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they differ for the worfe; for they are too often diftinguished by repulfive harshness; the combinations of words are new, but they are not pleafing; the rhymes and epithets feem to be laborioufly fought, and violently applied.

That in the early part of his life he wrote with much care appears from his manufcripts, happily preferved at Cambridge, in which many of his fmaller works are found as they were firft written, with the fubfequent corrections. Such reliques fhew how excellence is acquired; what we hope ever to do with eafe, we may learn first to do with dili gence.

Those who admire the beauties of this great poet, fometimes force their

own

own judgement into falfe approbation of his little pieces, and prevail upon themselves to think that admirable which is only fingular. All that fhort compofitions. can commonly attain is neatnefs and elegance. Milton never learned the art of doing little things with grace; he overlooked the milder excellence of fuavity and foftnefs; he was a Lion that had no skill in dandling the Kid.

One of the poems on which much praise has been beftowed is Lycidas; of which the diction is harfh, the rhymes uncertain, and the numbers unpleafing What beauty there is, we must therefore feek in the fentiments and images.. It is not to be confidered as the effufion

of

of real paffion; for paffion runs not after remote allufions and obfcure opinions. Paffion plucks no berries from the myrtle and ivy, nor calls upon Arethuse and Mincius, nor tells of rough Jatyrs and fauns with cloven heel. Where

there is leisure for fiction there is little grief.

In this poem there is no nature, før there is no truth; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its form is that of a paftoral, eafy, vulgar, and therefore difgufting: whatever images it can fupply, are long ago exhaufted; and its inherent improbability always forces diffatisfaction on the mind. When Cowdey tells of Hervey that they studied together, it is eafy to fuppofe how much

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he muft mifs the companion of his làbours, and the partner of his difcoveries; but what image of tenderness can be excited by thefe lines?

We drove a field, and both together heard

What time the grey fly winds her fultry horn,

Batt'ning our flocks with the fresh dews of night.

We know that they never drove a field, and that they had no flocks to batten;

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and though it be allowed that the reprefentation may be allegorical, the true meaning is fo uncertain and remote, that it is never fought, because it cannot be known when it is found.

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Among

Among the flocks, and copfes, and flowers, appear the heathen deities; Jove and Phoebus, Neptune and olus, with a long train of mythological imagery, fuch as a College eafily fupplies. Nothing can lefs difplay knowledge, or lefs exercise invention, than to tell how a fhepherd has loft his companion, and must now feed his flocks alone, without any judge of his fkill in piping; and how one god afks another god what is become of Lycidas, and how neither god can tell. He who thus grieves will excite no fympathy; he who thus praises will confer no honour.

This poem has yet a groffer fault. With thefe trifling fictions are mingled the most awful and facred truths, fuch

as

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