Difcoverers in Philofophy ‘compared with Poets. ry 
 Bloifoms and fruits and Sowers together rife, 
And the whole year in gay confufion lies. _ 
¢¢ Addifon’s Letter to Lord Halifax.” 
Here pillars rough with fculpture pierce the 
yo dkicd, 
And here the proud triumphal arches rife. 
_.. From the fame. 
Thefe are ten lines farther in the fame 
poem, and may be endured ; but cannot 
be allowed a few lines nearer: of which, 
however, inftances occur in this charm- 
ing poem, | 
The laf obfervation I fhall make re- 
lates to open vowels; that is, two vow- 
els opening on each other; which gene- 
rally fpeaking, fhould be guarded againft, 
except where the poet wifhes to make 
found correfpond to fenfe, or fome great 
inconvenience to the line would be the 
confequence : Milton, however, frequent- 
ly ufes open vowels; and Pope fome- 
times, but not often. ‘The following is 
an example of one : 
Great in the earth, or in the etherial frame. 
‘The open vowels in this line make too 
great an hiatus, and offend the ear, 
though, fometimes, it muft be confeffed, 
the cefura would be more offenfive to 
the ear than the Aiatus: ex. 
‘Of Nature’s works to me expung’d and raz’d. 
Milton. 
The open vowels will here to many 
ears be offenfive, but much lefs fo than 
Of Nature’s workings to m’ expung’d and 
peo age oj 
Much more might be {aid on this fub- 
je&t: andIam aware, that different cri- 
tics may fomewhat differ on thefe nice- 
ties; I {peak therefore with deference, 
but hope, if. yonr correfpondent L, is 
young in thefe matters, that he may de- 
rive a few hints from what has already 
been faid not unacceptable to him. I 
propofe, ina future letter, to fubmit to 
his confideration a few thoughts relative 
to other fpecies of veriification, more 
particularly to blank verfe; and to the 
books recommended in a former letter, 
as proper to be read, to point out a few 
more. In the mean time, lam, &c. 
G. DYER. 
P.S. I forgot to obferve, with refpect 
to open vowels, that the founds which 
moft nearly refemble each other, fhould 
be moft guarded againftt, as A A, A E, 
EE; EI, 11, I ¥3 where the refem- 
blance is lefs, the hiatus wil! be lefs, and 
therefore will be more éafily allowed. 
The more attentive verfificrs are to the 
accuracy of theirrhymes, the more pure 
and harmonious will their verfe be. 
The two fir lines quoted from Pope, 
in this letter, have badrhymes: as alfe 
are the two following: 
Compute the gains of his ungovern’d zeal, 
ill fuits his cloth the praife of railing well, 
Drydeit. 
Lo the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 
SIR, 
USED to think that a great difco- 
verer in philofophy, fuch as Bacon or’ 
Newton, was much more fuperior to the 
meaner mob of philcfophers, than is a 
Shakefpeare or a Milton toa Blackmore 
or a Cibber, to the rooks and the jackdaws 
of poetry. I am of that opinion no longer, 
I have been:-induced, I muf confeis, to 
diveft myfelf of much of that exceffive 
veneration with which I long regarded 
the principal names in philofophy. 

In truth, the authors of great difco- 
veries in philofophy, have rarely or never 
attained far above the common level of 
the philofophical knowledge of the ages 
in which they refpeétively lived. The 
converfation of the peaceful intercourfe of 
the citizens of Athens; the harangues 
and difcuffions in thei public aflemblies ; 
the moral knowledge which they had 
generally acquired in the cultivation of 
the arts, and in the ordinary exercife of 
their civil and political rights; the dif 
coveries and the errors of former philofo- 
phers; the writings and exhibitions of 
the drama; had fo prepared the way at 
Athens, for the origin of the philofophy 
of Socrates, as to make it impoffible that 
there fhould not fome fuch philofopher 
arife among the Athenians about that 
era,  Ariftotle was but a difciple of-the 
{cheol of Socrates, whofe dialetics and 
{cientific arrangements had their fource in 
the doétrines of his -mafter,.and of the 
contemporary fophifts. The difcoveries 
of Bacon were made at'a time when the 
world began to become weary of the lo. ° 
gic and metaphyfics of the fchools ; when 
fresuent attempts wre made to pews 
model and fimplify the fchool-philofophy; 
when the improvement of human know- 
ledge -was already very generally fought 
by other means, than the mere laws of 
fynthefis and of fyllogifm; when experi- 
ment and induftion fad been already 
tried with fuccefs by the alchemifts, and 
by other explorers of the fecrets of na- 
ture. Was there not in thefe citcum- 
ftances as much of happy fortune as of 
fuperior genius, in fhe accomplifhment of - 
thofe grand difcoveries which we afcribe 
to Bacon? ‘The refearches of Galileo, 
if they did not difcover the gravity of the 
atmofphere, 


