eity of rural life to advantage: and that, in a way diftinct from paftoral, as much as the plain but judicious landlord may be imagined to furpass his tenant both in dignity and understanding. It should also tend to elevate the more tranquil virtues of humility, difintereftedness, fimplicity, and innocence: but then there is a degree of elegance and refinement, no way inconsistent with these rural virtues; and that raises elegy above that merum rus, that unpolished rufticity, which has given our pafloral writers their highest reputation. Wealth and fplendor will never want their proper weight: the danger is, left they should too much preponderate. A kind of poetry therefore which throws its chief influence into the other fcale, that magnifies the fweets of liberty and independence, that endears the honeft delights of love and friendship, that celebrates the glory of a good name after death, that ridicules the futile arrogance of birth, that recommends the innocent 'amufement of letters, and infenfibly prepares the mind for that humanity it inculcates, fuch a kind of poetry may chance to please; and if it please, should seem to be of fervice. As to the flyle of elegy, it may be well enough determined from what has gone before. It should imitate the voice and language of grief, or if a metaphor of drefs be more agreeable, it should be fimple and diffuse, and flowing as a mourner's veil. A verfification therefore is defirable, which, by indulging a free and unconstrained expreffion, may admit of that fimplicity which elegy requires. 4 Heroic Heroic metre, with alternate rhyme, feems well enough adapted to this fpecies of poetry; and, however. exceptionable upon other occafions, its inconveniencies appear to lofe their weight in shorter elegies; and its advantages feem to acquire an additional importance.. The world has an admirable example of its beauty in a collection of elegies not long fince published; the product of a gentleman of the most exact taste, and. whofe untimely death merits all the tears that elegy can fhed. It is not impoffible that fome may think this metre too lax and profaic: others, that even a more diffolute variety of numbers may have fuperior advantages.. And, in favour of these last, might be produced the example of Milton in his Lycidas, together with one or two recent and beautiful imitations of his verfi-fication in that monody. But this kind of argu ment, I am apt to think, must prove too much; fince the writers I have in view feem capable enough of recommending any metre they shall chufe; though it must be owned alfo, that the choice they make of any, is at the fame time the strongest prefumption in its favour. Perhaps it may be no great difficulty to compromife the difpute. There is no one kind of metre that is diftinguished by rhymes, but is liable to fome objection or other. Heroic verfe, where every fecond line is terminated by a rhyme, (with which the judgment reB 4 *Mr. Hammond. quires quires that the sense should in some measure also terminate) is apt to render the expreffion either scanty or conftrained. And this is fometimes obfervable in the writings of a poet lately deceased; though I believe no one ever threw fo much fenfe together with fo much case into a couplet as Mr. Pope. But, as an air of conftraint too often accompanies this metre, it seems by no means proper for a writer of elegy. The previous rhyme in Milton's Lycidas is very frequently placed at such a distance from the following, that it is often dropt by the memory (much better employed in attending to the fentiment) before it be brought to join its partner: and this feems to be the greatest objection to that kind of verfification. But then the peculiar ease and variety it admits of, are no doubt fufficient to overbalance the objection, and to give it the preference to any other, in an elegy of length. The chief exception to which ftanza of all kinds is liable, is, that it breaks the fenfe too regularly, when it is continued through a long poem. And this may be perhaps the fault of Mr. Waller's excellent panegyric. But if this fauit be lefs difcernible in fmaller compofitions, as I fuppofe it is, I flatter myself, that the advantages I have before mentioned refulting from alternate rhyme (with which stanza is, I think, connected) may, at least in shorter elegies, be allowed to outweigh its imperfections. I fhall fay but little of the different kinds of elegy. The melancholy of a lover is different, no doubt, from what we feel on other mixed occafions. The mind in which love and grief at once predomi nate, is foftened to an excess. Love-elegy therefore is more negligent of order and design, and being addreffed chiefly to the ladies, requires little more than tenderness and perfpicuity. Elegies, that are formed upon promifcuous incidents, and addreffed to the world. in general, inculcate fome fort of moral, and admit a different degree of reafoning, thought, and ardour The author of the following elegies entered on his fubje&ts occafionally, as particular incidents in life fuggefted, or difpofitions of mind recommended them to his choice. If he describes a rural landskip, or unfolds the train of fentiments it infpired, he fairly drew his picture from the fpot; and felt very sensibly the affection he communicates. If he speaks of his humble fhed, his flocks and his fleeces, he does not counterfeit the fcene; who having (whether through choice or neceffity, is not material) retired betimes to countryfolitudes, and fought his happiness in rural employments, has a right to confider himself as a real shepherd. The flocks, the meadows, and the grottos, are his own, and the embellishment of his farm his fole amusement. As the fentiments therefore were infpired by nature, and that in the earlier part of his life, he hopes they will retain a natural appearance; diffusing at least fome part of that amusement, which he freely acknowleges he received from the compofition of them. There will appear perhaps a real inconfiftency in the moral tenor of the feveral elegies; and the fubfequent ones may fometimes feem a recantation of the preceding. preceding. The reader will fcarcely impute this to overfight; but will allow, that men's opinions as well as tempers vary; that neither public nor private, active nor fpeculative life, are unexceptionably happy, and confequently that any change of opinion concerning them may afford an additional beauty to poetry, as it gives us a more striking reprefentation of life. If the author has hazarded, throughout, the use of English or modern allufions, he hopes it will not be imputed to an entire ignorance, or to the left difesteem, of the ancient learning. He has kept the ancient plan and method in his eye, though he builds his edifice with the materials of his own nation. In other words, through a fondnefs for his native country, he has made ufe of the flowers it produced, though, in order to exhibit them to the greater advantage, he has endeavoured to weave his garland by the beft model he could find with what fuccefs, beyond his own amusement, must be left to judges lefs partial to him than either his acquaintance or his friends.-If any of thofe fhould be fo candid, as to approve the variety of fubjects he has chofen, and the tenderness of sentiment he has endeavoured to imprefs, he begs the metre alfo may not be too fuddenly condemned. The public ear, habituated of late to a quicker meafure, may perhaps confider this as heavy and languid; but an objection of that kind may gradually lofe its force, if this meafure should be allowed to fuit the nature of elegy. : |