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AN ACCOUNT OF

THE GREATEST ENGLISH POETS.

TO MR. H. S.1 APRIL 3, 1694.

b

SINCE, dearest Harry, you will needs request

A short account of all the muse-possest,

That, down from Chaucer's days to Dryden's times,

Have spent their noble rage in British rhymes;
Without more preface, writ in formal length,

To speak the undertaker's want of strength,

1 The Sacheverell to whom these lines were addressed, was, according to one account, a Manxman, who died young, leaving a history of the Isle of Man. He left his papers to Addison, and among them the plan of a tragedy on the death of Socrates. In this case, Johnson's sarcasm is at fault, though it is somewhat strange that with the voucher for this fact among his own papers, he should not have corrected his mistake.-[Vide note to Johnson's Life of Addison.] But as is more generally believed, he was the celebrated Dr. Sacheverell, whose trial excited so much attention; and Addison is said, on the authority of Dr. Young, to have been in love with a sister of his.

This piece was first published in a miscellany, and never reprinted by Addison himself, who probably saw reason, in after years, to change some of his opinions. Johnson says he never printed it. The omission of Shakspeare's name has been often noticed. The finest passage is the lines on Milton.-G.

Henry Sacheverell, whose story is well known. Yet with all his follies, some respect may seem due to the memory of a man, who had merit in his youth, as appears from a paper of verses under his name, in Dryden's Miscellanies; and who lived in the early friendship of Mr. Addison.

bThe introductory and concluding lines of this poem are a bad imitation of Horace's manner-Sermoni propiora. In the rest, the poetry is better than the criticism, which is right or wrong, as it chances; being echoed from the common voice.

I'll try to make their several beauties known,
And show their verses worth, tho' not my own.

Long had our dull forefathers slept supine,
Nor felt the raptures of the tuneful Nine;
'Till Chaucer first, a merry bard, arose,
And many a story told in rhyme and prose.
But age has rusted what the poet writ,
Worn out his language, and obscur'd his wit:
In vain he jests in his unpolish'd strain,
And tries to make his readers laugh in vain.
Old Spenser,' next, warm'd with poetic rage,
In ancient tales amus'd a barb'rous age;
An age that yet uncultivate and rude,
Where'er the poet's fancy led, pursu'd

Through pathless fields, and unfrequented floods,
To dens of dragons, and enchanted woods.
But now the mystic tale, that pleas'd of yore,
Can charm an understanding age no more;
The long-spun allegories fulsome grow,
While the dull moral lies too plain below.
We view well-pleas'd at distance all the sights
Of arms and palfries, battles, fields, and fights,
And damsels in distress, and courteous knights.
But when we look too near, the shades decay,
And all the pleasing landscape fades away.

Great Cowley then (a mighty genius) wrote,
O'er-run with wit, and lavish of his thought:

Old Spenser. Addison is said to have confessed that when he wrote this judgment, he had never read Spenser. In the Spectator he puts Spenser "in the same class with Milton."-G.

2 Great Cowley then. But if he had not read Spenser, he evidently had read Cowley, whose prose he must have admired, if for nothing else, for its freedom from the faults which are here so justly condemned in his

verse.

His turns too closely on the reader press :
He more had pleas'd us, had he pleas'd us less.
One glittering thought no sooner strikes our eyes
With silent wonder, but new wonders rise,
As in the milky-way a shining white

O'er-flows the heav'ns with one continu'd light;
That not a single star can shew his rays,
Whilst jointly all promote the common blaze.
Pardon, great poet, that I dare to name

Th' unnumber'd beauties of thy verse with blame;
Thy fault is only wit in its excess,

a

But wit like thine in any shape will please.
What muse but thine can equal hints inspire,
And fit the deep-mouth'd Pindar to thy lyre: "
Pindar, whom others in a labour'd strain,
And forc'd expression imitate in vain?
Well-pleas'd in thee he soars with new delight,

And plays in more unbounded verse, and takes a nobler flight.
Blest man! whose spotless life and charming lays
Employ'd the tuneful prelate in thy praise :
Blest man! who now shalt be for ever known

In Sprat's successful labours and thy own.

But Milton, next, with high and haughty stalks,
Unfetter'd in majestick numbers walks;

No vulgar hero can his muse ingage;

Nor earth's wide scene confine his hallow'd rage.
See! see, he upward springs, and tow'ring high
Spurns the dull province of mortality,

Parts of his criticism are admirable; but the unfortunate line-"He more had pleased us," has been severely ridiculed.-G.

Cowley had great merit, but nature had formed him to manage Anacreon's lute, and not Pindar's lyre

Shakes heaven's eternal throne with dire alarms,
And sets the Almighty thunderer in arms.
What-e'er his pen describes I more than see,
Whilst ev'ry verse arrayed in majesty,

Bold, and sublime, my whole attention draws,
And seems above the critick's nicer laws.a
How are you struck with terror and delight,
When angel with arch-angel copes in fight!
When great Messiah's out-spread banner shines,
How does the chariot rattle in his lines!

What sounds of brazen wheels, what thunder, scare,

And stun the reader with the din of war!
With fear my spirits and my blood retire,

To see the seraphs sunk in clouds of fire;
But when, with eager steps, from hence I rise,
And view the first gay scenes of Paradise;
What tongue, what words of rapture can express
A vision so profuse of pleasantness."
Oh had the poet ne'er profan'd his pen,
To varnish o'er the guilt of faithless men;
His other works might have deserv'd applause!
But now the language can't support the cause;
While the clean current, tho' serene and bright,
Betrays a bottom odious to the sight.

I wonder what these laws could be. Nobody understood the critic's nicest laws, better than Milton, or observed them with more respect. The observation might be true of Shakspeare; but, by illhap, we do not so much as find his name in this account of English poets.

A vision so profuse of pleasantness. A prettily turned line. The expression (originally Milton's, P. L. iv. 243. viii. 286) pleased our poet so much, that we have it again in the letter from Italy-profuse of bliss, and elsewhere.

• Serene and bright. This is a strange description of Milton's language, if he means the language of his prose works. The panegyric seems made at random.

But now my muse a softer strain rehearse,
Turn every line with art, and smooth thy verse;
The courtly Waller next commands thy lays :
Muse tune thy verse, with art, to Waller's praise.
While tender airs and lovely dames inspire
Soft melting thoughts, and propagate desire,
So long shall Waller's strains our passions move,
And Sacharissa's beauties kindle love.

1

Thy verse, harmonious bard, and flatt'ring song,
Can make the vanquish'd great, the coward strong,
Thy verse can show ev'n Cromwell's innocence,
And compliment the storms that bore him hence.
Oh had thy muse not come an age too soon,
But seen great Nassau on the British throne!
How had his triumphs glitter'd in thy page,
And warm'd thee to a more exalted rage!

What scenes of death and horror had we view'd,
And how had Boyne's wide current reek'd in blood!
Or, if Maria's charms thou would'st rehearse,
In smoother numbers and a softer verse;
Thy pen had well describ'd her graceful air,
And Gloriana wou'd have seem'd more fair.

Nor must Roscommon pass neglected by,
That makes ev'n rules a noble poetry:

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Rules, whose deep sense, and heav'nly numbers show
The best of criticks, and of poets too.

Nor, Denham, must we e'er forget thy strains,

While Cooper's Hill commands the neighb'ring plains.

1 Thy verse can show. Of this and the four next lines, Johnson says,"What is this but to say, that he who would compliment Cromwell had been the proper poet for King William ?"-G.

VOL. 1.-7

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