POPE. 351 



anything but rhyme can only be paralleled by Mr. Puff s 

 law that a heroine can go decorously mad only in white 

 satin. Waller, I suppose, though with so loose a thinker 

 one cannot be positive, uses &quot;describe&quot; in its Latin sense 

 of limitation. Fancy Othello or Lear confined to this go- 

 cart ! Phillips touches the true point when he says, &quot; And 

 the truth is, the use of measure alone, without any rime at 

 all, would give more scope and liberty both to style and 

 fancy than can possibly be observed in rime,&quot;* But let us 

 test Waller s method by an example or two. His monarch 

 made reasonable, thus discourses : 



&quot; Courage our greatest failings does supply, 

 And makes all good, or handsomely we die. 

 Life is a thing of common use ; by heaven 

 As well to insects as to monarchs given ; 

 But for the crown, tis a more sacred thing ; 

 I ll dying lose it, or I ll live a king. 

 Come, Diphilus, we must together walk 

 And of a matter of importance talk.&quot; [Exeunt. 



Blank verse, where the sentiment is trivial as here, merely 

 removes prose to a proper ideal distance, where it is in 

 keeping with more impassioned parts, but commonplace set 

 to this rocking-horse jog irritates the nerves. There is 

 nothing here to 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 &quot;suppressing our breath,&quot; as she calls it), in the play, 

 will make few readers regret that Shakespeare was left to 

 his own unassisted barbarism when he wrote Hamlet s 

 soliloquy on the same topic : 



&quot; 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.&quot; 



* Preface to the The.atrum. 



