Heroic metre, with alternate rhyme, feems well enough adapted to this fpecies of poetry; and, however exceptionable upon other occafions, its inconveniencies appear to lose their weight in shorter elegies; and its: advantages seem to acquire an additional importance. The world has an admirable example of its beauty ins a collection of elegies not long fince published; the product of a gentleman * of the most exact taste, ands whofe untimely death merits all the tears that elegy can shed.

It is not impoffible that fome may think this metre too lax and profaic: others, that even a more diffolute variety of numbers may have fuperior advantages. And, in favour of these last, might be produced the example of Milton in his Lycidas, together with one or two recent and beautiful imitations of his verfi fication in that monody. But this kind of argu ment, I am apt to think, must prove too much; fince the writers I have in view feem capable enough of recommending any metre they shall chufe; though it must be owned alfo, that the choice they make of any, is at the fame time the strongest prefumption in its favour.

Perhaps it may be no great difficulty to compromise the dispute. There is no one kind of metre that is dif tinguished by rhymes, but is liable to fome objection or other. Heroic verfe, where every fecond line is terminated by a rhyme, (with which the judgment reB 4

*Mr. Hammond.

quires

quires that the fenfe fhould in fome measure also terminate) is apt to render the expreffion either scanty or conftrained. And this is fometimes obfervable in the writings of a poet lately deceased; though I believe no one ever threw so much fenfe together with so much ease into a couplet as Mr. Pope. But, as an air of conftraint too often accompanies this metre, it seems by no means proper for a writer of elegy.

The previous rhyme in Milton's Lycidas is very frequently placed at such 'a distance from the following, that it is often dropt by the memory (much better employed in attending to the fentiment) before it be brought to join its partner: and this feems to be the greatest objection to that kind of verfification. But then the peculiar ease and variety it admits of, are no doubt fufficient to overbalance the objection, and to give it the preference to any other, in an elegy of length.

The chief exception to which fianza of all kinds is liable, is, that it breaks the fenfe too regularly, when it is continued through a long poem. And this may be perhaps the fault of Mr. Waller's excellent panegyric. But if this fault be lefs difcernible in fmaller compofitions, as I suppose it is, I flatter myself, that the advantages I have before mentioned refulting from alternate rhyme (with which stanza is, I think, connected) may, at least in shorter elegies, be allowed to outweigh its imperfections.

I fhall fay but little of the different kinds of elegy. The melancholy of a lover is different, no doubt, from what we feel on other mixed occafions. The

mind in which love and grief at once predominate, is foftened to an excess. Love-elegy therefore is more negligent of order and design, and being addreffed chiefly to the ladies, requires little more than tenderness and perfpicuity. Elegies, that are formed upon promifcuous incidents, and addreffed to the world in general, inculcate fome fort of moral, and admit a different degree of reasoning, thought, and ardour.

The author of the following elegies entered on his fubjects occafionally, as particular incidents in life fuggefted, or difpofitions of mind recommended them to his choice. If he describes a rural landskip, or unfolds the train of fentiments it infpired, he fairly drew his picture from the fpot; and felt very fenfibly the affection he communicates. If he fpeaks of his humble fhed, his flocks and his fleeces, he does not counterfeit the scene; who having (whether through choice or neceffity, is not material) retired betimes to countryfolitudes, and fought his happinefs in rural employments, has a right to confider himself as a real shepherd.' The flocks, the meadows, and the grottos, are his own, and the embellishment of his farm his fole amufement. As the fentiments therefore were infpired by nature, and that in the earlier part of his life, he hopes they will retain a natural appearance; diffusing at least some part of that amusement, which he freely acknowleges he received from the compofition of them.

There will appear perhaps a real inconsistency in the moral tenor of the feveral elegies; and the subfequent ones may fometimes feem a recantation of the preceding.

preceding. The reader will fcarcely impute this to overfight; but will allow, that men's opinions as well as tempers vary; that neither public nor private, active nor speculative life, are unexceptionably happy, and confequently that any change of opinion concerning them may afford an additional beauty to poetry, as it gives us a more striking representation of life.

If the author has hazarded, throughout, the use of English or modern allufions, he hopes it will not be imputed to an entire ignorance, or to the least disesteem, of the ancient learning. He has kept the ancient plan and method in his eye, though he builds his edifice with the materials of his own nation. In other words, through a fondness for his native country, he has made ufe of the flowers it produced, though, in order to exhibit them to the greater advantage, he has endeavoured to weave his garland by the best model he could find with what fuccefs, beyond his own amusement, must be left to judges lefs partial to him than either his acquaintance or his friends.—If any of those should be fo candid, as to approve the variety of fubjects he has chofen, and the tenderness of fentiment he has endeavoured to imprefs, he begs the metre also may not be too fuddenly condemned. The public ear, habituated of late to a quicker meafure, may perhaps confider this as heavy and languid; but an objection of that kind may gradually lose its force, if this meafure fhould be allowed to fuit the nature of elegy.

If it should happen to be confidered as an object with others, that there is too much of a moral caft diffused through the whole; it is replied, that he endeavoured to animate the poetry so far as not to render this objection too obvious; or to risque excluding the fashionable reader: at the fame time never deviating from a fixed principle, that poetry without morality is but the blossom of a fruit-tree. Poetry is indeed like that species of plants, which may bear at once both fruits and blossoms; and the tree is by no means in perfection without the former, however it may be embellished by the flowers which furround it.

ELEGIE S.