[ 6o ] 



perufal ; neither can it be faid to impofe any very flrong, at 

 leaft it does not impofe any very ufeful curb, on the wayward 

 imagination ; nor will it, I prefume, be found a very effedual 

 means of excluding compolitions "mild and jejune : In truth, I am 

 inclined to doubt whether this defirable end can be obtained 

 by the adoption o( jlropkey antijirophe and epode. It would be 

 invidious to quote particular inftances, but any one who will 

 take the trouble of turning over fome of our mifcellaneous 

 colledions, and other books of modern poetry, will find 

 things called odes, which are at once wild and jejune, though 

 trimmed and laced up in the ftraight waiftcoat oi jirophe, anti- 

 jirophe and epode, according to all the feverities of the Greek 

 mafters. 



Mr. Mafon infifts on the fmall number of irregular odes, 

 which, as he fays, deferve to be ranked with the living, as an 

 argument againft this fpecies of compofition. He confines the 

 catalogue to narrow limits, Dryden's and Pope's odes on St. Ce- 

 cilia's day. Suppofe this for a moment to be juft, is not Dryden's 

 ode of fufiicient excellence and dignity, to give a new form of 

 compofition, and become the archetype, and as I may fay, the 

 founder of a diflind poetical family? Is not the Complaint oi 

 Cowley to all intents and purpofes lyrical ? Do his pindaric odes, 

 ■which are profeffedly irregular, deferve to be involved in the 

 indifcriminate doom of death ? Even the fevere Hurd, in his 

 Caftrations of Cowley, has reprieved and admitted fome of them 

 i.nto his coUedion. I know not to what clafs we fhall refer 

 jMilton's Lycidas ; to me it feeras to belong to the genus of irre- 

 gular 



