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even among writers of eminence, of departing from these true, and lively, and minute representations of Nature, and of dwelling in generalities. To these I oppose the testimony of, perhaps, the most judicious and elegant critic among the ancients. Proculdubio qui dicit expugnatam esse civitatem, complectitur omnia quæcunque talis fortuna recipit sed in affectus minus penetrat brevis hic velut nuntius. At si aperias hæc quæ verbo uno inclusa erant, apparebunt effusæ per domos ac templa flammæ, & ruentium tectorum fragor, & ex diversis clamoribus unus quidam sonus; aliorum fuga incerta; alii in extremo complexu suorum cohærentes, & infantium fæminarumque ploratus, & malè usque in illum diem servati fato senes; tum illa profanorum sacrorumque direptio, efferentium prædas, repetentiumque discursus, & acti ante suum quisque prædonem catenati, & conata retinere infantem suum mater, & sicubi majus lucrum est, pugna inter victores. Licet enim hæc omnia, ut dixi, complectatur eversio, MINUS EST TAMEN TOTUM DICERE, QUAM OMNIA.*

21. Who

* QUINTILIAN, lib. viii. cap. 3. And see also a passage of exquisite taste in DEMETRIUS PHALEREUS. Page 122 and 123.

Oxon. 1676.

21. Who hung with woods yon mountain's sultry brow?
From the dry rock who bade the waters flow?
Not to the skies in useless columns tost,
Or in proud falls magnificently lost;

But clear and artless, pouring thro' the plain,
Health to the sick, and solace to the swain.
Whose causeway parts the vale with shady rows?
Whose seats the weary traveller repose?
Who taught that heav'n-directed spire to rise?
"The MAN of Ross," each lisping babe replies.
Behold the market-place with poor o'erspread!
The Man of Ross divides the weekly bread.

He

pas.

* Has not the learned commentator, in his note on this sage, given an illustration rather hard and far-sought, in the following words?

"The intimation in the first line well ridicules the madness of fashionable magnificence; these columns aspiring to prop the skies, in a very different sense from the heaven-directed spire in the verse that follows; as the expression in the second line exposes the meanness of it, in falling proudly, to no purpose."-Perhaps the same may be said of a note that follows,

on verse 333.

"Cutler and Brutus, dying, both exclaim,

Virtue and wealth! what are ye but a name!

There is a greater beauty in this comparison than the common reader is aware of. Brutus was, in morals at least, a Stoic, like his uncle. Now Stoical virtue was, as our author truly tells us, not exercise, but apathy. Contracted all, retiring to the breast. In a word, like Sir J. Cutler's purse, nothing for use, but kept close shut, and centered all within himself. Now virtue and wealth, thus circumstanced, are, indeed, no other than mere names."

He feeds yon alms-house, neat, but void of state,
Where AGE and WANT sit smiling at the gate:
Him portion'd maids, apprentic'd orphans blest,
The young who labour, and the old who rest.*

These lines, which are eminently beautiful, particularly one of the three last, containing a fine prosopopæia, have conferred immortality on a plain, worthy, and useful citizen of Herefordshire, Mr. John Kyrle, who spent his long life in advancing and contriving plans of public utility. The HOWARD of his time; who deserves to be celebrated more than all the heroes of PINDAR. The particular reason for which I quoted them, was to observe the pleasing effect that the use of common and familiar words and objects, judiciously managed, produce in poetry. Such as are here the words, causeway, seats, spire, marketplace, alms-house, apprentic'd. A fastidious delicacy, and a false refinement, in order to avoid meanness, have deterred our writers from the introduction of such words; but DRYDEN often hazarded it, and gave by it a secret charm, and a natural air to his verses, well knowing of what consequence

* Ver. 253.

consequence it was sometimes to soften and subdue his tints, and not to paint and adorn every object he touched, with perpetual pomp, and unremitted splendor.

22. Sir Balaam now, he lives like other folks,

He takes his chirping pint, and cracks his jokes:
"Live like yourself," was soon my Lady's word;
And lo! two puddings smok'd upon the board.*

This tale of Sir Balaam, his progress and change of manners, from being a plodding, sober, plain and punctual citizen, to his becoming a debauched and dissolute courtier and senator, abounds in much knowledge of life, and many strokes of true humour, and will bear to be compared with the exquisite history of Eugenio and Corusodes, in one of SWIFT's Intelligencers.

Lord BATHURST, Lord LYTTELTON, SPENCE, HARTE, and other of his friends, have assured me, that among intimates, POPE had an admirable talent for telling a story. In great companies he avoided speaking much. And in his ex

amination

* Ver, 357.

amination before the House of Lords, in ATTERBURY's trial, he faltered so much as to be hardly intelligible.

23. You show us, Rome was glorious, not profuse,
And pompous buildings once were things of use:
Yet shall (my Lord) your just, your noble rules,
Fill half the land with imitating-fools.*

Thus our author addresses the EARL of BURLINGTON, Who was then publishing the designs of Inigo Jones, and the Antiquities of Rome by Palladio. "Never was protection and great wealth (says an able judge of the subject) more generously and judiciously diffused than by this great person, who had every quality of a genius and artist, except envy. Though his own designs were more chaste and classic than Kent's, he entertained him in his house till his death, and was more studious to extend his friend's fame than his own. As we have few samples of architecture more antique and imposing than the colonnade within the court of his house in Picca

dilly,

* Epist. iv. ver. 23.

† Mr. Walpole, p. 108. Anecdotes of Painting, vol. iv.

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