[ 6j ] 



acquire at leaft a tranfient popularity, but even to impofe on 

 the writer himfelf. If the irregular ode has introduced compo- 

 fitions wild and jejune, the pedantry of the Anglo-Grecian 

 lyric has contributed to the propagation of verfes that are tame 

 and infipid, made up of epithets and unmeaning verbiage, and 

 difguifed with foreign idioms. 



The introdudion oi Jfrophe, antijirophe and epode into Englifh 

 poetry is not only unneceffary, but unaccountable. There is not 

 a fingle inftance of it in Malherbe, that great mafter of French 

 lyric poetry, who was a very corred and clalTical writer. Ben 

 Johnfon, a fervile imitator of the antients, was, I believe, the 

 firft who introduced it in Englifh, under the denomination of 

 turn, retiir?i, and counter-turn. Among the Greeks themfelves 

 the ufe of the Jtrophe, antijirophe and epode was not adopted 

 univerfally and indifcriminatcly in every fpecies of the ode. If 

 we are to believe the antient grammarians, the mi'dels of the 

 Greek lyric, in which this divifion is adopted, were all compofed 

 to be fung by a chorus*, and accompanied with dancing ; and 



^ This union of poetry, mufic and dancing, is inexplicable enough to us, whofe 

 manners are fo different from thofe of the antients ; however, there cannot be any 

 doubt of the -fatl ; to prove it, I need only adduce part of a chorus in the Hei- 

 iii.'a fiinns of Euripides, which manifeftly alludes to it : 



'Ou Trai/trcfiai la? X^S'"'"' ''"''^ ^■ 



■wiica uviyyMi, ff""! '»/*?' ff'-ar 



'a ^iin» (iiT sLf(,Ba-:a; /alar 'ivaaiia. ynm 



* * * 



•ax^a. % x.^f.vl^ ettIkIohs 

 pi'iXirav yai At^yii uvMv 



lisircr.s' Ki ft' sx°5^ °'°"' 



the 



