POE 
his verfe imitated, however beautiful his thoughts; it 
tnuft be granted that thefe thoughts are all in fome form 
or other found in the works of his predeceffors. 
Parnell, Rowe, and Addijbn, afford examples of a molt 
finiflied excellence as claliic writers. They have the 
praife of doing every thing well, but nothing new'. The 
laft of thefe authors availed himfelf of this mediocre ex¬ 
cellence in the drama. But how dull is Cato ! The cha¬ 
racter, however, is good. 
Among thefe clever verfifiers we muff remember Garth, 
immortalized by his choice of a popular fubjeft of ridi¬ 
cule. Prior, than whom no one can fo pleafingly tell a 
humorous tale. Blackmoor, great in his defigns, and 
feeble in his conceptions; Fenton, who wrote on Lord 
Gower an Ode, fecond, fays Pope, only to Dryden’s 
Cecilia ; and laftly, the fimple and original Gay, whofe 
elegant Fables, if deficient in character, have a tendernefs 
and philanthropy always delightful. 
In the dramatic works of Congreve, there is fome very 
beautiful and original poetry ; but all his attempts out of 
the drama were miferable failures. Thus he refembled 
Shakefpeare. 
Circumftances, withes, and education, combined to 
make Pope a finiflied poet; and, if the fuffrages of the 
number be confidered as the faired criterion of defert, he 
may rank among the firft of bards. Accuftomed from his 
earlieft infancy to compote with care, and revife with 
diligence, no art was wanting to him. The flighted ob¬ 
jection that could be made to this affertion would be, 
that he had not variety : but this is a feeble one, for it 
applies only to his tranflation of Homer. He perhaps 
confined himfelf too exclufively to the heroic meafure; 
and loved foftnefs and mufic fo much, that he was defi¬ 
cient in thought; but (till he could rival even Dryden 
in force when he wiftied it. The imagination of Pope 
was beautiful rather than extenfive; and he muff fub- 
mit for a time to the difgrace of wanting originality. He 
muff wait till the authors who furniflied him with ideas 
are buried in the oblivion their want of beauty and order 
inevitably dooms them to, and then pofterity will accord 
him unmixed praife. The “Rape of the Lock” is cer¬ 
tainly the mod exquifire poem Pope compofed. The 
conception of Sylphs and Gnomes is borrowed ; but the 
attributes lie invefls them with are for the mod part ori¬ 
ginal. The management, too, of the poem, is as much 
his own as the condruClion. No one had dared before 
his time to treat every-day life and familiar fcenes in 
the language of ferious poetry : in attempting it, moll 
perfons would have fallen into meannefs and common¬ 
place; but our author fhines more confpicuoufly at the 
tea-table and at cards than others in the hell or at the 
tournament. To us it feems adonifliing that the critics 
prefer Dryden to Pope. Except the Ode on Alexander’s 
Feaff, which is indeed the fined thing in our language, 
Dryden has left little that is read by the multitude. 
The “ Abfalom and Achitophel,” though certainly one 
of the moft amufing, original, and well-fuftained, fatires 
we know of, is neverthelefs, from its fubjefl, unintereft- 
ing to the majority of mankind, and is deformed by fome 
of the groffeft indecencies. But Pope interefted (by art 
if you will, but dill interefted) the feelings. He knew 
how to draw the glowing pictures of love and paflion which 
find a refponfe in every bofom. He has furniflied multi¬ 
tudes of youth with an admiration for their Maker and 
for virtue. We know that his ethical poems are, if pur- 
fued to their ultimate confequences, dangerous to piety; 
but he faw it nor, and few readers confider the matter 
fo curioufly. The general enthufiafm towards good 
which his verfes excite, amend the heart at thofe periods 
of life, when his reafoning would be probably little at¬ 
tended to. The epitaphs and other epigrammatic pieces 
of Pope are very excellent. Thefe are compofitions which 
refult entirely from art. A man would looner write an 
epic poem offhand than a well-turned epigram. Here, 
TRY. 795 
therefore, Pope muff have fucceeded. But he admired 
and attempted paftoral, in which he quite failed. 
Phillips, Collins, and Shenjlone, devoted themfelves to 
paftoral poetry alfo. The two latter are certainly very 
agreeable poets, for thofe who can admire this kind of 
production. But Collins in his Odes, and Shenftone’s 
Elegies, mud ever be read with admiration by all. Gray, 
who perhaps failed in every thing elfe, outftripped all 
competitors in elegiac poetry. 
Among writers of lefs genius, but of fuperior polilh, 
and more fuftained excellence than the preceding, we find 
Cooper, Hamilton, Smollett, and Smart. Thefe, if they 
did nothing to advance the progrefs of poetry, at all 
events adapted it to various topics, and maintained its 
refpeCtabiiity. The profound Johnfon, and the Wartons, 
with a thoufand others, fliowed, that mere critical 
knowledge and claflical tafte, though it may ever pleafe, 
will never aftonifh and enrapture; and fir Wm. Jones has 
fhown, that fuch acquired excellencies, united with any 
portion of invention, fecure the higheft eftimation. 
In the poems of Swift we trace the fame plain, nervous, 
and vigorous, ftyle, that diftinguifhed his profe. He has 
few flights of imagery ; and indeed feems to write very 
much on the bed ftyle of the French. 
The unhappy Savage revived the bold and biting fatire, 
and difplayed a command of language and thought which 
well compenfates the reader for the bigotry and injuftice 
that deforms fome of his fined paffages. 
One of the greateft poets who ever died without produ¬ 
cing lading memorials of his powers, was Churchill . 
The fcattered beauties of imagery; the ftyle new, con- 
cife and nervous as Dryden, or foft as Pope ; the burfts 
of moral indignation worthy of Juvenal ; his fublimity 
and his tendernefs; confpire to fliow vvliat he might 
have done. His bold defence of vice, his difregard for 
public opinion, either as to morals or tafte, his abfurd 
choice of fubjeCts, his mere perfonal abufe and low fcur- 
rility, may explain why with fuch power he did almoft 
nothing. 
BoyJ'e alfo was another bad example of the baneful 
influence of vice, in impoverifliing alike the mind and 
the body. His talents were not indeed equal to Church¬ 
ill’s ; but he might have afpired to a refpedtable rank among 
poets, if the neceflity of writing for daily bread had not 
cramped his genius and debafed his ideas. 
The name of Chatterton is afl'ociated with Churchill’s 
for the fame reafons. The very extenfive powers of ver- 
fification, the originality and fublimity, of this extraordi¬ 
nary youth, were occupied in deceiving, with a borrowed 
name and the moft confummate flcill, the candid and 
liberal encouragers of poetry. The eftablilhment of the 
grofs lie that Rowley had written fome ancient compofi¬ 
tions which were fabricated by Chatterton himfelf, em¬ 
ployed all his early life ; and his other obfervations were 
mere ephemeral and political pieces, relieved frequently 
by ffiort poems of confummate beauty. 
The abfurdities of paftoral poetry have been replaced 
by defcriptions of country life of true and natural 
beauty. . How entrancing in this refpebt are the drains of 
GoldJ'mith, who united the minuted ipirit of obfervatiou 
with a power of verbifying of the moft confummate ex- 
preflion. In a different ftyle, and in a different meafure, 
Thompfon, the poet of the “ Seafons,” fliowed us, that, if 
true to nature, enlivened by epifode, and illuffrated by 
well-digefted information, the charms of nature may vie 
with the moft interefting narrative in conferring pleafure. 
The blank verfe of Thompfon is very excellent: inferior 
iivall other refpe&s to Milton’s, it ftill has the merit that 
it is lefs involved in its conftrudftion ; and this praife is 
the greater, becaufe its author avoided the oppofite ex¬ 
treme of being profaic. 
Ahenjide is certainly one of our firft poets in the diffi¬ 
cult talk of writing mufical blank verfe. -His efforts 
in this ftyle wrung even from the prejudiced Johnfon the 
full 
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