief of Revelation. The and was never content with mediocrity, when expositions which he transmitted from Bolingbroke cellence could be attained. He considered poetry he seems not to have understood, and was pleased as the business of his life; and, however he might with an interpretation that made them orthodox.

A man of such exalted superiority, and so little moderation, would naturally have all his delinquencies observed and aggravated; those who could not deny that he was excellent, would rejoice to find that he was not perfect.

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seem to lament his occupation, he followed it with constancy; to make verses was his first labour, and to mend them was his last.

From his attention to poetry he was never diverted. If conversation offered any thing that could be improved, he committed it to paper; if a Perhaps it may be imputed to the unwillingness thought, or perhaps an expression more happy than with which the same man is allowed to possess was common, rose to his mind, he was careful to many advantages, that his learning has been de-write it; an independent distich was preserved for preciated. He certainly was, in his early life, a an opportunity of insertion; and some little fragman of great literary curiosity; and, when he wrote ments have been found containing lines, or parts of his Essay on Criticism,' had, for his age, a very lines, to be wrought upon at some other time. wide acquaintance with books. When he entered He was one of those few whose labour is their into the living world, it seems to have happened to pleasure: he was never elevated to negligence, nor him as to many others, that he was less attentive wearied to impatience; he never passed a fault unto dead masters; he studied in the academy of amended by indifference, nor quitted it by despair. Paracelsus, and made the universe his favourite He laboured his works first to gain reputation, and volume. He gathered his notions fresh from reali- afterwards to keep it. ty; not from the copies of authors, but the originals Of composition there are different methods. Some of nature. Yet there is no reason to believe that employ at once memory and invention, and, with literature ever lost his esteem; he always profess- little intermediate use of the pen, form and polish ed to love reading; and Dobson, who spent some large masses by continued meditation, and write time at his house translating his Essay on Man,' their productions only when, in their own opinion, when I asked him what learning he found him to they have completed them. It is related of Virgil, possess, answered, " More than I expected." His that his custom was to pour out a great number of frequent references to history, his allusions to vari-verses in the morning, and pass the day in retrenchous kinds of knowledge, and his images selected ing exuberances, and correcting inaccuracies. The from art and nature, with his observations on the method of Pope, as may be collected from his transoperations of the mind and the modes of life, show lation, was to write his first thoughts in his first an intelligence perpetually on the wing, excursive, words, and gradually to amplify, decorate, rectify, vigorous, and diligent, eager to pursue knowledge, and refine them. and attentive to retain it. With such faculties, and such dispositions, he From this curiosity arose the desire of travelling, excelled every other writer in poetical prudence: to which he alludes in his verse to Jervas, and he wrote in such a manner as might expose him to which, though he never found an opportunity to few hazards. He used almost always the same gratify it, did not leave him till his life declined. fabric of verse: and, indeed, by those few essays Of his intellectual character, the constituent and which he made of any other, he did not enlarge his fundamental principle was good sense, a prompt reputation. Of this uniformity the certain conseand intuitive perception of consonance and pro-quence was readiness and dexterity. By perpetual priety. He saw immediately, of his own concep- practice, language had, in his mind, a systematical tions what was to be chosen, and what to be reject-arrangement; having always the same use for ed; and, in the works of others, what was to be words, he had words so selected and combined as shunned, and what was to be copied. to be ready at his call. This increase of facility But good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent he confessed himself to have perceived in the proquality, which manages its possessions well, but gress of his translation.

But what was yet of more importance, his effu-me that they were brought to him by the author, sions were always voluntary, and his subjects that they might be fairly copied. "Almost every chosen by himself. His independence secured him line," he said, "was then written twice over; I from drudging at a task, and labouring upon a bar-gave him a clean transcript, which he sent some ren topic; he never exchanged praise for money, time afterwards to me for the press, with almost nor opened a shop of condolence or congratulation. every line written twice over a second time." His poems, therefore, were scarcely ever tempo- His declaration, that his care for his works rary. He suffered coronations and royal marriages ceased at their publication, was not strictly true. to pass without a song; and derived no opportunities His parental attention never abandoned them; what from recent events, nor any popularity from the he found amiss in the first edition, he silently coraccidental disposition of his readers. He was never rected in those that followed. He appears to have reduced to the necessity of soliciting the sun to revised the Iliad,' and freed it from some of its shine upon a birth-day, of calling the Graces and imperfections; and the Essay on Criticism' receiv Virtues to a wedding, or of saying what multitudes ed many improvements after its first appearance. have said before him. When he could produce It will seldom be found that he altered without nothing new, he was at liberty to be silent. adding clearness, elegance, or vigour. Pope had

His publications were, for the same reason, never perhaps the judgment of Dryden; but Dryden cerhasty. He is said to have sent nothing to the press tainly wanted the diligence of Pope.

till it had lain two years under his inspection; it is In acquired knowledge, the superiority must be at least certain, that he ventured nothing without allowed to Dryden, whose education was more nice examination. He suffered the tumult of im-scholastic, and who, before he became an author, agination to subside, and the novelties of invention had been allowed more time for study, with better to grow familiar. He knew that the mind is means of information. His mind has a larger range, always enamoured of its own productions, and did and he collects his images and illustrations from a not trust his first fondness. He consulted his more extensive circumference of science. Dryden friends, and listened with great willingness to knew more of man in his general nature, and Pope criticism; and, what was of more importance, he in his local manners. The notions of Dryden were consulted himself, and let nothing pass against his formed by comprehensive speculation; and those of own judgment. Pope by minute attention. There is more dignity

He professed to have learned his poetry from in the knowledge of Dryden, and more certainty in Dryden, whom, whenever an opportunity was pre-that of Pope.

sented, he praised through his whole life with un- Poetry was not the sole praise of either; for both varied liberality; and perhaps his character may excelled likewise in prose: but Pope did not borreceive some illustration, if he be compared with row his prose from his predecessor. The style of his master. Dryden is capricious and varied; that of Pope is Integrity of understanding and nicety of discern- cautious and uniform. Dryden observes the moment were not allotted in a less proportion to Dry-tions of his own mind; Pope constrains his mind to den than to Pope. The rectitude of Dryden's mind his own rules of composition. Dryden is sometimes was sufficiently shown by the dismission of his vehement and rapid; Pope is always smooth, unipoetical prejudices, and the rejection of unnatural form, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, thoughts and rugged numbers. But Dryden never rising into inequalities, and diversified by the varidesigned to apply all the judgment that he had. ed exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a He wrote, and professed to write, merely for the velvet lawn, shaven by the scythe, and levelled by people; and when he pleased others, he contented the roller. himself. He spent no time in struggles to rouse Of genius, that power which constitutes a poet; latent powers; he never attempted to make that that quality without which judgment is cold, and better which was already good, nor often, to mend knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, what he must have known to be faulty. He wrote, combines, amplifies, and animates, the superiority as he tells us, with very little consideration; when must, with some hesitation, be allowed to Dryden. occasion or necessity called upon him, he poured It is not to be inferred, that of this poetical vigour out what the present moment happened to supply, Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; and, when once it had passed the press, ejected it for every other writer since Milton must give from his mind; for, when he had no pecuniary in-place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be terest, he had no further solicitude. said, that, if he has brighter paragraphs, he has

Pope was not content to satisfy; he desired to not better poems. Dryden's performances were excel, and therefore always endeavoured to do his always hasty, either excited by some external ocbest; he did not court the candour, but dared the casion, or extorted by domestic necessity; he judgment of his reader, and expecting no indul- composed without consideration, and published gence from others, he showed none to himself. without correction. What his mind could supHe examined lines and words with minute and ply at call, or gather in one excursion, was all punctilious observation, and retouched every part that he sought, and all that he gave. The dilatory with indefatigable diligence, till he had left nothing caution of Pope enabled him to condense his sento be forgiven. timents, to multiply his images, and to accumuFor this reason he kept his pieces very long in late all that study might produce, or chance his hands, while he considered and reconsidered might supply. If the flights of Dryden therethem. The only poems which can be supposed to fore are higher, Pope continues longer on the have been written with such regard to the times wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of as might hasten their publication, were the two Pope's the heat is more regular and constant. Drysatires of Thirty-eight;' of which Dodsley told den often surpasses expectation, and Pope never

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falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent aston-sweetness; but a new metamorphosis is a ready and ishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. puerile expedient; nothing is easier than to tell This parallel will, I hope, when it is well con- how a flower was once a blooming virgin, or a rock sidered, be found just; and if the reader should sus- an obdurate tyrant.

pect me, as I suspect myself, of some partial fond- The Temple of Fame,' has, as Steele warmly ness for the memory of Dryden, let him not too declared, "a thousand beauties." Every part is hastily condemn me; for meditation and inquiry splendid; there is a great luxuriance of ornaments; may, perhaps, show him the reasonableness of my the original vision of Chaucer was never denied to determination. be much improyed, the allegory is very skilfully continued, the imagery is properly selected, and The works of Pope are now to be distinctly ex- learnedly displayed: yet, with all this comprehenamined, not so much with attention to slight faults, sion of excellence, as its scene is laid in remote or petty beauties, as to the general character and ages, and its sentiments, if the concluding paraeffect of each performance. graph be excepted, have little relation to general

It seems natural for a young poet to initiate him- manners or common life, it never obtained much self by Pastorals, which not professing to imitate notice, but is turned silently over, and seldom real life, require no experience; and exhibiting quoted or mentioned with either praise or blame. only the simple operation of unmingled passions, That the Messiah' excels the Pollio' is no admit no subtile reasoning or deep inquiry. Pope's great praise, if it be considered from what original 'Pastorals' are not, however, composed but with the improvements are derived.

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close thought; they have reference to the times of The Verses on the unfortunate Lady' have the day, the seasons of the year, and the periods drawn much attention by the illaudable singularity of human life. The last, that which turns the at- of treating suicide with respect; and they must be tention upon age and death, was the author's fa- allowed to be written in some parts with vigorous vourite. To tell of disappointment and misery, to animation, and in some others with gentle tenderthicken the darkness of futurity, and perplex the ness, nor has Pope produced any poem in which labyrinth of uncertainty, has been always a deli- the sense predominates more over the diction. But cious employment of the poets. His preference the tale is not skilfully told; it is not easy to diswas probably just. I wish, however, that his fond- cover the character of either the Lady or her ness had not overlooked a line in which the Zc- Guardian. History relates that she was about to phyrs are made to lament in silence. disparage herself by a marriage to an inferior; Pope To charge these Pastorals with want of inven- praises her for the dignity of ambition, and yet tion, is to require what was never intended. The condemns the uncle to detestation for his pride; the imitations are so ambitiously frequent, that the ambitious love of a niece may be opposed by the inwriter evidently means rather to show his litera-terest, malice, or envy of an uncle, but never by ture than his wit. It is surely sufficient for an au- his pride. On such an occasion a poet may be althor of sixteen, not only to be able to copy the lowed to be obscure, but inconsistency never can be poems of antiquity with judicious selection, but to have obtained sufficient power of language, and skill in metre, to exhibit a series of versification, which had in English poetry no precedent, nor has since had an imitation.

right.*

The 'Ode for St. Cecilia's day' was undertaken at the desire of Steele; in this the author is generally confessed to have miscarried, yet has miscarried only as compared with Dryden; for he has far The design of Windsor Forest' is evidently de- outgone other competitors. Dryden's plan is betrived from 'Cooper's Hill,' with some attention to ter chosen; history will always take stronger hold Waller's poem on 'The Park;' but Pope cannot be of the attention than fable: the passions excited by denied to excel his masters in variety and ele- Dryden are the pleasures and pains of real life; the gance, and the art of interchanging description, scene of Pope is laid in imaginary existence. Pope narrative, and morality. The objection made by is read with calm acquiescence, Dryden with turDennis is the want of plan, of a regular subordina-bulent delight; Pope hangs upon the ear, and Drytion of parts terminating in the principal and origi- den finds the passes of the mind. nal design. There is this want in most descriptive Both the odes want the essential constituent of poems, because as the scenes, which they must ex-metrical compositions, the stated recurrence of hibit successively, are all subsisting at the same settled numbers: it may be alleged, that Pindar is time, the order in which they are shown must by said by Horace to have written numeris lege solunecessity be arbitrary, and more is not to be ex- tis: but as no such lax performances have been pected from the last part than from the first. The transmitted to us, the meaning of that expression attention, therefore, which cannot be detained by cannot be fixed; and perhaps the like return might suspense, must be excited by diversity, such as his poem offers to its reader.

properly be made to a modern Pindarist, as Mr. Cobb received from Bentley, who, when he found his criticisms upon a Greek Exercise, which Cobb

But the desire of diversity may be too much indulged; the parts of Windsor Forest' which def serve least praise, are those which were added to There was a letter in the possession of Dr. Johnson, enliven the stillness of the scene, the appearance containing the name of the Lady; and a reference to a genof Father Thames, and the transformation of Lo- tleman well known in the literary world for her history. dona. Addison had in his 'Campaign' derided the this gentleman by a lady of quality, it appears, that the unFrom a memorandum of some particulars communicated to Rivers that "rise from their oozy beds" to tell fortunate lady's name was Withinbury; that she was in stories of heroes; and it is therefore strange that love with Pope, and would have married him; that her guarPope should adopt a fiction not only unnatural but such a match as beneath her, sent her to a convent; and dian, though she was deformed in person, looking upon lately censured. The story of Lodona is told with that by a noose, and not a sword, her life was terminated.

had presented, refuted one after another by Pin- ter Daphne, is likened to a greyhound cnasing a dar's authority, cried out at last, "Pindar was aa hare, there is nothing gained; the ideas of pursuit bold fellow, but thou art an impudent one."

If Pope's ode be particularly inspected, it will be found that the first stanza consists of sounds well chosen indeed, but only sounds.

The second consists of hyperbolical commonplaces, easily to be found, and perhaps without much difficulty to be as well expressed.

and flight are too plain to be made plainer; and a god and the daughter of a god are not represented much to their advantage by a hare and dog. The simile of the Alps has no useless parts, yet affords a striking picture by itself; it makes the foregoing position better understood, and enables it to take faster hold on the attention: it assists the appre

In the third, however, there are numbers, ima-hension, and elevates the fancy. ges, harmony, and vigour, not unworthy the antagonist of Dryden. Had all been like this-but every part cannot be the best.

Let me likewise dwell a little on the celebrated paragraph, in which it is directed that "the sound should seem an echo to the sense;" a precept which Pope is allowed to have observed beyond any other English poet.

The next stanzas place and detain us in the dark and dismal regions of mythology, where neither hope nor fear, neither joy nor sorrow, can be found: This notion of representative metre, and the the poet, however, faithfully attends us: we have desire of discovering frequent adaptations of the all that can be performed by elegance of diction, or sound to the sense, have produced, in my opinion, sweetness of versification; but what can form avail many wild conceits and imaginary beauties. All without better matter? that can furnish this representation are the sounds The last stanza recurs again to common-places. of the words considered singly, and the time in The conclusion is too evidently modelled by that which they are pronounced. Every language of Dryden; and it may be remarked that both end has some words framed to exhibit the noises with the same fault; the comparison of each is lite-which they express, as thump, rattle, growl, ral on one side, and metaphorical on the other. hiss. These, however, are but few, and the poet Poets do not always express their own thoughts: cannot make them more, nor can they be of any use Pope with all this labour in the praise of Music, but when sound is to be mentioned. The time of was ignorant of its principles, and insensible of its pronunciation was in the dactylic measures of the effects. learned languages capable of considerable variety; but that variety could be accommodated only to motion or duration; and different degrees of motion were perhaps expressed by verses rapid or slow, without much attention of the writer, when the image had full possession of his fancy; but our language having little flexibility, our verses can differ very little in their cadence. The fancied resemblances, I fear, arise sometimes merely from the ambiguity of words; there is supposed to be some relation between a soft line and soft couch, or be

One of his greatest, though of his earliest works, is the Essay on Criticism,' which, if he had written nothing else, would have placed him among the first critics and the first poets, as it exhibits every mode of excellence that can embellish or dignify didactic composition, selection of matter, novelty of arrangement, justness of precept, splendour of illustration, and propriety of digression. I know not whether it be pleasing to consider that he produced this piece at twenty, and never afterwards excelled it; he that delights himself with observ-tween hard syllables and hard fortune. ing that such powers may be soon attained, cannot

Motion, however, may be in some sort exempli

but grieve to think that life was ever after at a fied: and yet it may be suspected that in such restand.

semblances the mind often governs the ear, and the
sounds are estimated by their meaning. One of
their most successful attempts has been to describe
the labour of Sysiphus:

With many a weary step, and many a groan,
Up a high hill he heaves a huge round stone;
The huge round stone, resulting with a bound,
Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground

Who does not perceive the stone to move slowly
upward, and roll violently back? But set the same
numbers to another sense:

While many a merry tale, and many a song,

To mention the particular beauties of the Essay would be unprofitably tedious; but I cannot forbear to observe, that the comparison of a student's progress in the sciences with the journey of a traveller in the Alps, is perhaps the best that English| poetry can show. A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clear view, and display it to the fancy with greater dignity, but either of these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it. In didactic poetry, of which the great purpose is instruction, a simile may be praised which illustrates, though it does not ennoble; in heroics, that may be admitted which ennobles, though it does not illustrate. That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of its references, | a pleasing image: for a simile is said to be a short We have now surely lost much of the delay, and episode. To this antiquity was so attentive, that circumstances were sometimes added, which, having no parallels, served only to fill the imagination, and produced what Perrault ludicrously called, comparisons with a long tail." In their similies the greatest writers have sometimes failed; the ship-race, compared with the chariot-race, is neither illustrated nor aggrandised; land and water make all the difference: when Apollo, running af-1

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Cheer'd the rough road, we wish'd the rough road long.
The rough road then, returning in a round,
Mock'd our impatient steps, for all was fairy ground.

much of the rapidity.

But to show how little the greatest master of numbers can fix the principles of representative harmony, it will be sufficient to remark that the poet, who tells us, that,

When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labours, and the words move slow:
Not so when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main:

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