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jeflure of Mr. Sanadon, as to the iunaion of the feveral parts 

 which he brings together, be well or ill founded, it fervcs to fup- 

 port my argument, as it fliews that in the opinion of a learned 

 man and a good critic the irregular ode was by no means alien 

 from the corredl genius of claffic poetry. 



We may alfo alledge the example of the Italian lyric poets 

 in favour of the irregular ode ; there are a great number of 

 beautiful compofitions of that fpecies in their language, parti- 

 cularly by Chiabrera and Metaftafio, a writer to whom the epi- 

 thets of wild and jejune can hardly be applied with any pro- 

 priety. Fontaine, among the French^ may be confidered as a 

 great mailer in the irregular lyric. Among us, the corred and 

 laborious Ben Johnfon, as he was the firft importer of the 

 Jirophe, antiftrophe and epode, has given us alfo the firft Englifh- 

 precedent of an irregular ode, if I miftake not, in the poem on 

 the burning of his works. 



But why refort to precedent for a juftification of the irregular 

 ode? I may entrench myfelf in ftronger ground, the internal 

 evidence of its merit, and the obvious advantages which refult 

 from this fpecies of compofition. Firft, it leaves the poet at 

 liberty to follow the order and connexion of his ideas, and to 

 exprefs them in the moft apt and forcible manner. He is not 

 obliged to facrifice ftrength and energy to ftanza, to become a 

 literary Procruftes, and torture out fome thoughts through a 

 nervelefs extent of prolix tenuity, while others are proportionably 

 cut and cramped, to make them fit the ftanza. He is not 

 ftopt fhort, in the very heat and acme, of compofition, as it were 



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