not the thought of a man in love, but of a man who would impofe upon us with a pretended love (and that indeed very grofsly too) while he had really none at all. It would be endlefs to purfue this point; and any man who will but give himself the trouble to compare what the antients and moderns have faid upon the same occafions, will foon perceive the advantage the former have over the others. I have chofen to mention Petrarch only, as being by much the most famous of all the moderns who have written love-verses: and it is, indeed, the great reputation which he has gotten, that has given encouragement to this false fort of wit in the world: for people, feeing the great credit he had, and has indeed to this day, not only in Italy, but over all Europe, have fatisfied themselves with the imitation of him, never enquiring whether the way he took was the right or not. There are no modern writers, perhaps, who have fucceeded better in love-verses than the English; and it is indeed just that the fairest ladies fhould infpire the best poets. Never was there a more copious fancy or greater reach of wit than what appears in Dr. Donne ; nothing can be more gallant or genteel than the poems of Mr. Waller; nothing more gay or sprightly than those of Sir John Suckling; and nothing fuller of variety and learning than Mr. Cowley's. However, it may be obferved, that among all these, that foftnefs, tenderness, and violence of paffion, which the ancients thought moft proper for love-verses, is wanting: and at the fame time that we must allow Dr. Donne to have been a very great wit; Mr. Waller a very gallant writer; Sir John Suckling a very gay one; and Mr.Cowley a great genius; yet methinks I can hardly fancy any one of them to have been a very great lover. And it grieves me that the ancients, who could never have handfomer women than we have, should nevertheless be fo much more in love than we are. But it is probable the great reason of this may be the cruelty of our ladies; for a man must be imprudent indeed to let his paffion take very deep root, when he has no reason to expect any fort of return to it. And if it be fo, there ought to be a petition made to the fair, that they would be pleased fometimes to abate a little of their rigour for the propagation of good verfe. I do not mean that they should confer their favours upon none but men of wit, that would be too great a confinement indeed; but that they would admit them upon the fame foot with other people: and if they please now and then to make the experiment, I fancy they will find entertainment enough from the very variety of it. There are three forts of poems that are proper for love: pastorals, elegies, and lyric verfes; under which last, I comprehend all fongs, odes, fonnets, madrigals, and ftanzas. Of all thefe, paftoral is the lowest, and, upon that account, perhaps moft proper for love; fince it is the nature of that paffion, to render the foul foft and humble. Thefe three forts of poems ought to differ, not only in their numbers, but in the defigns, and in every thought of them. Though we have no dif ference ference between the verfes of paftoral and elegy in the modern languages, yet the numbers of the firft ought to be loofer and not fo fonorous as the other; the thoughts more fimple, more eafy, and more humble. The defign ought to be the reprefenting the life of a fhepherd, not only by talking of sheep and fields, but by showing us the truth, fincerity, and innocence, that accompanies that fort of life: for though I know our masters, Theocritus and Virgil, have not always conformed in this point of innocence; Theocritus, in his Daphnis, having made his love too wanton, and Virgil, in his Alexis, placed his paffion upon a boy; yet (if we may be allowed to cenfure thofe whom we must always reverence) I take both thofe things to be faults in their poems, and fhould have been better pleafed with the Alexis if it had been made to a woman; and with the Daphnis, if he had made his fhepherds more modest. When I give humility and modefty as the character of paftoral, it is not, however, but that a fhepherd may be allowed to boast of his pipe, his fongs, his flocks, and to fhew a contempt of his rival, as we fee both Theocritus and Virgil do. But this must be still in fuch a manner as if the occafion offered itfelf, and was not fought, and proceeded rather from the violence of the fhepherd's paffion, than any natural pride or malice in him. There ought to be the fame difference obferved between paftorals and clegies as between the life of the country and the court. In the firft, love ought to be reprefented as among fhepherds, in the other as among gentlemen. They ought to be fimooth, clear, tender, and paffionate. The thoughts may be bold, more gay, and more elevated, than in pastoral. The paffions they represent, either more gallant or more violent, and less innocent than the others. The fubjects of them, prayers, praises, expoftulations, quarrels, reconcilements, threatnings, jealoufies, and in fine, all the natural effects of love. Lyricks may be allowed to handle all the same subjects with elegy, but to do it however in a different manner. An elegy ought to be fo entirely one thing, and every verse ought so to depend upon the other, that they fhould not be able to fubfift alone; or, to make use of the words of a * great modern critic, there must be "Between each thought, and the whole model laid, Lyricks, on the other hand, though they ought to make one body as well as the other, yet may confist of parts that are entire of themselves. It being a rule in modern languages, that every stanza ought to make up a complete fenfe without running into the other. Frequent fentences, which are accounted faults in elegies, are beauties here. Befides this, Malherbe, and the French poets after him, have made it a rule in the ftanzas of fix lines, to make a paufe at the third; and in those of * Lord Mulgrave. ten ten lines, at the third and the feventh. And it must be confeft that this exactnefs renders them much more mufical and harmonious; though they have not always been fo religious in obferving the latter rule as the former. But I am engaged in a very vain, or a very foolish defign: thofe who are critics, it would be a prefumption in me to pretend I could instruct; and to instruct those who are not, at the fame time I write myself, is (if I may be allowed to apply another man's fimile) like felling arms to an enemy in time of war: though there ought, perhaps, to be more indulgence fhewn to things of love and gallantry than any others, because they are generally written when people are young, and intended for ladies who are not supposed to be very old; and all young people, efpecially of the fair fex, are more taken with the liveliness of fancy, than the correctness of judgment. It may be alfo obferved, that to write of love well, a man must be really in love; and to correct his writings well, he must be out of love again. I am well enough fatisfied I may be in circumstances of writing of love, but I am almost in defpair of ever being in circumftances of correcting it. This I hope may be a reafon for the fair and the young to pass over fome of the faults; and as for the grave and wife, all the favour I fhall beg of them is, that they would not read them. Things of this nature are calculated only for the former. If love-verfes work upon the ladies, a man will not trouble himself with what the critics fay of them: and if they do not, all |