foul is akin to mine, perhaps they may agreeably enter-
tain him. The dulnefs of the fancy, and coarfeness of
expreffion, will disappear; the fameness of the humour
will create a pleasure, and infenfibly overcome and con-
ceal the defects of the Mufe. Young gentlemen and
ladies, whofe genius and education have given them a
relish of oratory and verfe, may be tempted to seek fa-
tisfaction among the dangerous diverfions of the stage,
and impure fonnets, if there be no provision of a safer
kind made to please them. While I have attempted to
gratify innocent fancy in this respect, I have not for-
gotten to allure the heart to virtue, and to raise it
to a disdain of brutal pleasures. The frequent in-
terpofition of a devout thought may awaken the mind
to a serious fenfe of God, religion, and eternity. The
fame duty that might be defpised in a fermon, when
propofed to their reason, may here, perhaps, feize the
lower faculties with surprize, delight, and devotion at
once; and thus, by degrees, draw the fuperior powers
of the mind to piety. Amongst the infinite numbers of
mankind, there is not more difference in their outward
shape and features, than in their temper and inward in-
clination. Some are more easily fufceptive of religion
in a grave difcourfe and fedate reasoning. Some are
beft frighted from fin and ruin by terror, threatening,
and amazement; their fear is the propereft paffion to
which we can addrefs ourselves, and begin the divine
work others can feel no motive fo powerful as that
which applies itfelf to their ingenuity, and their polished
imagination. Now I thought it lawful to take hold of

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any handle of the foul, to lead it away betimes from vicious pleasures; and if I could but make up a compofition of virtue and delight, fuited to the taste of well-bred youth, and a refined education, I had some hope to i allure and raise them thereby above the vile temptations of degenerate nature, and custom that is yet more dege. When I have felt a flight inclination to satire or burlesque, I thought it proper to suppress it. The grinning and the growling Mufe are not hard to be obtained; but I would difdain their affiftance, where a - manly invitation to virtue, and a friendly fimile, may be fuccefsfully employed. Could I perfuade any man by a kinder method, I should never think it proper to fcold or laugh at him.

Perhaps there are fome morofe readers, that ftand ready to condemn every line that is written upon the theme of Love; but have we not the cares and the feJicities of that fort of focial life reprefented to us in the facred writings? Some expreffions are there ufed with a defign to give a mortifying influence to our foftest affections; others again brighten the character of that ftate, and allure virtuous fouls to pursue the divine advantage of it, the mutual afsistance in the way to falvation. Are not the cxxviith and cxxviiith Pfalms indited on this very fubject? Shall it be lawful for the prefs and the pulpit to treat of it, with a becoming folemnity in profe, and must the mention of the fame thing in poefy be pronounced for ever unlawful? Is it utterly unworthy of a ferious character to write on this argument, because it has been unhappily polluted by

fome fcurrilous pens? Why may I not be permitted to obviate a common and a growing mifchief, while a thoufand vile poems of the amorous kind fwarm abroad, and give a vicious taint to the unwary reader? I would tell the world that I have endeavoured to recover this argument out of the hands of impure writers, and to make it appear, that virtue and love are not such ftrangers as they are reprefented. The blissful intimacy of fouls in that ftate will afford fufficient furniture for the graveft entertainment in verfe; fo that it need not be everlaftingly dreffed-up in ridicule, nor af fumed only to furnish out the lewd fonnets of the times. May fome happier genius promote the fame fervice that I propofed, and by superior sense, and sweeter found, render what I have written contemptible and useless.

The imitations of that nobleft Latin poet of modern ages, Cafimire Sarbiewski, of Poland, would need no excufe, did they but arise to the beauty of the original. I have often taken the freedom to add ten or twenty lines, or to leave out as many, that I might fuit my fong more to my own design, or because I saw it impoffible to prefent the force, the fineness, and the fire of his expreffion in our language. There are a few copies wherein I have borrowed fome hints from the fame author, without the mention of his name in the title. Methinks I can allow fo fuperior a genius now and then to be lavifh in his imagination, and to indulge fome excursions beyond the limits of fedate judgment : the riches and glory of his verfe make atonement in

abundance. I wish fome English pen would import more of his treasures, and blefs our nation.

The infcriptions to particular friends are warranted and defended by the practice of almost all the Lyric writers. They frequently convey the rigid rules of morality to the mind in the fofter method of applause. Suftained by their example, a man will not easily be overwhelmed by the heaviest cenfures of the unthinking and unknowing; efpecially when there is a fhadow of this practice in the divine Pfalmift, while he infcribes to Afaph or Jeduthun his fongs that were made for the harp, or (which is all one) his Lyric odes, though they are addreffed to God himfelf.

In the "Poems of Heroic measure," I have attempted in rhyme the fame variety of cadence, comma and period, which blank verfe glories in as its peculiar elegance and ornament. It degrades the excellency of the beft verfification when the lines run on by couplets, twenty together, just in the fame pace, and with the fame pauses. It spoils the nobleft pleasure of the found: the reader is tired with the tedious uniformity, or charmed to sleep with the unmanly softness of the numbers, and the perpetual chime of even cadences.

In the "Effays without Rhyme," I have not fet up Milton for a perfect pattern; though he fhall be for ever honoured as our deliverer from the bondage. His works contain admirable and unequalled inftances of bright and beautiful diction, as well as majesty and fereneness of thought. There are feveral episodes in his longer works, that stand in supreme dignity without a

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rival; yet all that vaft reverence with which I read his Paradise Loft, cannot perfuade me to be charmed with every page of it. The length of his periods, and fometimes of his parentheses, runs me out of breath : Some of his numbers feem too harsh and uneafy. I could never believe that roughness and obscurity added any thing to the true grandeur of a Poem: nor will I ever affect archaifms, exoticifms, and a quaint uncouthness of speech, in order to become perfectly Miltonian. It is my opinion that blank verse may be written with all due elevation of thought in a modern style, without borrowing any thing from Chaucer's tales, or running back fo far as the days of Colin the Shepherd, and the reign of the Fairy Queen. The oddness of an antique found gives but a falfe pleasure to the ear, and abuses the true relish, even when it works delight. There were fome fuch judges of poefy among the old Romans; and Martial ingeniously laughs at one of them, that was pleafed even to aftonishment with obfolete words and figures;

"Attonitufque legis terrai frugiferai."

So the ill-drawn poftures and distortions of fhape that we meet with in Chinese pictures charm a fickly fancy by their very aukwardnefs; fo a diftempered appetite will chew coals and fand, and pronounce it gustful.

In the Pindarics, I have generally conformed my lines to the fhorter fize of the ancients, and avoided to imitate the exceffive lengths to which fome modern writers have ftretched their fentences, and especially the concluding verfe. In these the ear is the trueft judge; nor