POPE. 295 



remind us of the older tragic style but the exeunt at the close. 

 Its pithy conciseness and the relief which it brings us from his 

 majesty s prosing give it an almost poetical savour. Aspatia s 

 reflections upon suicide (or l suppressing our breath/ as she calls 

 it), in the play, will make few readers regret that Shakspeare was 

 left to his own unassisted barbarism when he wrote Hamlet s so 

 liloquy on the same topic : 



Twas in compassion of our woe 

 That nature first made poisons grow, 

 For hopeless wretches such as I 

 Kindly providing means to die : 

 As mothers do their children keep, 

 So Nature feeds and makes us sleep. 

 The indisposed she does invite 

 To go to bed before tis night. 



Correctness in this case is but a synonyme of monotony, and 

 words are chosen for the number of their syllables, for their 

 rubbishy value to fill-in, instead of being forced upon the poet 

 by the meaning which occupies the mind. Language becomes 

 useful for its diluting properties, rather than as the medium by 

 means of which the thought or fancy precipitate themselves in 

 crystals upon a connecting thread of purpose. Let us read a 

 few verses from Beaumont and Fletcher, that we may feel fully 

 the difference between the rude and the reformed styles. This 

 also shall be a speech of Aspatia s. Antiphila, one of her 

 maidens, is working the story of Theseus and Ariadne in 

 tapestry, for the older masters loved a picturesque background 

 and knew the value of fanciful accessaries. Aspatia thinks the 

 face of Ariadne not sad enough : 



Do it by me, 



Do it again by me, the lost Aspatia, 

 And you shall find all true but the wild island. 

 Suppose I stand upon the seabeach now, 

 Mine arms thus, and my hair blown with the wind, 

 Wild as that desert ; and let all about me 

 Be teacher of my story. Do my face 

 (If ever thou hadst feeling of a sorrow) 

 Thus, thus, Antiphila ; strive to make me look 

 Like sorrow s monument ; and the trees about me 

 Let them be dry and leafless ; let the rocks 

 Groan with continual surges ; and behind me 

 Make all a desolation. 



What instinctive felicity of versification ! what sobbing breaks 

 and passionate repetitions are here ! 



We see what the direction of the new tendency was, but it 

 would be an inadequate or a dishonest criticism that should hold 

 Pope responsible for the narrow compass of the instrument 

 which was his legacy from his immediate predecessors, any 



