ON UNNATURAL FLIGHTS IN POETRY. 233

The noify culverin, o'er-charg'd, lets fly,

And bursts, unaiming, in the rended sky;
Such frantic flights are like a madman's dream,
And Nature fuffers in the wild extreme.
The captive Canibal, oppreft with chains,
Yet braves his foes, reviles, provokes, difdains;
Of nature fierce, untameable, and proud,
He bids defiance to the gaping croud,
And spent at laft, and fpeechlefs as he lies,
With fiery glances mocks their rage, and dies.
This is the utmost stretch that Nature can,
And all beyond is fulfome, falfe, and vain.
The Roman wit, who impioufly divides
His hero and his gods to different fides,
I would condemn, but that, in spite of fenfe,
Th' admiring world still stands in his defence:
The gods permitting traitors to fucceed,
Become not parties in an impious deed,
And, by the tyrant's murder, we may find,
That Cato and the gods were of a mind.
Thus forcing truth with fuch prepofterous praife,
Our characters we leffen, when we'd raife;
Like castles built by magic art in air,

That vanish at approach, fuch thoughts appear;
But rais'd on truth by fome judicious hand,
As on a rock they fhall for ages stand.
Our king return'd, and banish'd peace restor'd,
The Mufe ran mad to fee her exil'd lord;
On the crack'd stage the Bedlam heroes roar'd,
And scarce could speak one reasonable word :

Dryden

Dryden himself, to please a frantic age,
Was forc'd to let his judgment stoop to rage;
To a wild audience he conform'd his voice,
Comply'd to custom, but not err'd through choice,
Deem then the people's, not the writer's fin,
Almanfor's rage, and rants of Maximin;
That fury spent in each elaborate piece,

He vies for fame with ancient Rome and Greece.
Rofcommon first, then Mulgrave rose, like light,
To clear our darkness, and to guide our flight;
With steady judgment, and in lofty founds,
They gave us patterns, and they fet us bounds.
The Stagyrite and Horace laid afide,

Inform'd by them, we need no foreign guide;
Who feek from poetry a lafting name,

May from their leffons learn the road to fame ;
But let the bold adventurer be fure.

That every line the teft of truth endure;
On this foundation may the fabric rife
Firm and unfhaken, till it touch the skies.
From pulpits banish'd, from the court, from love,
Abandon'd Truth feeks fhelter in the

Cherish, ye Mufes, the forfaken fair,

grove;

And take into your train this beauteous wanderer.

A CHA

A

CHARACTER OF MR. WYCHERLEY*.

}

F all our modern wits, none feems to me Once to have touch'd upon true comedy, But hafty Shadwell, and flow Wycherley. Shadwell's unfinish'd works do yet impart Great proofs of Nature's force, though none of Art;

But

*This character, however juft in other particulars, yet is injurious in one; Mr. Wycherley being reprefented as a laborious writer, which every man who has the leaft perfonal knowledge of him can contradict.

Those indeed who form their judgment only from his writings, may be apt to imagine fo many admirable reflections, fuch diverfity of images and characters, fuch ftrict enquiries into nature, fuch clofe obfervations on the feveral humours, manners, and affections of all ranks and degrees of men, and, as it were, fo true and fo perfect a diffection of humankind, delivered with fo much pointed wit and force of expreffion, could be no other than the work of extraordinary diligence and application: whereas others, who have the happiness to be acquainted with the author, as well as his writitings, are able to affirm thefe happy performances were due to his infinite genius and natural penetration. We owe the pleasure and advantage of having been fo well entertained and inftructed by him to his facility of doing it; for, if I mistake him not extremely, had it been a trouble to him to write, he would have spared himself that trouble. What he has performed would indeed have been difficult for another; but the club which a man of ordinary fize could not lift, was but a walking-ftick for Hercules.

Mr.

But Wycherley earns hard what e'er he gains,
He wants no judgment, and he spares no pains, &c.
Lord Rochester's Poems.

Mr. Wycherley, in his writings, has been the sharpest fatyrift of his time; but, in his nature, he has all the foftnefs of the tendereft difpofitions: in his writings he is fevere, bold, undertaking: in his nature, gentle, modeft, inoffenfive: he makes ufe of his fatire as a man truly brave of his courage, only upon public occafions and for public good. He compaffionates the wounds he is under a neceffity to probe, or, like a good-natur'd conqueror, grieves at the occafions that provoke him to make fuch havock.

There are who object to his versification: but a diamond is not lefs a diamond for not being polifhed. Verfifica tion is in poetry what colouring is in painting, a beautiful ornament: but if the proportions are juft, the pofture true, the figure bold, and the refemblance according to nature, though the colours fhould happen to be rough, or carelessly laid on, yet may the piece be of ineftimable value: whereas the finest and the niceft colouring art can invent, is but labour in vain, where the reft is wanting. Our prefent writers indeed, for the moft part, feem to lay the whole ftrefs of their endeavours upon the harmony of words; but then, like eunuchs, they facrifice their manhood for a voice, and reduce our poetry to be like echo, nothing but found.

In Mr. Wycherley, every thing is mafculine: his Mufe is not led forth as to a review, but as to a battle; not adorned for parade, but execution: he would be tried by the fharpnefs of his blade, and not by the finery: like your heroes of antiquity, he charges in iron, and feems to defpife all ornament but intrinfic merit; and like thofe heroes has therefore added another name to his own, and by the unanimous confent of his cotemporaries, is distinguished by the juft appellation of Manly Wycherley. LANSDOWNE.

VER SE S

Written in a Leaf of the AUTHOR'S POEMS, prefented to the QUEEN.

ТНЕ

MUSE'S LAST DYING SONG,

A Mufe expiring, who, with earliest voice,

Made kings and queens, and beauty's charms her
choice;

Now on her death-bed, this laft homage pays,
O Queen! to thee: accept her dying lays.
So, at th' approach of Death, the cygnet tries
To warble one note more---and singing dies.
Hail, mighty Queen! whofe powerful fmile alone
Commands fubjection, and fecures the throne :
Contending parties, and plebeian rage,

Had puzzled loyalty for half an age :

Conquering our hearts, you end the long difpute,
All, who have
eyes, confefs you abfolute.

To Tory doctrines, even Whigs refign,
And in your person own a right divine.

Thus fang the Muse, in her last moments fir'd
With CAROLINA's praife---and then expir'd.

Written