[ ^5 ] 



portioned to the difficulty ? Has the difficulty of compofmg ron- 

 deaus, acrojiics and charades delivered the French language from 

 a mob of writers at once wild and jejune ? To purfue this rea- 

 foning a little farther: It is acknowledged on all hands that 

 French verfification is fubjed to a very fevere and tyrannical 

 code of rules ; it is much more difficult to write poetry in that 

 language, than it is in the Latin, Greek, Italian or Engliffi 

 Now, have meaner fpirits been deterred by this difficulty f Is the 

 number of minor poets lefs in the French than in other lan- 

 guages? Or is the comparative excellence of the French poetry 

 great, m proportion to the difcouragements which are thrown in 

 the way of their writers, by the fevere laws of verfification > 

 The French writers complain of this tyrannical code as an heavy 

 grievance, and fo intolerable is the burthen, that fome of their 

 befl poets, particularly Corneille, the firft of French bards, vio- 

 late the laws of verfification without fcruple. Indeed I had al- 

 ways been taught to hold an opinion diredly contrary to this 

 pofition, and to believe, that in proportion as the execution of 

 the mechanical part in the fine arts is eafy, there is a greater 

 profpea of attaining to general excellence , and to common 

 underftandmgs this opinion would feem to be well-founded 

 The pains, ftudy and time which will be exhaufted in adjufting 

 the mere mechanical part, when it is of a more difficult form 

 may, when that difficulty is removed, be employed on a nobler 

 care, that of confidering the plan, removing defers, and height- 

 emng the beauties, by correding, retouching and polifhing the 

 whole. I have often heard blank verfe preferred to rhyme, on 

 this very ground, that it impofed lefs troublefome reftraints on 

 the poet, andlhadobferved that in thofe languages which are 



t ^ J called, 



